This story was the very first thing I started out with. Over the past
two years that I've been working with it, it's gone through many, many
changes, from script to prose, from first person to third, from
self-insertion to not, etc. When I first started it, I was incredibly
depressed, and it shows throughout the story. It's pure cyberpunk,
because of that. Even though I'm not depressed any more, I wanted to
come back to this piece, because it *was* the first. It was an idea I'd
fallen in love with, and had wanted to write, and it's what gave me the
impetus to continue writing. Over these past two years, I've learned a
lot about writing, and I wanted to go back to it and give it my best.
It's a labor of love, if ever I truly loved any of my writing. I would
appreciate any comments and criticism I can get on it: spelling,
grammar, story flow, character dialogue, plot elements, realism, etc.
ANYTHING. I want this to be perfect.
If nothing else, at least let me know if you read it. ;)
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Blue Lightning, Volume 1
(C) 1995-97 By Damon Casale
9 May, 2008 -----------------------------------------------------------
Overcrowding, a totalitarian government, and vicious, constantly
infighting intelligence agencies plague this world. For two decades, now,
I've watched Earth slide deeper and deeper into oppressive slavery. The
few who have, and the many who have not.
It had taken me most of my life to create just one chance to leave
it all behind. Now it's only a matter of time before my plan comes to
fruition. Within a few days, I will know. I will be successful, or I will
be as dead as all of the other voices which speak out so valiantly against
the tyranny.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Prologue
Reminiscing was a distraction Jason often indulged in, as of late.
Not because it was enjoyable, but rather because it was one of the few
activities he could indulge in, given his present bedridden condition.
However much he might wish otherwise, most of those memories were anything
but pleasurable.
Up until very recently, he'd never given much thought to a diary or
journal, but it wasn't at all a bad idea. He'd started one once, but
hadn't really kept it up. Writing some of his scattered thoughts down
might actually help him cope, the doctor had said. John was always that
irritatingly practical, of course. John was always that irritating,
period, but Jason wasn't about to dwell on that fact in particular.
"They say the best place to begin is at the beginning," he thought
to himself. "But what do they know?"
"Ship day 1956. I look back on what I wrote only five years
ago, and wonder at how simple things seemed then."
After another minute of staring at the scrap of paper, he scribbled
out the sentence. "Too depressing. I'm depressed enough."
Five years ago. Had it only been five years?
"Five years ago, I left Earth, left home," he wrote, then stopped
again. "What home?" he thought to himself wearily. "How could I possibly
call 'home' so vile a place as Earth?"
Jason had grown up during a relatively quescient period. He had
been born after the Vietnam war of the sixties and the riots and protests
surrounding it, and had been too young to understand the driven need to
live life to excess and forget it all -- the prevailing mindset during the
seventies. He had grown up before the riots and economic collapse of the
millenial decade, and had been insulated enough during that period by his
position and research that he was able to escape nearly unscathed.
"My adventures, if you could call them that, began quite a few
years before then," he continued. "If by some miracle you had managed to
find some hole deep enough to hide from the rest of the world, then the
'history lesson' I'm about to relate might come as some surprise. Most
likely, it won't."
He was rambling, but at least he was getting somewhere.
"The 1990's were important for a number of reasons. By the turn of
the century, there was already plenty of evidence that something was
seriously wrong. Economic crises, optimistically referred to as
'recoveries', had peppered the previous decade. Foreign 'aid' and other
blunders had drained the coffers of the only remaining superpower, and
people had generally tried to ignore it all and settle for eking out a
living."
"It only grew worse during the first decade of the twenty-first
century, when the world councils were formed from the dying nations to
combat the evils, and given unthinkable amounts of power to do so. The
remaining intelligence agencies sold themselves out in short order, either
turning mercenary, or working for some faction or other left over from the
power struggle."
He paused again. "F-five years ago," he mumbled to himself.
Speech was still slow and difficult. When they'd captured him again...
He forced himself to stop thinking about it, turning his thoughts
instead toward the one thing in all of the universe he had to look forward
to.
"Five years ago, I left Earth. On that very day, someone died.
Since she is on the whole the main reason for my tale, as it were, I'll
begin then."
"There were fourteen of us who knew about the Blue Lightning
project, all told, myself included. It was an attempt I'd orchestrated to
escape the suffocating governments of Earth, with help from a hand-picked
group of specialists. Together, we were planning to leave the decadent
planet in search of a better life elsewhere."
"The work on my ship had finally been completed, and it was ready
to launch. I had been careful enough to avoid being discovered by the
various intelligence agencies, or so I thought."
Jason stopped writing, flashing a sad smile as he remembered Mark
going over the roster of personnel he'd first selected to crew the ship.
Mark, paranoid as he always was, had raised hell and fury. He'd flatly
refused to allow anyone to be 'indoctrinated', as he termed it, without
being personally screened by him. The crew were experts in their
respective fields, that much was true. Mark was there to ensure that they
would be absolutely loyal to the cause, by whatever means necessary.
Mark was the security officer; tall, slim, and well-muscled in just
the right places. He was in the habit of being difficult about security,
although it was what made him good at what he did. One can never be too
careful, he would always say. Given his usual dress, mostly black leather,
with a gun and several knives tucked into odd places about his person, it
wasn't very surprising.
Jason himself was nearly as much of an eccentric, and he knew it.
A scientist, an inventor, the CEO of a major R&D company at 30...all
because of an accidental discovery while only in college. A discovery he
should never have made, the intelligence agencies did their level best to
impress upon him time and again.
He didn't look all that impressive, he thought. Average height,
slender, a touch of gray streaking through the brown piano wire on his
head, and a timeworn smile. The smile was only a recent addition.
Jason was a pacifist, and Mark hated that. Mark took defense of
self and property seriously, and so his job was both that of bodyguard and
ship's security. Well trained in several styles of martial arts, and a
connoisseur of anything from semi-autos to rifles, he'd had many occasions
to put his talents to use. Too many for Jason's liking, but it was a
necessary evil...as if evil were somehow necessary.
The door chirped. A moment later, it slid open, and John walked
into the infirmary. What he lacked in height he made up for in presence,
and his expression, though one of wry amusement, was unusual.
"Don't get too comfortable," he began. "I still want to run
another scan." Then, when Jason tried to croak back a reply, "Save it for
the class. You'll have at least three months to learn how to bark orders
again."
The recent accident and injury had all but destroyed the area of
Jason's brain which controlled his speech. Learning how to talk again was
possible, John had determined, but would take time.
He watched as John prodded at one of the armatures over his
medbed. John had a light complexion, sandy brown hair, and blue eyes. His
face was more suited to a friendly smile than a gruff frown, but John was
in the habit of being as acidic as he could get away with. Jason had
almost gotten used to it.
A prick in the arm brought him back to reality.
"I don't want you fidgeting, so you're taking a nap." John dropped
his injector onto a nearby table.
"When...is Kerin..." he managed to gasp out, as a wave of dizziness
hit him.
"She'll come when she's ready. She's got about as much to sort out
as you do. Now shut up and go to sleep."
He did.
* Questionable Tactics
It was five years ago that Kerin died, and Jason remembered it
vividly...
There, in the darkened scoutcraft bay. Standing in front of her,
her hazel-gray eyes closed, not a strand of hair out of place... Even the
horrible bloodstains, gone. But her sleep would last forever.
The tube her body lay in had been meant to hold a medium power
warhead, in case they ran into trouble during their travels. It now held
not the promise of death, but the reality.
With an agonizing effort, he shook himself out of it. He snapped
the cover shut, and sent the tube on its way down the warhead conveyor.
Seconds later, there was a dull *thump*, as the launcher kicked the tube
into open space.
Her death had torn a vital part of him away, leaving him hollow and
cold inside. The longing to explore, the yearning to travel between the
stars and galaxies--it had consumed him once. But now the beauty was gone,
leaving an empty, mocking husk.
He pulled himself up the ladder from the scoutcraft bay, each step
bringing him a firmer resolve. Somewhere between there and the bridge of
the ship, he found the strength to make a decision.
Emerging onto the bridge of the ship, oval shaped and dotted with
complex controls and electronic equipment, Jason straightened up and looked
around at the assembled crew. Only a few of them were present; most were
busy elsewhere.
They were his friends, the people he'd lived and worked with for
most of the past decade. They had entrusted their lives to him, and had
put aside their own individual pursuits for a small chance for freedom.
Even so, the air of tense unease was palpable.
Mark sat lazily stretched out in one of the chairs ringing the
room, looking at him almost expressionlessly. Trying to read what Kerin's
death had done to him, he knew. Ryo, one of the linguists, refused to even
meet his gaze. Ty, the ship's geneticist, tried to look busy as he fiddled
with the communications console's controls.
"I've decided," he said. "We're going back. We're going back for
her."
Mark stared at him, first in puzzlement, then shock as
understanding dawned. "Do you have any idea what that'll mean? Jason, you
can't just--"
"I know," he whispered. I don't care any more."
"No one wants out now, do they?" Jason said after a long moment of
silence. No one spoke.
It was time travel he had in mind. The theory was unproven, and
the method extremely risky and most definitely untested, so Mark had good
reason to feel the way he did. Then again, so did Jason. Mark made it a
point to know the odds and the risks for any eventuality. But this time,
none of them could know what the future held.
Nevertheless, they were all ready to face those risks. For the ten
years of the project's existence, no one had dared doubt that they would
succeed. That they *must* succeed.
Jason sat down in front of the nav console, suddenly tired and
shaking. After a few uncertain taps, the ship thrummed with power. There
was a slight tug at his feet, as the computer compensated for the
gravdrive, coming to life. Earth slid off of the viewscreen, hanging
towards the fore of the room, and they were on their way.
The ship was a slightly flattened sphere, with four upper decks, a
single lower deck, an open central area, and several scoutcraft bays. The
surface of the ship was studded with thick, circular gravdiscs, allowing it
to manipulate the area of spacetime it occupied. Some of the decks
themselves also contained gravdiscs, meaning that the floor of one deck
would also be the floor of the deck below it -- 'up' and 'down' would
reverse themselves several times as one traversed the ship from bridge to
engine room.
Jupiter swung into view, looming large and silent. Then Saturn, a
halo and myriad of moons spinning lazily away in space. Finally, the solar
system was left behind.
"Let's go," he murmured, and, touching a few buttons, programmed
the ship for the jump. There was no turning back now.
The theory itself was simple. If an artificial wormhole could be
created and held open long enough for an object to pass through it, that
object would be deposited at a different point in space, and some measure
of time earlier.
Opening the wormhole was the difficulty. However, with the ship's
ability to manipulate and focus gravity, an artificial, spinning
singularity could be created. Because of the dynamics of the spinning
singularity, the circular opening in the center would form the wormhole.
Carefully balancing the terrific stresses on the ship, it was
*theoretically* possible to enter the wormhole before it evaporated. It
was *theoretically* possible to flatten the bubble of spacetime inside the
singularity, to prevent the ship from being torn apart.
No tests had been possible. Creating even a small singularity
close to Earth was out of the question. The danger was far too great.
There had been no way of venturing far enough into interstellar space, away
from any natural gravitational fields, either. The cost and the risk of
the project's discovery would have been prohibitive.
Knowing the risks, they had no choice. There simply was no turning
back.
He stood, as did Mark. On the viewscreen, the stars took on a
reddish haze, as the ship began wrapping itself in its cloak of artificial
mass. A thick, inky black ring of darkness coalesced about the fore of the
ship--the naked, rotating singularity. The ship began to slide forward,
into the hole.
With all of his resolve, Jason was trembling inside. The endless
numbers, data, theories...the equipment tests...they all mean nothing now,
he thought to himself, as the screen slowly faded from angry red to total
blackness. The ship creaked faintly, as the computers madly rushed through
the complex gravimetric field calculations to control the gravdiscs. The
slightest imbalance would mean a gruesome death.
In a few seconds, we could all be--
The viewscreen exploded into a fierce, intensely bright light as
the singularity evaporated. Blue Lightning shuddered, an unsettling tremor
reverberating throughout the ship, nearly shaking them from their seats.
But they were alive. The timejump had worked after all.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Jason shielded his eyes, as the light
rapidly faded away. He looked...
"Holy--"
Directly ahead lay a small, drab, grayish-white star, growing
steadily larger on the screen. The ship, suddenly thrown before a yawning
abyss, lurched and screamed in agony.
Jason slammed himself back into the nav seat and attacked the
console furiously, grabbing the control spheres and forcing them to one
side. For a few frantic seconds, the ship slid ever closer to the neutron
star. Then slowly...achingly slowly...it drifted away to the left, and out
of sight.
"That was *too* close." Mark collapsed back into his chair,
shaken.
The star had caught the ship unprepared. Had Jason activated the
gravdrive again, they would have been shredded like so much confetti, he
realized, as the drive would have forced them *deeper* into the star's
gravity well. It hadn't been designed to compensate for an existing, and
quite strong, gravitational field. He shuddered.
"I hate to say it, but let's try that again," he breathed, his
voice quavering. They would make at least one more jump back in time,
hopefully managing to backtrack through fifthspace, before they returned to
a prehistoric earth.
He heard a soft chuckle, and looked back. Ty was hunched in
his chair, grinning. The scraggly geneticist's sense of humor was almost
as bad as Mark's. Jason glared back at him. Mark only smiled
sarcastically, keeping silent.
Jason reactivated the controls, and the stars again began to take
on a reddish haze.
...and...
"We're back already?" Ryo wondered aloud, looking at the misty
blue planet on the viewscreen. He threw Jason a questioning glance.
"Didn't you say you can't steer--?"
Your confidence is overwhelming, Jason grumbled silently at him.
"No, that isn't Earth. Look at it again. There's only one continent on
the whole planet, plus a few scattered islands."
Time travel was a complicated affair. Perhaps too complicated--
although not impossible, as they had proved. It wasn't managing the actual
jump to somewhere and somewhen else that was the hard part. The hard part
was getting to where and when one wanted to go.
Fifthspace was a tangled maze of spacetime, curving and twisting back
and forth with reckless abandon. Punching through from one fold to
another, for reasons related to relativity, brought one to a destination
which preceeded the departure point in time. The greater the intervening
distance in realspace, the further back in time. Without an intimate
knowledge of the structure of fifthspace, then, they could easily journey
forever without ever finding a way back home.
The blue-green world crept closer, like something out of a dream.
A small, pithy moon slid into view. Opposite the planet, another was
barely visible, very dim. Then the first moon drifted out of sight.
Ever alert, Mark slowly stood and stared, the first to notice the
large, ungainly lump of a ship edging out from behind the planet.
"My...what in God's name is THAT??"
Numb, Jason shook his head slowly. Whoever they might be, we
obviously aren't welcome, he thought.
Under the silent urging of gravity, Blue Lightning spun about. The
other ship spun off to one side, off of the viewscreen, and the first moon
swung into view again, growing huge against the starry night. They coasted
into a slow, drifting orbit around it, the planet on the other side.
"Looks like it's already occupied, J," Mark said.
Jason glanced back at Mark, giving him a look. Jason had decided
to take the risk, as he saw it. He could think of too many reasons to
suspect the aliens weren't friendly.
"Not very likely," Jason said. "We didn't see or scan any
artificial satellites, and that's only one ship that we've seen so far. My
guess is they're investigating it, same as us."
Mark paused at that, not taking Jason's implication very well.
Jason looked back at the moon, slowly drifting by beneath the ship,
and continued. "As soon as it orbits back behind the planet again, which
should be in about..." Another quick jab at the console. "...eighty five
minutes, we'll try for a quick landing."
Mark eyed him, looking a bit disturbed. "Sure that's a good
idea?"
A quirked eyebrow, narrowed eyes, Jason silently told him exactly
what he thought of his question.
Mark breathed a small sigh. "Fine, I'm heading downstairs." He
walked across the deck, stepping onto a protruding ladder, then looked
back at Jason and beckoned. "Coming?"
In the heart of the ship lay a bit of lost paradise, a small island
of Earth carried into the depths of space. The two of them climbed down
onto a carpet of fine, green grass, slightly damp. An artificial creek
burbled its merry way across the room, adding to the illusion of a real
park. A single stub of a tree leaned over it, drooping, mirroring Jason's
troubled feelings.
They sat down under the tree. Mark took his boots and socks off,
rolling up his pants, and hung his feet in the cool water.
"Care to talk about it?" He prodded.
Jason shook his head slightly. "Sorry. Not now, at least." He
wasn't ready to give in to Mark's attempt to help him. By force of habit,
everyone around Mark had to be ready for anything, and even now, he was no
exception.
Mark faced the stream, looking away, and keeping silent about his
own worries.
It had been an issue of questionable tactics in the first place,
years and years ago. Jason had known *someone* was onto him and his
discoveries, but hadn't had any idea who. His apartment had been searched,
though discreetly, his phone had been bugged...he had known it was time to
do something. And so it had all begun with a loaded phone call to a
longtime friend, one with whom he had felt secure in confiding his
secrets...
"...I just need something else in my life, you know? I'm even
getting bored with Maison Ikkoku." At the time, it had been Jason's
favorite television series. It was a story about life, a romantic comedy
that had hit close to home.
Jason shrugged, idly lounging on the couch in his dilapidated
college apartment. It was a stupid idea to begin with, but it was this or
nothing, he thought to himself.
"Well, more like depressed, actually," he mumbled.
Mark laughed at that, over the phone. "Can't help ya, man."
Up to this point, he'd never had any kind of relationship, no
girlfriend at all, being the geek he was back then.
"Maybe I just empathize with Godai too much." He smiled slightly.
There'd been a storybook, happy ending for Kyoko and Yushaku Godai.
In the end, it hadn't happened that way for himself and Kerin.
Back then, however, he'd already decided to attract some of that unwelcome
attention in a bit more of a direct fashion.
Bait and lure, he thought, and whispered, "Maybe I'm just lonely."
"You? That *is* a change."
It was time to go hunting for his pursuers, and Jason had foolishly
chosen the hard way.
* * *
On the bridge again, the moon slid away on the screen to reveal the
planet, minus its unwanted visitor. Mark and Jason exchanged meaningful
glances.
A bay door in the belly of the ship slid ponderously open. The
scoutcraft within drifted forward, and the door closed.
The planet below opened up invitingly, and the scoutcraft brushed
through a few faint wisps of cloud, heading for a small island near the
mainland. "Just in case," said Jason, "since they're probably already on
the continent somewhere."
The exit ramp descended, and a touch of breeze brought the salty
taste of the sea. Outside, they gathered near a small copse of trees.
Vivid green bark and a light purple-tinted ocean brought home the alienness
of the world.
"It's a good thing this air is breathable. I'd hate to have to
walk around in those stupid envirosuits all the time." Ty grumbled at
nothing in particular, a walking, bearded attitude.
"Then relax and enjoy it." Jason managed a weak smile. "Let's
take a look around, shall we?"
A nearby cliff beckoned. The sun was low on the horizon,
reflecting a rainbow of light off of the rippling water below.
Jason had never felt at peace. There had never been a time when he
wasn't worrying over another dangerous secret, and the infuriatingly
probing intelligence agents who would religiously seek it out.
But here... This world was so peaceful and serene. It was almost
as if he'd stumbled into a long forgotten vision of paradise. Maybe, for a
few weeks...
Then he looked down.
"Oh my god..."
On the rocks below, a humanoid form was spread-eagled next to the
crashing waves of the sea. Mark gazed silently at it, his expression
unreadable.
* Choices
"Damn, he's heavy." Mark stumbled on the rocks, cursing.
Inside the scoutcraft, the three of them laid the sea-dweller on a
bunk set into the wall.
"I hope you know what you're doing," Ty growled. As a geneticist,
and the husband of a biologist, he was the first to appreciate the 'little'
problems.
"Do we have any choice? Look." Jason turned his head, revealing a
small, electronic device he'd found next to what might have been an ear.
It was cracked open, with innards exposed. "Something tells me that's not
supposed to be there."
"So now what?" Mark said, giving Jason an irritated glance as he
walked down the ramp.
"We wait for him to come around. I'll be outside."
Jason sat down, dangling his legs over the edge of the cliff,
looking down at the crashing waves. The sun was setting.
Maybe he's right, Jason thought to himself. This isn't such a good
idea. We know nothing about him, or whatever injuries he might have.
There were too many unknowns.
He looked out over the sea, as the sun dipped lower, almost below
the horizon now. Thinking.
On the other hand, I can't just leave him to his fate. I've got to
do something.
He rested his head in his hands, watching as the sun finally set,
the last, faint rays of light slowly fading away.
Mark called out from inside the scoutcraft. "He's coming around."
"I'll be right there," he replied.
Jason stood up, kicking a pebble over the edge of the cliff, and
looking rather despondently at the darkening sky.
The sea-dweller tossed restlessly, slowly regaining consciousness.
He was covered in a thick, dark greenish skin. Ribbed fins sproutled from
his arms, legs, and head. After several long, tense moments, he blinked
slowly, his large eyes opening halfway. Just the barest hint of a melodic
whistle sounded in the still air.
"You're safe. It's all right." Ty rested a comforting hand on
the sea-dweller's arm. His eyes opened a bit more, and he started to sit
up, but clutched in pain at the device on his head. It sparked.
Ty pushed him back down gently. "Careful there. You need to
rest."
"I don't think he understands what you're saying," Mark said.
Jason shook his head. "Doesn't matter." He's among friends, and
that fact needs no language to communicate.
He gestured to Mark, beckoning for him to follow.
Outside, they walked back to the cliff to watch the first faint
stars peek out. "We've got to do something about that thing on his head,"
Jason murmured.
Mark looked away, at the rippling water. "We can't do anything
here, that's for sure."
"Then we're talking about taking him aboard Blue Lightning. Can we
risk it?"
"If we were going to catch anything, it would have happened
already." Mark faced Jason again, grinning. "Besides, you said you didn't
have a choice, did you?"
Jason smiled faintly. If only for a fleeting moment, Mark had
managed to give him back a bit of lost cheer.
A barely audible sound finally penetrated through the layers of
unconscious awareness to make Jason take note. "What...?"
The sound had been buzzing around in the back of his mind for the
past several minutes. Now puzzled, he looked intently at the nearby copse
of trees, from whence it was emanating. Mark glanced at the trees,
curious.
Jason gestured to him. "Give me your floptical recorder."
The device was small and rectangular, with a slot in the back
just big enough for a 3.5" floptical. It was a slightly dated miracle of
technology, able to hold up to thirty minutes of high quality digital
sound. Jason took it, holding it out in the direction of the trees, as the
grinding sound grew rapidly and alarmingly louder.
Minutes later, the scoutcraft flew into the night, and the clearing
was once again empty.
...no, perhaps not. The mystery, remained.
John and Jason helped the sea-dweller onto a medbed. John took a
calculator-like medscanner and panned it over the head of the now prone
humanoid.
Gazing curiously at the alien, he murmured distractedly, "Maybe you
boys should wait outside."
They left the infirmary, walking down the corridor. Mark shot a
satisfied look at Jason. "Now's as good a time as any."
Ahead, around a slight bend in the corridor, a ladder ran through
the ceiling and floor.
Jason stared confusedly at him. "For what?"
Mark started down the ladder. "We need to talk. About what
happened that day."
"Now isn't--"
His voice wafted up from below. "You can't keep it bottled up
forever."
Jason climbed onto the ladder, sighing heavily. Mark was right.
The door of Jason's quarters slid closed behind them. Jason sat
down on his bunk, and Mark followed suit. Painful it might be, but keeping
it inside would only eat away at that still small hope he clung so
desperately to. It was time to let it go.
"After we got out of the compound where they were holding her, we
headed for the ship...."
Jason glanced back, watching for any signs of pursuit from the
compound. None in sight, but it wouldn't be long before they followed.
The flitter they were in was light and highly maneuverable,
approximately a car with short wings. Its ability to fly, however, was
provided by judicious use of antigravity technology, and was just one more
reason that Jason was a wanted man.
Kerin gazed out at the countryside racing by. She hadn't spoken a
word since they'd left, since he'd rescued her. He stole a nervous glance
at her, but she looked away.
Why was she so angry? he thought to himself bitterly.
The barren land dashed by in stony silence. Before long, the
flitter was racing only a few feet above a narrow dirt road, braced by
trees.
"Why did you bother?" Kerin finally looked back at him angrily,
yet without the accusing look in her eyes that she'd left him with the week
before.
"I didn't want you hurt. You know what they would have done to
you."
Jason shuddered, thinking of one of his brief encounters with her
'employers'. He'd nearly lost Mark that day, to a hail of armor-piercing
bullets. Their illegality didn't bother them -- the government sanctioned
terrorists were only interested in results.
She gazed ahead, no trace of emotion. "That's not it. That's not
it at all."
His face flushed red with embarrassment, and he looked down. She
knew me well enough to realize that much, he thought. After more than ten
years, I couldn't expect less.
"I'm sorry," Jason managed after a moment. He was silent after
that, watching the rural towns flash by. It was always so hard to talk to
her about anything other than the most trivial things. He'd always
regretted holding so many secrets from her, and had longed for a semblance
of a normal relationship. Love. But it had never come to be.
Behind them, a menacing black chopper rose into view, closing
rapidly. Kerin watched it fearfully.
"Looks like we've got company. Keep your head down."
"Why should you care? You know who I am!" She nearly cried at
him.
"I've known since we met."
Her eyes widened. "...but you couldn't have..." she whispered.
The seconds ticked by. As the chopper drew closer, Jason could see her
finally realizing what he'd never been able to truly say. Her eyes shone,
bright with tears.
He looked at her again, trying not to betray his inner turmoil.
"Now is not the time to discuss this. As I see it, you have two choices.
I can try to evade these clowns and hide you somewhere where you'll be
safe, or..."
He paused, looking away as his emotions threatened to overcome him
again. He had always been so afraid of losing her, he'd never been able to
say what she meant to him.
"...or you can come with me." He finished quietly.
She blinked in surprise. "Are you serious? Do you really care
about me that much?"
"I..." he stuttered, as always, unable to say it. I *am* in love
with you. No matter what happens...I can't lose you again.
He snapped his head around as machine gun fire sounded from the
nearly forgotten chopper, almost on top of them. Even now, Jason couldn't
help letting his emotions cloud his judgment. He shoved Kerin down in the
seat. "Stay down!"
Gripping the controls tightly, he pushed the flitter higher. The
craft dashed forward and broke towards the sun, high in the sky. In the
distance, Blue Lightning came into sight, in the middle of a large field
laden with deep gouges and tracks from the recent presence of heavy
transport equipment.
"They're still tailing us," he murmured, glancing back quickly.
A meandering, dusty road marked the state border. An instant
passed, and they were in North Dakota, less than five hundred miles from
the intelligence compound. The thugs had never known the prize they sought
was so close. The ship, his life's work, was now only a few miles away.
Another chopper came into view in front of them, swinging out from
behind the swollen ship. "Shit! More trouble."
Kerin peeked above the dashboard, and her eyes widened at the sight
of it. "That's a...a..."
"Stay down! We've gotta make it to the ship!"
Jason pressed a button and spoke into a grille on the dash. "Mark,
open bay five. Shut it right after we land."
"Gotcha."
The second chopper fired, grazing the hull of the flitter. The
ship dropped lower, finally slowing to just under two hundred miles an
hour.
He aimed for the opening door, as both choppers closed in.
Tense moments passed, and just as they entered, machine gun fire
rained over them again.
Kerin gasped in pain. On her chest and shoulder, two dark
splotches were rapidly spreading. She slumped back in the seat, her
breathing shallow and labored.
The bay door closed behind them, and Jason spun the flitter around,
nearly crashing into the rear wall as his mounting panic threatened to
consume him. The flitter finally settled to the deck, and Mark rushed
forward, alarmed.
Jason cradled her in his arms, his face wet with tears, his arms
wet with her blood. He brushed a few brown locks aside, and Kerin's eyes
fluttered open momentarily, unable to focus.
"Jason?" She whispered faintly. "I'm s-sorry..."
He was paralyzed. He couldn't move, or speak. Even looking at
her, as she lay dying, he was still too shocked to react.
Her eyes closed slowly, as her breathing grew ragged. Yet somehow,
she spoke once more, for the last time. "Good-bye, Jason. I l..." Then
her eyes rolled back, and her body sagged.
Jason buried his face in her chest, his tears mingling with her
lifeblood. "Noo..."
And so it ended, with the one person he treasured more than
anything taken from him not a moment before he left Earth, never to return.
"....You know the rest already." A single tear dropped from
Jason's cheek. He dabbed at it, wiping it away. "...so close," he
whispered. "Why?"
And there was only silence.
"Let's go," Mark said quietly, after another moment. Jason gave
him a sidewise glance.
The infirmary door slid open in front of them. The humanoid was
sitting up on the medbed, his head now free of the device, a white bandage
in its place. The device itself rested on a small, wheeled table nearby.
John, standing next to the bed, gestured. "He'll be fine. But I
didn't try to take the wires out of his head that this thing was attached
to. Too much risk of brain damage."
He walked over, looking up at them. "You wanna know something?
His brain is almost *exactly* like ours, except for a small third lobe in
the back of his head."
Wait a second, another puzzle? Jason thought darkly. He snapped
out of his daze. "How could he be that similar to us?"
"I gave Ty a skin scraping -- he'll take a look at his DNA. Let's
wait and see what he comes up with, mmm?"
John was something of an enigma. Jason knew that he had given up
on the medical establishment back on Earth, but he was never quite sure why
John had decided to throw his lot in with a bunch of alarmist rebels, as
the North American government had termed it. Nevertheless, he knew he
could trust John. John had demonstrated his trustworthiness, if not his
motives, from the very beginning.
It was reassuring to have John aboard, even allowing for his highly
acidic wit, coupled with his seeming inability to smile.
Jason approached the bed and held out his hand, helping the
humanoid to his feet. "C'mon. I want to show you something."
He and Mark guided the humanoid from the stairway onto the bridge.
Blue Lightning was just beyond the edge of the moon, and the planet was in
view. The sea-dweller approached the viewscreen slowly, a wondering look
on his face.
As the other ship began edging out again, the humanoid's eyes
widened. He slowly touched his hand to the bandage.
He turned around, facing them, as Jason made a few adjustments to
the controls. He pointed at his eyes...and the ship, looking at it. "Look
at the ship?" murmured Jason. "I don't--"
"No, I think he means he's seen it before. Or maybe something like
it..." Ryo climbed off the ladder, plying his trade in linguistics. He
smiled disarmingly, his comfortably Asian-seeming face dotted by, of all
things, freckles. Other than that, his mixed heritage didn't show.
Ryo had been uncomfortable with living a seeming double life,
constantly having to be on guard for any slip of the tongue, lest the
watchful powers that be discover him to be a part of the exodus from the
doomed planet Earth. Ryo had wanted a better life, he had told them, and
this was his chance to have it.
Jason didn't blame him.
Ryo shrugged, finally nodding in greeting as an afterthought to the
two of them, then dropped into a chair nearby to watch.
The humanoid faced the two of them again, as Blue Lightning moved
back behind the moon, safely hidden. He paused, then approached Jason,
pointing at his mouth...then at Jason's ear...then at his mouth...then at
his own...ear?
Jason nodded quickly. "You're right. We have to find a way to
communicate."
The humanoid slowly pointed at the bandage, then cupped his hand in
the shape of the device so recently removed.
"Are you saying...that was a translator?"
He pointed at the viewscreen again, then blinked in confusion.
"It can translate their language?"
They faced each other silently. There were so many possibilities,
Jason thought. It was just beginning to hit him. A full-fledged contact
with an alien, sentient race, and a friendly one, at that. Learning from
each other was almost a given, and yet what else did the future hold for
them?
The mystery beckoned.
Jason sat down at the nav console, and pressed and held the
intercom button. "John, think you could reattach that thing?"
Click. His voice floated out of the console. "Are you kidding?"
"No questions. Can you do it?"
Jason could almost hear John's indecision...but finally his trust
won out. "I...think so..."
"Alright. Tomorrow then." Jason released the button. "Mark, go
find Tom. We're gonna need to get that thing fixed before we can put it
back on."
His concern was plainly visible. "Don't you think you should ask
*him* first before you go messing with his head?"
Jason glanced back at the humanoid. "I think he's already made
that decision."
"I want Tom to copy it, and make another one, too." he said
flatly.
Mark's eyes widened in shock, as he wheezed and coughed repeatedly,
trying to recover. "Are you *nuts*??"
"Not hardly. I'm gonna need one."
If it were at all possible, Mark seemed even more surprised.
"If I'm right, that thing only works one way. You can understand
what's being spoken, but not speak the language yourself."
"Then how will that help?" he said.
Jason returned with a knowing look. "I can start by using that
voice sample we recorded earlier."
Mark frowned. "How do you know that was their language?"
Jason looked at the sea-dweller again, who was watching the two of
them curiously. "What else could it have been? Besides, I played it for
our friend here on the way back, and he seemed to recognize it."
Mark looked glum. "You're crazier than I thought."
Jason smiled sadly. "It's not like I have a choice, do I?"
* Aliens
"It's not just a translator." Tom, sitting on a workbench, turned
to face Jason.
"Come again?" asked Mark, leaning nearby.
"It does a bit more than just translate." John held up the broken
translator. "When I x-rayed this guy's head, welll...those wires are going
to some very interesting places." He gave Jason a meaningful look. "Not
only does it send stuff to the conscious mind, to the lingual centres of
the brain, it also sends it to a very specific area of the subconscious."
He dropped it back on the table, puzzled. "It also ties into the optic
nerve, but I'll be damned if I know why. It's meant to act almost like a
hypnotic suggestion, except the person knows what's going on."
Ouch, Jason thought. "That's a rather nasty piece of work, then.
So you just don't connect up those wires, right?"
"Not quite that simple. The thing's delicately balanced to give
out just the right current, and not fry his brain."
Tom continued where John had left off. "I can shunt it to a
resistor, but it'll have to be outside the casing. If I put it inside, the
heat might damage the circuitry. Just don't get hit in the head, and
you'll be okay."
John shrugged at Jason, deadpan. "Otherwise, you'll have a major
headache to deal with."
Tom grinned. "So you wanted me to make another one, right?
I'll see what I can do." He picked up the translator again. "The
circuitry's not that complicated, and the ROM chips, I can image-dump.
It'll probably take a few days."
Tom was flippant enough to show off his talents, and modest enough
not to admit it when pressed. Tom enjoyed a real challenge, Jason knew.
It wasn't as much a question of loyalties, although Mark had made very sure
that Tom would never betray them to the officials. It was a question of
being given a chance to shine in his practiced engineering expertise, and
only a continuing and committed involvement in the Blue Lightning project
made that possible.
Jason nodded, grinning back at the miracle worker. "No problem.
Now we head back."
Mark gave him an I've-had-enough look. Jason returned the favor.
"Mark, We need to get more samples of their language. And I want
to find out what they're doing here." Jason gestured at the ladder.
"Seeing as how I won't be able to find that out from *him*, we need to go
back. Don't even bother complaining." Then he smiled crookedly.
"Besides, he might be getting a bit lonely by now. A bit hungry, too.
Let's go."
The humanoid stepped carefully down the scoutcraft's ramp. Looking
around, his demeanor suddenly went from cautious to happy, almost glowing
with joy. A few, long strides to the edge of the cliff, and he jumped.
Falling, as Mark and Jason watched, tracing a perfect swan dive, he
disappeared far into the depths of the sea.
"Pretty strong," Mark murmured. "For a female."
"When'd you get that idea?" Jason frowned at him, then stared,
wondering, at the sea below.
"I wasn't sure for a while, but it makes sense. Don't tell me you
haven't noticed the way she acts."
Jason hadn't noticed anything, but apparently Mark had. Jason
avoided his eyes, almost blushing. He smiled. "Embarrassed?"
"A little, yes," Jason mumbled.
Mark gave him a friendly slap. "Och, dinna worry lad," he said in
an ersatz Scottish accent. "We oll make mistekes sometuymes."
Jason rubbed his back, and quirked a grin at him. "Hey!" Mark was
built pretty solidly, even if it didn't show at first glance. A little
swing like that hurt.
The sky brightened a little, and one by one the stars winked out.
Jason yawned loudly. "They'll probably be out during the day. We'll come
back tonight."
He cleared away a small, circular area by the cliff. "Here. We'll
make a sundial, and mark it for sunset. She'll figure it out."
The continent loomed ahead on the screen, dark and forbidding, as
the scoutcraft climbed slowly higher into the night on its journey back to
Blue Lightning. Most likely they didn't go there after all, to keep
isolated, Jason thought to himself. But from what, I wonder?
* * *
The walls and floor were steel gray, and the light was stark and
painfully bright. Three creatures shuffled nervously through a low
doorway. Four feet high, blackish gray, thin, fur, six legs...or arms?
The mouths were rimmed with long, chitinous fingers, and filled with rows
of tiny, sharp teeth.
A grinding noise echoed through the room, as the creature with
black fur and brown underbelly rubbed his fingers against his teeth and
each other, in a complex, gyrating rhythm. "<Missing was one of workers
this morning, sir.>"
The gray one answered. "<Will search you? Needed are all workers
now. Progressing well until now is project. Find it you must.>"
The third, dark gray, turned away and emitted a breathy hiss.
"<Sure are you that injured it is? Escaped is possible for it?>"
"<Remove could not controller-device it. Injured it must be.
Search will I.>" The black one skitted to one side as the other two left,
stiffly marching down the long corridor.
The grinding noise subsided a bit. "<Hope to find it soon I do.
Would not be good if died it.>" His head hung low, slowly shaking from
side to side.
* * *
I must tell the elders. My people...and my friends, are in great
danger.
Weya swam past the coral reef, deceptively calm. Fierce currents
threatened to dash her against the rocks, leaving her prey to the thousands
of kelpworms within.
She glided above the ridge, finding a safer current.
If only they will listen. I have been an outsider to them for too
long, preferring both land and sea, the solitude of the far and distant.
And yet...now, when I need their help most, will they aid me?
Ahead, a great, rocky protrusion came into view. Numerous openings
and cavelets dotted the rock face.
Home.
She swam toward one of the smaller openings, which shortly opened
out into a huge grotto. A dazzling array of many-hued crystalline
formations covered the walls, floor, and ceiling. Ordered chaos, a garden
of unparalleled beauty. And yet the haughty stench of calm immutability
hung in the still water.
The guards, she thought, as two of the younger, male sea-dwellers
swam towards her.
One of them spoke. "-Why are you here, Weya?-"
"-The elders will not be pleased with your presence.-"
She sighed inwardly. "-I must speak to at least one elder. I
would prefer that the circle meet.-"
The first snickered. "-That will not happen. Leave now.-"
"-Wait!-" She paused, gathering her thoughts. "-Our people are
being taken. Would you not know the reason?-"
"-You have found something?-" The other asked.
Weya looked away, distant. "-Much more than I can say now. The
circle should meet.-"
There was a long silence.
Then the first finally acquiesced, the distaste plainly evident on
his face. "-You are right, of course. This time, Weya. This time...-"
The two swam off, leaving her to wait. A matter of this importance
should surely provoke a response. They had to act...didn't they?
Before long, she was escorted into a smaller chamber, nearly
identical to the first. The circle was waiting, long, sagging faces filled
with distaste.
The elders stared at her with narrowed eyes, full of loathing.
"-You would speak to us on this matter? Then speak.-"
She tried to ignore their uncivility, and began to speak. "-My
people, something must be done. Our brothers and sisters are being taken
while they gather crops from the island. A group of strange creatures
which came in flying metal are forcing them to build more of such metal for
them.-"
The water was disturbed as feet and arms were swished in
displeasure. It was by far the easiest way to distort speech and brush off
any attempt to communicate, an incredibly crude gesture for the so-
civilized elders.
"-Listen, please! Other creatures, who look much like us but are
pale and soft, helped me.-"
The water grew cloudier.
"-They removed the thing controlling my mind. See the mark it
left!-" Weya turned her head, showing the First Speaker the purple splotch
near her ear membrane, with a small, white circle of bone showing through
at the center. The bandage? Lost, somewhere in the sea.
"-Enough of this foolishness. We will listen no more. This is
another of your fables from above, Weya.-"
She faced the Third Speaker, the sharp jangling of anger plain in
her once melodic voice. "-Can you not see? Our brothers and sisters are
missing, truly. Is that a fable?-"
Low-pitched, dissonant whistling echoed harshly throughout the
chamber.
"-If what you say is true...-"
She faced the First Speaker again.
"-...we will simply not go to the island any more,-" he finished.
"-Your creatures can deal with each other.-"
"-What?? What of the people we have lost? What of them?-"
"-Nothing can be done. I have spoken. You may leave.-"
She was gently but firmly escorted from the settlement. Even the
guards were not afraid to jeer at her, to say nothing of the small crowd
that followed them from the council chambers.
Weya left the settlement behind, returning through the troubled
water near the reef.
I cannot go back, then, she thought. If they will not listen...
She approached the cliff, the beating of the waves upon the rocks
above growing louder. Emerging from the sea, she walked along a small path
leading up the cliff face, smiling a small, sad smile. The sun, high in
the sky, shone down upon her, and a cascade of light fell around the
seawater still clinging to her.
My new friends will help me. But is that enough?
An arm grabbed hold of her from above, hauling her onto the top of
the cliff. The sea-dweller looked forlornly at her, all the while gripping
her hand tightly. Another sea-dweller stood nearby.
Then she noticed the controllers they were wearing.
The black spider walked out from behind a small outcropping of rock
"<Safe you are! Glad am I to see you.>" He looked intently at her head,
noticing the wound. "<Have not your controller-device you? Most strange
this is.>"
Weya was slowly led away by the two sea-dwellers. The taller one
spoke. "-I'm...sorry, Weya.-"
I am alone.
* Captured!
The scoutcraft settled to the ground, disgorging its two occupants.
Jason frowned, looking towards the reddening sea. "She's not here?
Hmmm...odd."
Mark and Jason walked along the cliff, reaching the sundial. The
stick in the center was leaning slightly to one side, but otherwise intact
and untouched. Jason reset the stick.
"That's what I thought, we're a bit late. So is she."
"Wait a sec," he murmured after a moment of thought. Jason jogged
back to the scoutcraft and retrieved two small elliptical pads, on the
lower half of which were speaker grilles. "Communicators," he said.
"Since we'll be staying a while, we should have 'em along."
He held one out to Mark. "Just in case."
Mark pocketed it. "Thanks. You could've told me 'bout our stay a
bit sooner, you know."
"C'mon," urged Jason. "Time to do a little exploring. Did you
bring that digital recorder?"
He nodded, shrugging. "Why'd you bother?"
"Well, it's the best we've got, considering..." Considering the
floptical could only hold half an hour of audio, and the walkman could hold
up to eight. Yeah, I guess I didn't plan this very well, did I? Jason
grumbled silently at him.
Mark handed Jason the walkman.
Jason pressed the top edge of the communicator. "Anybody awake up
there?"
"Hullo." A sleepy voice replied.
"Ben! You're actually up at this time of night?" Jason could
picture him stumbling around the ship like a pouting ogre, and looking
about as offensive. Before he had his coffee, at least.
"I needed *food*."
"Yeah, well...don't raid the icebox while I'm gone." He looked
out towards the sea. "How's Tom doing? Any progress?"
"Yeah, he-ahh, he had something to tell you," Ben stuttered.
"Ho-uh, hold on a minute." He had a bit of a speech impediment, although
it wasn't anything serious.
Jason paced along the cliff edge, then stopped.
"Jason? I've come up with an idea you might like." Tom sounded
enthusiastic, as always.
"How about the translator?"
"It's coming. John says he can set up something that plugs into
your head, to let you *think* what you want to say to our friend over
there."
Jason nodded, intrigued. "Okay, how's it work?"
Tom mumbled a bit. "Well...your brainwaves get translated into
that grinding language, and transmitted over a microwave linkup. Then, the
translator gets it and puts it in terms our friend can understand. What do
you think?"
"How long?"
"A little under a week for what's his name's. Yours will take
longer."
Jason smiled at Mark. "Good luck, and thanks. Oh, by the way,
it's 'she', not 'he'."
"Oh really? See you later."
Jason put away the communicator.
"Sounds like you got yourself a bargain," Mark said, deadpan.
"Who, Tom? He's into that kind of stuff. You should know." Jason
glanced in the general direction of the copse of trees.
"S'not what I meant. Your 'two-for-one' deal."
"Real funny...let's go." Jason hated Mark's forced humor.
They made their way through a rather dense stand of alien greenery,
finally reaching what looked for all the world (theirs, anyway) like a
construction site. Jason peered out from behind a tree. Sea-dwellers, and
a few new, different creatures, were mulling about in a semi-ordered
fashion.
Jason frowned as Mark growled audibly. "Spiders..."
It wouldn't be quite accurate to say that Mark was afraid of
spiders. Rather, that he was arachnophobic. While he was living in
Florida when they were younger, he'd had the bad habit of actively seeking
out any arachnid on his premises and taking a gasohol-loaded supersoaker to
it, quickly followed by a lighter. Jason wasn't looking forward to dealing
with his reactions to these creatures, especially considering their
enslavement of the sea-dwellers.
The sea-dwellers were doing most of the heavy duty work, while the
spiders watched and fine tuned. A certain acquaintance was nowhere to be
seen.
"Well, shit in a bucket," Jason drolled. "These people have been
busy."
"Oh, quite." Mark smiled slightly.
"Don't start."
"What?" He grinned a bit more, managing to look annoyingly
ingratiating. Jason thought about saying "quit", but decided against it.
It would only encourage him. The 'quite quaintly quiet' 'q' words routine
Mark was so fond of pulling was getting old, Jason thought with a sigh.
Mark had an annoying streak of immaturity that Jason was forever failing
to cure him of.
"Good," muttered Jason finally. "What do you think they're
building?"
"What're you asking me for? I'm just a bodyguard."
Jason frowned at him. "Seriously. Opinions?"
Mark was much more than just a bodyguard, of course, although he
had sworn a blood oath to Jason to protect him. He and Jason had grown up
together. While Mark didn't have Jason's expertise in physics, and
although he'd never attended college, Mark had the skills and experience
that had kept the crew alive during the harrowing years of the Blue
Lightning project's infancy. The two of them were very different, but in
just the right ways to form the deepest of friendships.
Mark looked at the site, flopping back against a tree. "The only
thing I can think of is some sort of mining machines, *maybe*." He pointed
to a rather unoccupied spot on the construction site. "Those drums over
there? I could be wrong, but those look like ore filters."
"What makes you say that?"
"If you dump the ore in through the top, those pistons on the sides
would pulverize it, and those electromagnets would grab the ore." He
pointed to and gestured at the appropriate places. "The shit gets dumped,
and you can turn off the magnets and dump the ore wherever you want it."
"Brilliant." Except magnets don't attract all that much, Jason
thought to himself. "Now, how do they move 'em?"
"You got me," Mark said.
Jason glanced around the site, then pointed at a far corner.
"There, you see those two crawlers? *That's* how they move 'em."
Two largish mechanical buggies with four foot high treads sat away
from the main body of the work crew. From the look of them, they had seen
heavy use.
Suddenly, everyone stopped working. A three-creature-wide line
formed, heading out of sight. The spiders made up the sparse third column,
closest to them.
"Quitting time. Chow and bunk," said Mark.
"My thoughts exactly. What say we make like a very discreet
shadow?"
Mark looked at him, grinning mischievously. "Your da boss, boss."
"Oh, shuddup, you twit." Jason grinned back.
And they *discreetly* followed the line. That is, except for
Mark's incessant prattling. "I am not a twit. Do not call me a twit. I'm
much more intelligent."
The line diverged. The spiders entered a huge shuttle, and the
sea-dwellers continued on towards what appeared to be a barracks.
The two of them stayed hidden at the edge of the trees, watching
the disappearing procession. "Gotta be at least fifty of the locals here,"
Jason murmured quietly. "More, unless I miss my guess."
Mark paused in thought for a moment. "What could be so important
that they have to mine it here?"
"Wish I knew. Maybe we'll find out." Jason frowned. "Hope we
don't, though. I wanna get those people out of there long before that."
"Slow down. We can wait an hour or so before we try anything."
Jason looked back in the direction they had come from. "Right.
Let's head back to that construction site. Hope they don't post guards."
"Why should they?"
He glanced back to smile at Mark. "Good point."
They returned to the site. And indeed, no guards were in sight.
Jason hadn't really paid all that much attention to the site itself
before, but what he noticed this time made him more than a little
suspicious. They discovered an advanced ore smelter near the filters, self
contained in a medium sized drum and piping apparatus. Apparently, the ore
was refined right there, but there were no facilities that they could find
to actually shape the metal. What they'd thought was some sort of half
finished building was nothing of the kind, but merely a scaffolding network
to hold some of the tools and machines.
"They're *only* mining it," Jason whispered.
"Huh?"
Jason gazed steadily at Mark. Mark had been checking over one of
the crawlers, probing it for boobytraps, from his expression. "They're not
building something here, Mark. It's just a mining operation, nothing
else."
Mark simply shrugged.
Jason walked over, craning his neck to get a better view of the
crawler Mark was exploring. It was almost seven feet from the tracks to
the driver's seat.
Jason clambered onto the tracks, then gestured down at him. "Would
you give me a hand? I want a look at this in case we need to use it."
"Fine. Watch it..." Mark grunted as Jason put his weight on
Mark's shoulder, clambering over the edge.
"Great! It figures." Jason muttered after a moment.
"What??" Mark shouted up, alarmed.
"The controls are built for spiders. Naturally..."
Jason puzzled over the strange-looking mechanism on the buggy's
control panel. It was inset with two large holes, surrounded by a pattern
of parallel grooves. "These holes are deep," he said. "Can't reach the
end with my fingers. With my luck, they probably have some sort of
manipulators in them, too..."
"Just as long as we don't need to borrow a spider to drive one,"
muttered Mark testily.
Jason smiled down at him. "I wouldn't bet on it. All right.
We'll bring the laser next time and cut the tracks."
"Don't you think you'd better find out a little more of what's
going on before you do that?"
"Seems pretty clear-cut to me."
Mark gave Jason an unpleasant look. "Don't judge by what you see.
Find out."
Jason sighed. "Get me outta here, will you?"
"Sure."
Inside the barracks, Jason waited for his eyes to adjust to the
gloom. All around, sea-dwellers were lying in various positions on the
ground. There was no floor. A pair of lone eyes gleamed in the darkness,
reflecting the faint light from the doorway. Jason looked back and
gestured, whispering. "Mark..."
Jason approached the eyes. But it wasn't her.
A soft, fluted tone sounded from around his throat, from what Jason
had at first thought were only gills. "Weya?"
"Sorry, I don't understand," Jason replied.
The humanoid pointed at Mark. "Marae." He gestured at Jason, then
beside him. "Weya?"
"I think he means *her*."
Jason shook his head slowly.
The sea-dweller pointed towards the doorway, at the spiders' ship.
"Weya." Jason took his hand. "Can you show us where she is?"
He slowly took it back, and Jason let go. Then he tapped the
'translator' on the side of his head twice, to explain why he could not.
"I'll be back for you then," Jason said. "All of you."
A few more eyes shone brightly in the darkness, watching the two of
them. "Let's head back for the ship. We're gonna need...uh-oh."
*Very* rapidly, two spiders appeared in the doorway and grabbed
them both, holding them firmly. Mark turned pale, much more so than usual,
almost choking for air.
Jason felt around in his pocket, and pressed the communicator.
"Whoever's around up there, we've been captured."
"Say again?" Tom's tinny voice sounded in the still air. "I
can barely hear you."
"We've been *captured*. Hurry up with that stuff. We're gonna
need it."
* Point of View
Jason tapped the barrier lightly. It gave a little. Not glass,
and it had a bit of a metallic sheen. Beyond, he could see a few other
cells across the corridor.
Mark wasn't in good shape. He was pale, knuckles white, and
clutching the floor.
"Will you be okay?" Jason said.
Mark coughed, clearing his throat. "No. Sorry, I just can't
control that," he rasped.
"I know how you feel. For now, let's get some sleep."
Jason sat, leaning against one wall, and closed his eyes. "Believe
me, we'll need it," he whispered.
Meanwhile on Blue Lightning...
With five of them all together, the park was a little crowded that
particular evening.
"Sorry to wake everybody up, but Jason's in trouble," Tom began.
"I think the aliens from that ship orbiting the planet have him and Mark."
Ben shrugged. "So what are we s'posed to do about it?"
Ben was tall, and big without being overweight. His area of
expertise was physics, and he served quite capably as Jason's second
opinion.
"I'll get to that," Tom replied. "I came up with an idea for a
'telepathic' implant."
John quirked an eyebrow at that.
"Whoever is wearing one can just *think* what he wants to say, and
someone else wearing one will 'hear' him."
"Neat, but how will that help?" said Ryo. "I don't think we're
gonna convince one of the aliens to wear one."
"You'd have to hot-wire the alien's brain, too. Difficult." John
stonefaced it as usual.
"That wasn't what it was for in the first place. The native was
going to get one, along with Jason. Originally, we could have found out
what was going on straight from her."
Tom paused, looking at the crew. They weren't taking things very
seriously, he thought. They were so inured to friends disappearing and
human suffering that this just wasn't getting through to them. Perhaps
they had all been merely friends for ten years, and nothing more.
They might have a chance of getting back to earth without Jason,
that much he knew. But chances were a thousand percent better with him
than without.
Tom finally continued. "I don't know what he has in mind for that
now, but we still have the translator. If I can get one to him, he'll be
able to understand these aliens, maybe find a way to communicate."
"And?" Eric gazed at him expectantly, his spare frame leaning
against the tree. Eric was the computer specialist of the group.
"I'm guessing he hopes it'll work out from there." Tom finished
lamely.
"If it doesn't? Where's that leave us?"
Tom sighed. At least they were beginning to realize the hole
they'd dug themselves into. "It had better work, and soon. I doubt they
know what Jason and Mark eat."
"Sounds...like it could be a problem," Ben said.
"I need volunteers. We've got to finish his translator and the two
'telepathy' burets in two days."
"You kidding?" Ryo shook his head. "Why two days, anyway?"
"That's about as long as they can hold out without food or water."
Tom faced Ben. "Ben, how're you with electronics?"
Ben shrugged. "Okay, I guess."
"Fine. I'll give you a crash course in microelectronics in a
minute." Tom turned to Eric. "Eric, you're pretty good at programming,
right?"
Eric bobbed his head, chuckling, and thick, blond curls of hair
flopped forward. "You could say that."
"You're doing the AI for Jason's 'telepathy' buret, then."
"A buret?" said Eric.
"Goes around the back of your neck," John said, drawing an
imaginary line. "Geordi in reverse."
"Eyes in the back of your head," Eric agreed. "Cool." He grinned
impishly.
Tom looked around the room. "Anyone else?"
John chucked a thumb in the air. "I'm working on copying what's
her face's brainwave patterns from the translator over to the buret."
"Great, John. Ryo?"
"I can cook da food." Ryo grinned toothily.
Tom chuckled. Fine then, he thought. They didn't have to take it
seriously, as long as everyone cooperated. "Thanks. Ben and Eric?"
The crew separated, going about their assigned tasks.
In the electronics lab, Tom motioned Ben onto the workbench,
putting a tiny circuitboard into what looked like a microfiche viewer.
The microcircuit tool was another slightly dated miracle of technology,
absolutely essential for on-the-fly engineering projects.
"This should be fairly easy," Tom said. "I've got the parts list
right here, and the circuit diagram." He pointed at a nearby wall lined
with plastic drawers. "The parts are in the bins. Be careful with them.
Just put them in the manipulator here, and solder them in with the
trackball."
"Looks simple enough." Although Ben was a physicist, he had a fair
degree of experience with computers, somewhat less so with electronics.
Tom turned to leave the lab, and Eric followed. "All right then.
Now it's your turn."
A short jog down the corridor later found Eric sitting down in
front of the mainframe screen in the computer center.
"I need an AI routine that will translate Jason's brainwaves into
the grinding language. You can get the brainwave data from John, and the
info on the grinding language from Ryo."
Eric shrugged. "I can do that. What about you?"
"I'll be working on the buret itself," Tom replied.
Eric nodded, and absorbed himself with the computer.
"Good luck," Tom said, and left.
* * *
The spiders had to physically carry Weya to her cell.
It was too much, she thought. This time, leave me to die.
Her fall from the cliff that day had been no accident. The
spiders' arrival and claiming of her had been the final blow, and she no
longer had the strength to live.
The cell door slid closed, leaving her alone with Black. He waved
a foreleg at her. "<Well now are you? Worried was I.>"
She looked down at the floor, forlorn. They had generously
provided her with another translator, but she wasn't in the mood for
conversation.
"<Wrong, is there? Have been very sad for two days you.>" Black
shifted nervously. "<Strange this is. These recent, disturbing events.>"
Weya looked up a little. Something else had happened?
"<Found different, pale creatures we. With our other sea-
dwellers-->" Black continued, unnoticing.
Her head snapped up. "-No...-" (Not that Black could understand
her.)
He looked mildly surprised, waving his fingers about momentarily.
"<Talk you? Have not done that before.>" Weya had been seemingly quite
stubborn, to Black. She'd simply never had anything to say, and no reason
to overcome her depression enough to talk.
Weya gestured frantically at the barrier. Perhaps... He wouldn't
understand what she was distressed about, she knew, but if she could manage
to get him to raise the barrier...
"<Quite intelligent are you,>" Black decided. "<Tell this to
&(click)!(click) I must.>" The translator refused to interpret the name.
He turned and approached the barrier, and it flew up through the
ceiling of its own accord as the embedded scanner recognized his heat
profile.
Before he could act, Weya shot past him, running down the corridor.
She skidded to a halt outside one cell, and started banging on its barrier.
The spiders had tried talking to their two human captives. The
simple gestures and cautious movements had done little for Mark's
condition, however. He'd finally snapped when one of them had brushed
past him, and he'd lashed out. The spider was unharmed, but they were
quickly and unceremoniously escorted back to their cells after that.
"I guess they understand the sea-dwellers better than they do us,"
Jason said quietly. "I'd have thought they would have given us our own
'translators', if they could."
Mark grunted, trying to sleep.
Fifteen minutes later, a dull thumping rudely awakened him.
Jason had been sitting on the floor, but quickly bolted to his
feet. Mark rolled over from where he had been lying down, and stood up.
"Weya!" Jason shouted happily. Then a familiar grinding noise
sounded, muffled, through the barrier.
Weya stopped banging, lowering her arms slowly, and hung her head.
"Weya, what's wrong?"
A blackish colored spider appeared behind her, and Mark started
looking a tad green.
"Uh oh." Jason pointed. "She's got another translator."
Black rumbled at Weya, gesturing. She looked away.
Jason knocked on the barrier, and the two of them looked at him.
He jerked his thumb upward repeatedly. Come on, understand, he thought
desperately...but Black only blinked at him uncomprehendingly. Then he
slowly moved his hands up along the barrier.
Black finally activated the barrier, seemingly curious. Jason
rushed forward immediately, catching Weya in a friendly embrace, and sighed
with relief. Mark took a couple of steps backward, his eyes shouting out
his unreasoning fear.
Weya slowly returned the hug.
"You're all right...!" Jason finally managed.
The creature wrapped its arms around her, seeking comfort. Weya
had none to give, but returned the gesture, hoping it would be enough.
"<Most strange this is,>" Black muttered to himself.
"<Will bring him you,>" Black decided finally. "<Will follow me.>"
The barrier closed, leaving the other one inside. She separated
from the creature, then took it by the hand. They walked down the corridor
together.
They entered a stark room through a low doorway. The gray spider
was waiting. "<Has happened again. Has been found another.>"
The black spider scratched his fingers together, ending with a
painful screech, then headed off down the corridor. Weya and Jason
followed, hand in hand, into a bare room where another spider was waiting.
John was momentarily escorted into the room, a large suitcase
handcuffed to his wrist. He started walking towards Jason, but the gray
spider moved to stop him.
Having had enough irritation for one day, he shoved the spider out
of the way with amazing strength for a 5'2" guy, and sauntered over. It
skittered across the room, bouncing off of the far wall.
"That was fast," Jason murmured.
"I only hope it works. Two days for development and bug testing
doesn't leave a lot of room for mistakes."
"So, how will you install them?" He asked.
John sat down, opening his suitcase. Inside was a fantastic array
of medical equipment. Blue Lightning's standard medical kit.
He took out a rather bulky, semicircular device, looking at it. "I
brought a portable x-ray machine, but the power is limited. It won't last
more than 30 minutes, tops, without time to recharge."
"How long will it take to install the translator and the other
thing?"
He looked at Jason, quirking an eyebrow. "For you, just under
twenty minutes. I see our local's got a replacement translator already, so
we can just make it in time."
Jason laid down, and John put the x-ray machine over his head.
"Anesthetic, doctor?"
A clunk just above the ear with an iron mallet from his box of
tricks, and Jason went instantly unconscious. Serves him right, John
thought to himself grumpily. John always found a way to let a body know if
he wasn't happy. Sometimes, that unique sense of humor he was accused of
having might even get physically painful. In Jason's case, he'd been
stupid enough to get himself captured, and involve the rest of the crew in
his problems. John wasn't about to forgive him for it just yet.
As the spiders looked on, John slowly inserted the wires and
sockets into Jason's skull, and then Weya's, being slightly more gentle
with Weya's 'anesthetic'.
A couple of slaps to Jason's cheek, and he woke up. John shook
Weya awake. "Y'all ready to face the music?" he drawled in a fake
southern accent. "Then let's dance."
Jason looked at Weya. "Are you ready?"
After a moment, she nodded slowly, in an uncertain motion, while
John handed him his own translator and buret.
Jason snapped them into place, and John put on Weya's. Jason
smiled. "Great. Entering the cybernet, by Dr. John Vost. I tell ya doc,
I..."
...a faint whisper, in the back of my mind...
Jason's expression blanked for a second, and he looked up at Weya
in wonderment, almost disbelief. "Weya??..."
She was...what!?
She was looking very carefully at him. A tear trickled down
Jason's cheek.
"Weya, I never imagined...no...no, please."
The pain. He'd buried it deep, but somehow Weya had found it.
"Don't make me...remember..."
* Memories
Various scenes played themselves out in Jason's mind. They were
fragmented, but anything but disjointed. And it was a very sad tale they
told...
-It has been almost a year now, and I still remember it clearly.-
An image of Weya, sitting on the cliff with her legs dangling over
the edge, looking quite forlorn. The sun was fairly low in the sky.
-Life has been very unkind, for it stole from me the one I
loved.-
Youth. Small, fragile, and beautiful, yet always sad. Four others
were chasing her, reaching out with the stiffly rippling kelpworms they
held.
-Since my youth, I have been an outcast, despised by the other
children.-
Not quite fast enough, one kelpworm came within striking distance.
She screamed.
Weya cowered before two adult sea-dwellers.
"-Why do you taunt our children? You will be punished for this.-"
-Even by the adults.-
Solitude embraced her, and she sought refuge and comfort in it.
The crashing roar grew louder, as she neared the forbidden land.
-Is it any wonder that I preferred the solitude of the open sea and
the continent?-
She emerged from the water. Just beyond the beach, a dark,
haunting forest was visible. Large, black shapes rustled through the
trees, never clearly seen. Angry eyes leered out at her, waiting for her
to come closer.
-For all its danger, there was the wonder, the joy of seeing
something new and different.-
She walked along the shore, leaving the shapes behind. The forest
began to thin out a little.
-I never understood my fascination with the land, but I always knew
I could find peace there.-
The last of the trees fell away, and Weya stood before a vast,
windswept prairie of tall, wild grasses. In the distance, a mountain range
beckoned. The air around it rippled, as if by great heat or intense cold.
-This land held many mysteries. I have only seen the barest hint
of what is there, waiting to be discovered.-
She entered the tall grass. A small, dark opening now lay at
her feet. She crouched down at it, looking inside.
-Some time ago, I found something that terrified me greatly.-
She was inside the dark cavern. In the dim, flickering light from
the opening, many shapes were visible, lying on the floor. Most of them
looked vaguely humanoid. A few were unidentifiable, being too crumbled to
make out. One, however, was barely intact enough to be recognizable as the
fossilized remains of one of the spiders.
-Long, long ago, a terrible catastrophe occurred. What happened I
will never know.-
She bent down, touching one of the humanoid figures, curious,
yet still fearful. Closer inspection revealed it to be the fossilized
remains of a sea-dweller.
-This rock is very ancient. What could have killed them, I wonder?
Why are they all here together?-
She walked towards the far end of the cavern. A metallic glint,
but otherwise, it was too dark to see.
-I had many more questions, but the mystery only deepened,
especially after I found...-
Weya was facing a large boulder, one side of which had been
crushed by a recent cave in. Inside, barely visible in the faint light,
was a metallic canister, a jagged crack near its bottom.
-...this. I still do not know what it is, but something about it
frightens me more than I can bear.-
She turned to face the fossils, and the opening. Sadness.
-Why do I always come here? I have never told the others of its
existence. What is it that draws me to it so?-
She stood on the beach again, holding her head high. Behind her,
the mountains rose up into the sky. The ocean waves rippled at her feet.
The grotto, where the world itself showed its truest beauty. Only
a few sea-dwellers were present, but all were joyous on this day. Weya and
Uris, her husband, floated in the center, hands clasped.
-For one brief moment, was I truly happy. Uris had always been the
only one who had ever been kind to me.
They embraced, and the ceremony ended. Two lives had become one.
They swam away into the depths of the sea, and the water around
them sparkled, refracting the light of the sun high overhead.
-I only wish that moment would have lasted forever.-
Terror, and loss. A six-tentacled creature rushed towards the
rocky home of the sea-dwellers. The tentacles, Jason realized, bore a
remarkable resemblance to the fingers of the spiders. They beat the water,
pulsating like a squid's, drawing ever closer.
-Alas, that was not to be.-
Four sea-dwellers swam past the creature, trying to attract its
attention. It made an angry grab, but they slipped away. It followed
them, and they swam out to the open sea, towards the nether depths where
the creature normally roamed.
Rapidly, it closed. Nearer now, it grabbed again, narrowly
missing.
-In an instant...-
Again, a tentacle shot out, this time wrapping itself around the
unlucky sea-dweller. A second tentacle secured its grasp even as the
sea-dweller squirmed.
-...my joy turned to sorrow...-
Uris screamed. And was silenced, suddenly, by a sickening crunch.
-...for the Kraken took my beloved from me.-
Again, she was sitting on the cliff. The sun was much lower now,
almost touching the horizon. A drab, grayish black ocean laughed below,
silently mocking.
-This sorrow is buried deeply in my heart. Is there happiness in
the world? I cannot find it. Is there sadness? It is ever with me, a
kelpworm stinging my side.-
Suddenly, she twisted around, looking up at something. Her concern
was evident.
-But there was to be a new horror in my life.-
The spiders' shuttle descended from the sky, heading towards the
further parts of the island. A low rumble grew louder, and the shuttle
settled to the ground, disappearing beyond the trees. Weya, in a purely
human gesture of surprise, put her hand to her open mouth.
-That was when the spiders came.-
* * *
The scenes changed, and filled with Jason's own memories.
[Author's note: Does anyone have any better suggestions for a college
setting I can use? Having attended CMU myself, I know the setting, of
course, but do you think I should use a "bigger" name?]
Carnegie Mellon University, where Jason had attended college.
Several variegated buildings were sprawled up and down a steep hill, which
reached five stories high against the side of one of them.
-I can still remember when we first met.-
Highlander Cafe, one of the campus cafeterias. It was some
mealtime or other, and the serving area was crowded with students.
-Seems a bit of a silly way to introduce herself, now that I think
about it.-
Jason was wiping the counter next to a line of juice and soda pop
machines in the front dining room, just slightly hunched over and paying
the rest of the world no attention whatsoever.
To say that he was shy back then would have been an understatement.
"Excuse me..."
-But it was effective. I didn't realize it was her until a bit
later.-
"Excuse me..."
Jason looked up, realizing the girl was talking to him. "Yes? Can
I help you?"
It was Kerin, much younger. Her hair was tied in the back, then,
and was hanging down. She was smiling just so.
He straightened up.
"Do you have any teabags?" she said.
"Sure. Just a sec."
He opened a cabinet under the counter and pulled out a box of plain
teabags, offering one to her as nonchalantly as he could manage.
She frowned slightly. "Umm...how about herb tea?"
Jason looked back at the cabinet, scratching his head
uncomfortably. "We have that too. Raspberry, Earl Gray, Lemon, Mint--"
"I'll have lemon, thank you." She smiled again. It wasn't a
cutesy smile, nor was it sultry. It appeared entirely innocent, and
perfectly beautiful.
He pulled out another box and handed her the teabag she wanted,
avoiding looking at her as much as he could, to mask the nervousness he
felt welling up within.
"Thanks."
"Sure." Jason put the box back inside and closed the cabinet.
Looking back, he saw that she was still standing there.
"Was there something else?"
"Oh." Kerin shook her head. "No, thank you."
She took a teacup and filled it with hot water. Jason began
wiping the counter again, feeling awkwardly self-conscious. As she walked
away, however, with tray and teacup in hand, he let his eyes wander after
her.
-Well, at the time, I *was* feeling a bit lonely. That was the
truth to begin with.-
In front of a building labeled "Doherty Hall", near the entrance.
Even back then, the sprawling building appeared ancient. Students were
walking by.
-I didn't see her again for a couple of days. I had almost
forgotten, but...-
Kerin bounced down the hallway, her hair swinging back and forth,
stopping next to a water fountain where she'd apparently noticed Jason
taking a drink. "Oh, hi. You go here, too?"
"Yes..." he managed after swallowing a sudden lump in his throat.
"But I thought...I mean, I've seen you at Highlander almost every
day this week."
He fidgeted. "Well...I...have rent to afford and bills to pay."
"Must be difficult."
Jason shrugged. "Somewhat."
She started to walk away, then looked back. "See you later, then."
"Bye."
-It was then that I realized what had happened.-
A moment later, Kerin was no longer in sight. Jason, on the other
hand, was still standing there, mouth hanging open. Then he smiled wanly,
laughing to himself.
"This is going to be more difficult than I thought," he muttered,
grinning at the irony of it all.
In front of the main administrative building, next to a long
stretch of grass with nothing but the occasional sidewalk to obscure the
view.
Jason was on his way home.
"Hi!" Kerin said as she walked up the street towards him. She
smiled as he looked up. He had the bad habit of staring at the sidewalk in
front of him all the time.
She must have been coming *from* home. They passed on the steps,
coming up from the street.
"Again. See you later!" He waved, managing a smile of his own
this time.
-We saw a lot of each other after that, I knew what was going on,
and still, I felt happier than I had been in a while.-
"Wait a minute." Kerin stopped.
"Hmm?"
"Are you working tonight?"
"Huh?" Jason slipped, barely keeping his balance, landing on the
next step down. "No..."
-She'd managed to take me completely by surprise. I still wasn't
really ready for a girl who actually took interest in me, even though I
knew Kerin had ulterior motives.-
She smiled. "Great! How about dinner?"
He chuckled softly. "That's...different," he said, pausing for
effect, and not nervousness, this time.
"Oh, uhh..." And this time, it was she who was at a bit of a loss.
Jason shook his head. "No no, that's fine! How about lasagna?"
"Sounds good. Where shall we go?"
"My place."
Kerin blinked at him, a bit confused. "Are we ordering out?"
"No, I'm cooking it." Maybe he was showing off a little, but he
wanted the chance to talk in private.
She smiled again. "Terrific! What time?"
"Six."
"Fine."
"Right inside the front of Cyert Hall." Jason pointed to the next
building down the street. "I'll walk you to my apartment from there. It's
only a few minutes away."
She waved, and started up the steps again. "All right, I'll see
you then."
Jason walked down the steps leading to the street, with a
big-stupid-grin on his face.
-Terrific, indeed. As long as I didn't get carried away. Of
course, that didn't seem to matter as much anymore.-
-Over the next few years until I graduated, nothing much happened.
I 'leaked' tidbits, but nothing important. After all, antigravity and time
travel? Meanwhile, I never did find out just which agency was keeping an
eye on me. Well...except that it wasn't the BATF. They weren't the subtle
type.-
-After I finally graduated, we still kept in touch. But I wasn't
to see her again until a year later, when I started Blue Lightning,
Incorporated.-
* Communication
Weya and Jason both removed their telepathy burets, and the
memories faded away like a half-remembered dream.
Jason shook his head in wonder, staring at her. "I'm not sure what
to say."
John quirked an eyebrow. "You could at least say, 'Thank you'."
Jason smirked. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
Then he frowned again. "But...." he stuttered. "Images, sounds,
feelings. They all flashed past so quickly..." How could he even begin to
explain what he'd seen? he thought to himself.
Jason gazed at Weya, and said, "In the span of a few seconds,
I've just relived both Weya's and my lifetimes. It was absolutely
incredible."
He sighed. "I can tell you this much. That wasn't filtered
through the spiders' language the way Tom said he would design it, it was
pure thought." Not unless Tom and John together had pulled off a miracle,
anyway: perfect, one hundred percent accurate translation. "I wonder how
she did it..."
"Well, don't leave me in the dark," John grumped. "What's going
on?"
Jason shrugged. "I don't think she knows."
"Now that *really* helps," John grumbled petulantly.
"Well, I remember them building most of those machines over at the
construction site, but not much else. Except..."
"Except what?" he said.
"It was something one of the spiders said, near her. 'It must
never happen again'. It doesn't make any sense."
"You're right, it doesn't," muttered John. "Now make yourself
useful. Get the food back that they took from me."
Jason's stomach rumbled, but he managed to ignore it. He pointed
at the translator. "You know this only works one way."
"So? You're good at talking with your hands. Now's the time."
John was being pedantic, as usual, Jason thought to himself.
"Thanks," he muttered sarcastically. "But I don't think that's gonna
work."
John glared at him, exasperated. "What else can we do? Mark's
probably a vegetable by now, his arachnophobia and all. We can't stay
here. Do something."
John was beginning to get on his nerves. "Look I appreciate--"
"Zyason," said the fluted voice.
Huh? She...spoke?? Jason thought to himself in amazement, looking
at her again.
Weya pointed at her buret, then at him.
He replaced his buret.
-Jason, listen to me. Whatever we do, we need to do it together.
The spiders never realized we were intelligent. We have to prove them
wrong.- Her lilting, musical voice echoed softly in his head. She had
picked up almost perfect English instantly.
So...that was it, he thought. -Okay, I have an idea.-
Weya nodded stiffly, seeing the thoughts take shape in his mind.
Her neck was less flexible than most humans'. -It *might* work. Shall we
try?-
Jason stood up. "John, come on. Let's go."
You sure they'll let us leave?" He closed his suitcase.
"Of course. They're coming with us."
His jaw dropped about three stories. "W-H-A-T??"
Jason chuckled. "Finally got a reaction out of you. Come on."
The spiders, naturally, tried to stop them, but were more curious
than anything else. They followed the three of them down the corridor, and
Mark joined the parade very reluctantly.
-Weya, we'll work this out together. I promise you that.-
She smiled. Or tried, rather. It came out rather well, all things
considered.
The two scoutcraft, John's (carrying Mark, separate from the
spiders and the rest of them) and Jason's, flew into the sky.
Getting from the scoutcraft bay to the bridge was something of an
adventure. However, the ladders were not the only paths between the decks
of the ship. "Good thing I bothered to put stairs in here," Jason said to
no one in particular, smiling.
Ryo, who had been keeping a lazy watch at the nav console, gaped.
"Houseguests?"
Jason shrugged. "You could say that." He was sure Ryo wouldn't
mind, though. Ryo enjoyed being around people, even if these happened to
look like overgrown tarantulas.
Weya sat down at the nav console, tapping experimentally at the
controls, while the spiders huddled together nervously.
Jason stared at her. "Wait a second. Just how much did you get
from me?"
-Everything.-
He frowned. -Strange. I saw only bits and pieces.-
-I'm sorry about your husband.- Jason thought to her, hesitantly.
She looked away. -Don't be. He died saving the entire village.
That means something, doesn't it?-
"I guess it does. But it still hurts, down deep. It still
hurts..."
Ryo looked at Jason curiously. "Did I miss something?"
"It's personal. Do me a favor, will you Ryo? Tell Tom I'll
need two voders ASAP."
"Okay." He headed for the ladder.
One way communication wasn't going to work, Jason had realized.
Since the translators could theoretically work both ways, all they needed
was an electronic voicebox. A voder.
He glanced back at the viewscreen. The planet seemed a little
closer.
-Weya, what are you doing?-
-Putting the ship into orbit. When we return our guests, we'll
take them directly to their ship. That way, we'll get the same tour you're
about to give Krrlik and Uyykevk.-
Jason grinned. -How'd you guess?-
The tour was uneventful, which was remarkable in itself considering
the fact that it was an interspecies contact. Still, there wasn't all that
much to show the spiders. The scoutcraft bays they'd seen already, as well
as the park and the ship's garden. Jason settled for touring the infirmary
and the computer mainframe room, for the most part.
The tour ended two hours later, back in the park, where Tom
greeted them all with the promised voders.
Weya let her eyes roam over the landscape of the park, and
chuckled at the halfhearted imitation of nature, her voice tinkling like a
gentle rain. -Nice atmosphere, for a spaceship.-
Jason smiled. -Thanks.-
She sat down, hanging her feet in the brook.
"You two ready?" asked Tom.
"Plug us in."
The two spiders looked on curiously, while he handed out the
voders. Each was designed to be worn like a necklace, with a connecting
lead and an interface for the translator apparatus.
"I'm acquiring a headful," Jason grumbled in mock annoyance.
"That's not my fault." Tom smiled.
The grinding noise filled the air.
Finally, communication took place. Jason and Weya explained
almost without having to explain that the sea-dwellers were more
intelligent than they had first surmised. Certainly not the 'smart
monkeys' the spiders had expected. Why had they expected that? The
spiders would only give the "long story" excuse.
"<...You probably realize now that all you had to do was ask
them,>" Jason was saying. "<They would have helped you voluntarily, I'm
sure, if it was that important.>"
"<Realize that we do, yes,>" said Uyykevk. "<Changes nothing.
Must still be repaired our ship.>"
Jason had noticed almost immediately that the translator wasn't
perfect. It did translate the words well enough, but not the grammar or
syntax.
Krrlik, the black spider, chimed in. "<Have lost many who slept.
Will die more if hurry we do not.>"
"<I can volunteer my crew. With their technological know-how and
the iron you're about to mine from the surface-->"
"<--we can repair your ship a lot sooner.>" Weya smiled a human
smile, looking at Jason.
"<Grateful are we. Sorry are we to have caused pain to you.>"
"<Let's not worry about that now. What's done is done. Let's save
your people.>"
There had been enough misunderstandings for one day. Jason took
out his communicator. "Tom, we'll need some more help. Sorry to bother
you again, but this is gonna be a big job."
It didn't take more than two days after the iron was mined to
repair the spiders' ship. Fortunately, there were no more casualties in
their hibernation units.
A new era was beginning. Peace, even cooperation between the
spiders and the sea-dwellers, had finally come to pass. Very fortunate,
since they both originally came from the same world.
* Discovery
Ty flipped on the projector. The screen lit up, showing pairs of
strands of greyish-black material speckled with whitish stripes. Weya's
and the spiders' DNA -- Ty's current genetic project.
"That's right, there's a 97% match between the two," Ty said.
"There's your theory."
Jason nodded his approval. "I was pretty certain to begin with.
That fossilized spider couldn't have gotten there any other way."
"Just out of curiosity, how do we compare?" He said after another
moment.
"With humans, there's about an 80% correlation. Still fairly
impressive."
"I'd say." Jason nodded at Weya, who was sitting uncomfortably in
a chair, looking disinterested at what was very likely a remarkable
discovery. -What say we take a look at that cave, Weya? I'd like to get a
look at those myself.-
She sighed, a whisper of weary tones. -If that's what you want.-
"Ty, have Eric meet me in bay four in 20 minutes, okay?" Jason had
a feeling a little geology wouldn't be out of the question.
"No problem. Mind if I come along?"
"Sure. Join the party."
Weya took much greater interest once the scoutcraft neared the
planet. She marveled at seeing her world from space, as they drew closer
and closer to it, finally diving into the atmosphere. She giggled
contentedly as the ship flew through cloud bank after cloud bank, and then
directed them out over the wide oceans to watch the local sea life swim and
dart about, just under the surface.
For her, it was one thing to see it as part of Jason's memories.
It was something entirely different to explore her world from above,
herself. It was heartening for Jason to watch her.
It was almost three hours later before the scoutcraft settled onto
the beach, next to the prairie, and the four of them walked out.
-Lead the way, Weya.- thought Jason.
The grass came up to their waists, making wading through it a bit
difficult. Shortly, they reached the dark opening Jason remembered from
Weya's memories.
-I'll go first. Hold the light for me to see.- Jason repeated it
aloud.
Jason gestured to Ty, who held up a softly glowing halogen rod. He
carefully crept down the unsteady rocks, reaching the cave floor with few
difficulties.
Weya quickly joined him.
-This is it,- she thought, gesturing at the cavern before them.
Jason began to look over the fossilized remains, quickly locating
the spider, while Eric made his way down. -Not a pretty sight,- he thought
in return as he gazed at the fossil.
Without turning around, he said, "Eric, get a sample of this. I'd
like to see how old it is."
Eric slipped, landed on the floor behind Jason, then caught the
light that Ty dropped from above him and walked over.
"You're not gonna be able to date it that way," Eric explained.
"Carbon 14 dating only works for much more recent stuff. The way it's
crumbing, I can tell it's way too old."
Jason grimaced. "Suggestions, then?"
"There might be other radioactive trace elements in the fossil, but
I can't guarantee it. That's the easy way."
"Should I even ask?" Jason had a feeling this *wasn't* going to be
easy.
"We look for traces of datable radioactive material in this strata,
and date the fossil that way," Eric said.
Eric knew geology about as well as Newton understood physics. Even
back in high school, the teachers themselves would come to him to ask
questions about it, or so Eric had claimed. Later on, he'd kept up to date
with all of the latest developments, even though his degree was in computer
science. It was mostly a hobby, he'd said, but he was good at it.
On the other hand, he'd never given his reasons for joining the
crew and putting his life on the line. Jason thought him a little too
flippant to be that dedicated to something as dangerous as the Blue
Lightning project, and so had had Mark keep a watchful eye on him.
Nevertheless, they were in need of an expert geologist for just such
occasions as these, and Jason hadn't been able to afford to reject Eric out
of hand.
It was an unsettling position to be in, for both of them.
"Damn," Jason grumbled. "All right, let's get some help here."
Pulling out his communicator, he activated it. Mark, you available?"
Click. "Not another problem, I hope."
"Not this time. You get to date a fossil."
"Tessa would not appreciate that," he said sarcastically.
Jason smiled. "Oh, I don't know. I think it looks kinda cute."
Mark sighed. "All right, I'll be down in a few minutes."
Teresa and Mark were friends from way back. The two of them had
met in the dojo, and Mark had convinced her that joining the project would
be a good career move. Mark was quite a salesman when he wanted to be.
Tessa had settled into her position as red shirt, though she never
went without her black belt. She and Mark weren't an item, or at least
neither of them would admit to it when seriously pressed. Mark did
occasionally joke about it, though, which made life interesting for the
crew.
Jason put away the communicator, suddenly curious about the
metallic canister Weya had discovered. Weya herself had realized that it
was important somehow. He gestured to Eric, and headed for the far end of
the cavern. "Eric, bring that light over here."
The crew gathered around the broken canister. "This has to be what
killed them," Jason murmured. "Wonder what it was."
"Your guess is as good as mine," said Eric, shrugging.
"But not his," Jason answered, nodding at Ty. "Ty, we'll load this
up and ship it back to your lab. You and John should be able to come up
with something on it."
"I'll see what I can do," Ty said.
"Good. Weya and I will take a look around the area. You guys can
work on this problem."
Beep, went Jason's communicator. He pulled it out and pressed it.
"All right, I'm here," Mark's voice grumbled. "Where's the date?"
"I've got your dead spider right here."
Jason could hear him clenching his teeth. "I hate you, Jason."
* * *
Jason had the idea that the fossils and the canister weren't the
only remnant of the catastrophe, so long ago. He didn't know what he was
looking for, but needed more to work with.
For hours, he and Weya flew onward, covering great sweeps of the
continent in the flitter. They might have passed the elusive evidence
they were looking for, for all they knew--buried in the forest, or long
rusted away. Weya, for her part, was excited at the prospect of exploring.
-Weya, tell me about your world,- Jason thought, provoking a
wistful gaze from her as they flew.
-There is much even I have not seen,- she replied. -The continent
is vast, and the sea villages have little contact with each other. We are
an isolationist people by nature.-
-But not you,- Jason murmured, and she tilted her head just so, in
what he understood was the equivalent of a nod. -Why?-
Muted, echoing thoughts flowed from her. I am an outast. No, that
is not all. I am cast out from my people, yet I do not want to be alone.
Why have they done this? The elders are not fit to rule. No, that is not
true! They provide for us as best they are able. Then why could they not
help me?
Jason said nothing. There was nothing he could say. The pain she
felt was all too familiar, and he had not conquered it either.
With a visible effort, Weya stifled her melancholy thoughts. -I'm
sorry, I should not have burdened you with that. I don't know why.-
Jason shook his head. -Don't worry about offending me at all.
I've dealt with it before.-
-I know,- thought Weya. -I shouldn't have, nonetheless.-
-Did you ever stop to think that maybe *they* are simply being
closed-minded? Your world isn't as tiny as theirs is, and it could be that
they're afraid of what's really out there.-
Weya turned to gaze at him curiously, genuinely surprised by his
words. -Could it possibly be that simple?-
Jason smiled. -Maybe.-
She began to laugh, a pleasant, tinkling whistle. -Thank you,- she
imagined at him, continuing to burble happily. It was a long, long time
before she stopped.
It was several minutes after that, that something glinted in the
distance. Weya saw it first, and pointed.
The something turned out to be the rusting structure of what was
once a small building.
-Not much to look at.- Jason thought, bringing the flitter up to a
small rise overlooking the ruins.
Weya glanced at him. -Its existence tells us a lot. They must
have built this very solidly.-
They left the flitter behind, climbing down the dusty hillside to
the ruins below.
The foundation was overgrown with weeds, and rubble covered the
area. They stepped carefully around a few fallen girders, and then Jason
stumbled over something in the undergrowth.
Ouch! Jason thought to himself, and looked down. They had to
clear away some of the weeds, but soon an old, steel-reinforced trapdoor
was revealed beneath the scrub.
-Well, tripping over it was one way to find it,- Jason thought with
a weary smile. He tugged on the rusty handle of the trapdoor, but it
wouldn't budge.
-It's stuck,- Jason thought. -Together, then?-
Weya imagined a nod at him, provoking a lighthearted chuckle.
With an agonizing creak, the trapdoor slowly opened. Weya was by
far the stronger, surprisingly, Jason quickly realized.
Below, a metal stairway descended into the darkness. The stairs,
amazingly enough, showed little sign of rust.
Somewhere below, a room slowly brightened, and they stopped. -Now
this is really odd,- Jason thought. - Still power, even after centuries.-
They ventured carefully down the stairs, and Weya wandered into the
room. Huge computer banks lined the walls. Knee-high pillars topped with
beds of gravelly sand--chairs, perhaps--were spaced along the room at even
intervals.
After a moment, Jason realized with a shock that some were still
occupied, beckoning Weya to come and look.
She touched one of the creatures, covered in cobwebs and dust.
Immediately, it crumbled and began to settle into the sand, but not before
they identified it for what it was.
-A spider,- Jason thought to her, and she imagined a nod back
again. -This must have been a research center of some kind. It was nearly
airtight, but they still died.- He shrugged sadly. -Luckily, your people
survived this, somehow.-
Weya continued exploring the room, wandering to the far side of the
chamber. There was a door, and several more panels of electronic
equipment.
Jason, standing next to the dusty remains, sighed. -But there has
to be something here!-
-I think there is,- Weya answered. -This bank still has power.-
She gestured at the computer equipment she had been poring over.
-What?-
Jason quickly joined her, and looked. A few, dim lights blinked on
the console in front of them. -You're right,- he thought. -I can't read
anything, though. We'll tell the spiders about it later, then.-
At the end of the hall, a large, steel door blocked the way.
-Locked,- thought Jason after an experimental tug. -That's it then.-
Motioning to Weya, he thought, -Let's go.-
Outside, a low growl sounded.
Jason flinched visibly. -Uh oh.-
A catlike creature had been stalking the ruins. Seeing them, it
began to creep closer. The thing was large, almost six feet long. A ring
of ribbed, greenish bone snaked around its neck, and its feet, taloned like
a hawk's, flexed in anticipation.
-Climb down that stairway again, very slowly,- Jason thought,
trembling with raw fear.
Weya gave him a worried glance. -What are you going to do?-
It didn't waste any time. Less than six feet away, it hissed with
the satisfaction only a predator could know.
-I'll be right behind you!- he thought desperately, silently urging
her to go.
The creature didn't wait. It leaped.
-Run!- Jason dived for the stairs, but too late. Claws dug into
his neck, tearing. He slumped dizzily, faint under the searing pain.
Suddenly, an ear-shattering squeal pierced the air, and the
creature fell away, cringing. Jason's voder, torn from around his neck and
ripped to pieces, dropped beside it. And the trapdoor fell into place
above them.
Safe.
She looked at Jason, her mouth wide with what he recognized as
near-shock. -It had you back there. You could have been killed.-
-I was lucky,- he replied lamely.
She hugged him tightly, nearly crying. -Don't ever frighten me
like that again.-
He nodded slowly. -I promise.- And then he was silent.
Weya had almost forgotten what it was like to care about someone,
Jason knew. So had he. The pain had buried it deep, but somehow she'd
found it.
* * *
It was time to get some answers from the spiders. What had
happened on the planet below them, so long ago?
Returning to Blue Lightning and stopping by the infirmary to
bandage Jason's injuries, Jason and Weya exchanged their flitter for a
scoutcraft. They set out for the spiders' sleeper ship, orbiting the
planet just beneath Blue Lightning.
The scoutcraft entered an octagonal portal in the sleeper ship,
which promptly slid closed. Weya and Jason were greeted by two of the
spiders upon their arrival, and escorted into a low room.
"<Uyykevk!>" Jason's new voder squealed, as the two of them walked
down the corridor. "<Nice to see you again. And this is?>"
"<Hkkex this is. Pleased am I that here are you. Our thanks we
give again, Weya.>"
Jason gathered his thoughts together. "<Uyykevk, we have a few
questions we'd like to ask.>"
"<About Great Death, yes. Tell you we will.>"
"<Long is story. Will take some time to tell.>" Hkkex ventured.
Jason nodded. "<Go ahead, Hkkex.>"
"<Then our story this is,>" he began.
* Long Goodbye
"One last job. Then you get a well-deserved vacation." Jason
smiled at Tom.
He grinned. "Thanks. What do you need?"
"Nothing much. I need a set of gills."
The grin disappeared. "That's going to be a bit difficult."
Jason shook his head. "It shouldn't be, with John helping you. I
need a mask that I can wear to breathe water."
"Taking a swim?"
"Off the deep end, Mr. Scott." I smiled.
"What?" He frowned.
"Never mind. I'll see you later. Take your time."
That night, the crews of both ships relaxed, descending to the
island to ease the remaining tensions they all felt. A space had been
cleared out near the cliff, under the stars. Mark had set up his keyboard,
and the rest of us relaxed, enjoying the somewhat dated music...
"Sweet dreams are made of these
Who am I, to disa-gree?
I travel the world, and the seven seas
Everybody's lookin' for something."
The music continued long into the night. Even the spiders seemed
to enjoy it, though they weren't the type to let on about it, much to
Mark's relief.
After a while, Weya and Jason left the others behind, and wandered
out along the beach.
-So much has happened, to both of us,- Jason thought, looking out
over the quietly murmuring sea. The moonlight caressed the ocean waves,
glittering brightly, flitting from crest to crest. Tiny crabs scurried
along the shore, always in danger of being washed into the sea by the
irregular tides, and a large, dappled bird circled lazily overhead, eyeing
the roving shellfish hungrily.
Weya smiled faintly. -Now isn't the time to think about that, is
it?-
He stopped, facing her. -Better now than later. We're going to
have to leave soon.- The bird left them behind, its great wings flapping
softly into the night.
The smile became a grimace. -Why? Can't you stay for a few
months, at least?-
Jason looked down. -I think you know the answer to that.-
She nodded, more easily this time, understanding. -It's her isn't
it.- Weya looked away, wistful. -You can't forget about her, can you?-
-Not if there's any chance of saving her, no. Would you?-
-I...- She stuttered. This time, Jason could feel her sadness.
-I'm sorry,- he thought quickly, realizing how selfish he must have
sounded to her. It was a common failing of his. He never heard himself
talk, Mark had always told him.
-Wait. Yes, I would, because he died saving my village. Changing
that would mean directly changing what happened. I can't risk my village
to save his life.- She was very sure of herself, but Jason felt her
wishing desperately otherwise.
Then how can I do the same? Jason thought to himself sadly,
feeling ashamed.
She faced him again, shaking her head. -But your situation is
different. You *can* save her. You're right about that.-
-But that might change what's happened here. Do I have the right
to risk that?- Jason was asking himself that more than Weya. But after a
moment...
She looked away suddenly, and Jason felt a hot shame from her. She
didn't want to tell him that he not only had the right, but the obligation,
to risk the lives of every sea-dweller left on her planet for Kerin's sake.
Jason could understand that much, but Weya cringed away from letting him
probe further. There was something she couldn't bring herself to tell him,
and he chose not to press her.
I'm being selfish, aren't I? he thought despondently. Why can't I
forget about her?
-You can't feel that way about it. Your feelings about her are no
more selfish than mine about my husband. She deserves a chance to live.-
-You heard that? But...-
She faced me again, and Jason could see just how much it hurt her
to say it. -But you can *do* something about that. I can't. I don't have
that choice. You do, and it's yours to make.-
-I know. But why does it have to hurt so much?-
There were times when words weren't enough.
They had shared something. Something neither of them wanted to
come to terms with. But in the end...
* * *
Several weeks went by, as the island was restored. The mining
equipment, the construction site, and the landing pad all vanished,
replaced by greenish violet grass. The spiders were welcome to share a
home, but the island would remain natural and free.
During that same time, the sea-dwellers who had been captured to
work for the spiders were freed, their hypnotic translators removed. They
had been grateful to Weya, but were reluctant to remain on the island with
her.
Jason and Weya knew that it was time for her to return home, and so
one morning they walked down to the beach together. Jason would visit her
people for the first time.
-How long does it take to reach your village?- Jason asked,
fumbling with the oxymask Tom had made for him.
-Only about an hour or so.-
The mask on halfway, he stopped. -An hour?-
Weya smiled. -It'll be just fine. You won't notice it at all.-
Jason finished putting the mask on. -If you say so.-
They waded in together, Weya leading the way. The sea was cool and
brisk, sending a shiver through Jason's body.
Jason thought for a moment, then grinned inwardly, and jumped--legs
splayed--into the water, sending it spraying up in all directions.
Weya looked back at him, drenched, and grinning. With her finned
arm, she cut a wide swath across the water, sending a sheet in Jason's
direction. It missed, barely.
He played golf, sending a stream back at her. It didn't miss.
Weya dived into the water, and Jason followed.
They avoided the reef, both of them remembering just how many
kelpworms dwelt there. Minutes passed, and she began to pull farther and
farther ahead, at one point passing through a small school of fish.
She was faster and more agile in the water, in her element. But
Jason was better at hide and seek. Several tall fronds of seaweed
presented themselves, and there he waited for her to come back looking for
him.
She did, after several minutes, and when she passed in front of
him...
-Gotcha!- he thought, grabbing her from behind with a mischievous
grin.
She turned, smiling. -Jason...-
For a moment, they held each other. Then Jason leaned forward to--
-Hey, who put that there?- Just above her mouth was a bony ridge,
which grew over her tiny nose. Nature was keeping them apart.
-That's not my fault. Who designed your lips?-
After a moment, Jason sighed and smiled again, and they swam on.
It took them rather longer than an hour, as they allowed further
pleasant distractions to slow their progress. Finally, the village
appeared ahead, and a few sea-dwellers swam out to greet Weya stiffly.
Then they noticed Jason.
Weya smiled inwardly. There were the same two guards.
"-Weya, what have you done?-" said one.
"-Call the elders, Ukal'el. I will not wait long.-" This time, it
wasn't the voice of a frightened child fleeing the neighborhood bully. It
was the voice of a calm leader, who knew when she had won.
The guards swam into the grotto, and she gazed at Jason. -Soon.-
Less than ten minutes later, the guards returned, escorting the two
of them into the chamber of the circle. A hastily gathered assembly of
elders awaited them.
"-We will listen,-" one of the elders said. "-But you must speak
before the people.-"
The sea-dwellers began to gather outside, answering the call of the
elders. Usually only issued in cases of danger to the village, most were
fearful and uncertain of what to expect. Finally, the elders emerged, and
Weya and Jason followed.
Weya looked around at the assemblage of sea-dwellers calmly, and
began. "-My people, you now know that our brothers and sisters have
returned from above. The spider-creatures who controlled them are now our
friends. I bring he who helped to make this possible, to show all that
awaits us. He who brings our peoples together.-"
"-The spider-creatures never intended any harm, but were desperate
for help. Almost three billion years ago, they left our planet fleeing a
terrible plague, and have only now returned. Their ship was damaged during
their long journey, and without our help, and his help, many would have
died. The spiders now offer us a chance to explore not only our own world,
but the stars above it, if we will but show ourselves willing to open our
arms to them.-"
Weya hadn't mentioned that the spiders had made the mistake of
assuming the sea-dwellers had still been primitives, as they had been
before the spiders' departure. Since then, the sea-dweller civilization
had risen and fallen many times, though they had remained highly
intelligent. Perhaps it was for the best that it hadn't been said, Jason
thought. It was, after all, the time to be letting those mistakes lie in
the past, and worry instead about the future.
"-I am sorry, Weya. When I was unwilling to take the risk, you
risked everything to save our brothers and sisters. I thank you, Weya.
All of us thank you.-" The First Speaker smiled at her warmly, pursing his
lips just so, for the first time.
"-Let us hope that the future will be bright for both peoples!-"
Jason whistled through the voder, hoping that it would render his words
properly. The sudden cheering assured him that it had.
-We should go,- he thought to Weya, who imagined a nod in
understanding.
* * *
There was still much to be done, but it was up to Weya and her
people now. Nevertheless, Jason and the rest of the crew remained
planetbound for the remainder of the month. Temporary shelters were being
set up near the shores of the continent, but it would be months, or years
yet, before any permanent dwellings would be ready, as far as Jason knew.
The crew mingled with the spiders and sea-dwellers, enjoying shore
leave, after a fashion. They had not been able to truly relax while on
Earth, and they were long overdue for a much-needed rest from the cares
and concerns they had left behind.
Weya now had a prominent reputation among her people, but very few
were able to truly befriend her and win her trust. Those that did were
invited to help with the construction effort on the continent, as she found
herself feeling more at home with the spiders, than with her own people.
It was something new for a culture that had changed little for millions of
years.
Finally, Jason and his crew were ready to leave. They could easily
have stayed for months on end without difficulty, but there was work to be
done. Their presence would be more of a hindrance than a help.
The sun was setting. A few clouds, all bright pink, floated right
above it over the sea. A gentle breeze from the ocean brushed through the
clearing, mingling with the small group who had assembled to see off the
group of humans.
-Thank you for staying,- thought Weya, standing at the front of the
crowd of curious onlookers.
Jason smiled warmly. -I'm glad I did. And I'll be back soon.-
She smiled back. -When you find Kerin. I'm looking forward to
meeting her.-
-I'm sure she'll feel the same about you, Jason thought. -Take
care of yourself, Weya.- And for a long moment, we stood there in silence.
Jason tilted his head to one side, and missed the bony ridge this
time.
"Awww..." Mark grinned, happy to rib Jason at such a tender
moment, but grudgingly approving nonetheless. "What are friends for, if
not to give goodbye kisses?" he thought to himself in wry amusement, not
realizing just how wrong he was.
Standing at the top of the scoutcraft's exit ramp, Jason waved.
-Soon.-
The ramp lifted and closed, and the scoutcraft ascended into the
air, hovering for an instant.
Then the scoutcraft soared into the sky, now a ruddy, sunset
purple. Gleaming in the light of the sun hovering just above the horizon,
the small group of sea-dwellers and spiders below watched it, until it
finally disappeared into the glory of the sunset.
-Soon.- She agreed.
The spherical ship drifted away from the planet, picking up speed.
Blue Lightning passed the larger moon, heading into open space.
-I'll never forget you, Weya.- Jason thought into the void.
Maybe it was an afterthought, or an echo. But somehow, Jason
didn't think so.
-You will always be a part of my heart.-
And the voice in his mind trailed off into silence...
* Transition
It had been two weeks since they had left the sea-dwellers' planet.
Several jumps had failed to bring the ship any closer to Earth, and so Chris,
the astronavigator, was scanning their surroundings in hopes of finding a
clue to the dilemma.
Jason needed solitude. He didn't want to deal with Mark's prying
questions, or anyone else's. But the park was occupied this time.
There was a dark haired, masculinely heavyset woman standing next
to the tree. Who? thought Jason, frowning.
"Sorry, I didn't realize anyone was here," he mumbled. "I'll
leave."
"No, it's okay," said the woman.
Reluctantly, Jason sat down next to her, beside the brook. "You're
Mark's friend, aren't you?" he ventured.
"Yes."
Jason had met Tessa a long time ago, briefly. She and Mark had
been working out together, both attending the same Tae Kwon Do school. She
had seemed the decent sort, Jason thought, although a bit shy.
After several long minutes of uncomfortable silence, searching for
something innocuous to say, Jason was ready to give up. It wasn't the time
to be renewing acquaintances anyway, he thought, and stood up, ready to
walk away.
"Wait...what's wrong?" Tessa didn't feel comfortable prying, but
she felt even less comfortable just letting Jason go.
"I really need to be alone right now."
Concerned, she frowned. "I heard about what happened down there
on the planet. Is that it?"
"No, I just...I really need to be alone." Jason turned away, not
wanting her to see the tears, and certainly not wanting to explain them.
"What you need is a little cheering up." She casually rested a
hand on his shoulder. "How about I make dinner tonight?"
"That's kind of you to offer." Jason kept his voice steady.
"No trouble at all."
He nodded, and headed for the ladder. "Then I'll see you later.
Thanks again."
How long? How long will it take...? thought Jason, heaving a
melancholy sigh.
He collapsed onto his bunk, and the door slid closed. Not five
minutes later, it opened again, and Mark walked in. "I hear you've been
feeling a little down lately."
Jason shrugged. "I guess so." Damn, he's fast, he thought to
himself, mildly annoyed that Tessa had talked.
Mark planted himself in a chair. "You ready to talk about it?"
"Not really, but you're not gonna go away until I do, are you?"
"Course not. That's what friends are for." He grinned
sympathetically.
Jason sighed. "I just can't seem to get her off my mind. For a
while on the planet I could forget, but..."
Mark nodded in understanding. "Now it's hitting you all over
again. Tessa was right, you know. You need a little something to cheer
you up."
It's going to be a long time before I'll ever feel happy again, if
at all, Jason thought resignedly to himself. But he didn't want to argue
with Mark about it, so he kept silent.
Then Jason looked up at Mark. "Tell me something. Do you think
I'm being selfish? Trying to save Kerin, that is."
"You might call that selfish. I'd call it something else. You
gotta go with what's in here, man." Mark held a hand over his heart.
Jason took a long moment to mull his advice over, finally rejecting
it. "Maybe. Maybe you're right," He said as reassuringly as he could
manage.
"Course I'm right. Come on." Mark stood up and walked to the
door.
Jason shook his head. "No, I'll stay here for a bit."
"Suit yourself."
The door opened and closed, and Jason was alone again.
In the end, though, it was his heart that made the decision anyway.
"I'll find you, Kerin," he whispered. "That's a promise."
The mess hall was crowded that evening. Even Chris had showed up.
She had been pouting almost the entire time since the ship had left Earth,
having been 'forced' to join the team under rather unaccommodating
circumstances.
The entire crew were all gathered together, sitting around two long
tables, except for Mark and Tessa, who were serving. Scattered around the
room were several smaller tables and matching chairs, adding a small touch
of homeliness to the dining area.
Mark and Tessa had prepared dinner together, Jason surmised. It
smelled Italian, which was promising.
Jason started forward, picking out a seat on one end of the nearer
table, next to John. Seated across from him were Andrea and Ty, the only
married couple among the crew.
A wry smile crept onto Jason's face, as he remembered the long,
protracted argument he had had with Mark over their recruitment.
"Supposing the government gets to one of them," Mark had said. "Wouldn't
that compromise the loyalties of the other one?" But Jason had been
adamant.
Still, Andrea was nothing if not fragile. She could endure
anything, she had said, but putting her in danger would compromise the
entire crew's loyalties, not merely Ty's alone. Jason had worked hard to
give the crew a sense of community, and most of them were the better for
it.
That wasn't to say that there weren't exceptions. Chris had kept
pretty much to herself, and had consistently refused to open up to anyone.
Nevertheless, her skills more than compensated for her lack of social
graces.
Jason sat down. Mark was serving the other table, and Tessa was
keeping a lid on the main entree, at his own table. She grinned slyly when
she noticed Jason eyeing the pan she held, but was careful to serve the
food to the crew behind dish covers, which she left on everyone's plates,
so that he couldn't see.
Jim was sitting to his right. He was a bulky oriental, who looked
as if he would have been more at home in a wrestling ring than on a
spaceship. "Guten tag," he murmured over the scattered conversations, and
Jason nodded nonchalantly in his direction. Jim's was the position of
linguist, just as Ryo's was. Jason had decided that any contact with an
alien race would require a pool of talent that couldn't be filled by a
single individual, and how true that had proved already, although not in
the way he had expected.
Tessa marched up behind him and took his plate, shortly returning
it with a layered pasta dish that could only be lasagna. The ship's stores
held no meat, but Jason smiled just the same. "Thanks, to the both of
you," he said. He was half Italian by descent, and had enjoyed the
home-cooked meals his mother had made for him as a boy. It was Jason's
father who had taught her how to prepare them, however. He was the Italian
of the family, and had passed the appreciation of his favorite dish on to
Jason.
Finished serving, Mark and Tessa joined them. "I'd like to
dedicate this piece of lasagna to a very large stomach," Mark drolled
after tucking himself into his chair.
"Whose would that be?" Jason replied with a wry grin.
Tessa glared at the two of them with mock exasperation. "Enough,
you two clowns. Eat."
A fair amount of chuckling wafted across the room, and forks were
quickly lifted.
As he ate, Jason's mind quickly returned to thoughts of Kerin, and
her unfairly cruel death. Jason still couldn't understand what Weya had
meant. Somehow, in her mind, it was more important for him to go back in
time to rescue Kerin, and risk changing the fact of his saving of Weya's
people, than it was to play it safe. Was it because that was what he
wanted to hear?
No, that couldn't be right, he thought. Weya had known the risks
involved, just as well as he did. It couldn't have worked out any better
for her and her people, and it had hurt her deeply to tell Jason that he
could, and should, change things.
Jason finished his lasagna and laid down his fork, staring morosely
at the empty plate. He knew there had been something that Weya had kept
from him, during their conversation that night on the beach. It was
something important, but she had been too distraught to explain herself,
and Jason had never asked her about it afterwards.
"Hey, there's more," Mark said, noticing his empty plate. "Go get
yourself a piece."
When Jason made no motion to get up, Mark stopped eating his own
food. "Come on now, cheer up," he murmured, giving Jason a worried glance.
A few heads turned, but quickly looked away. Most of the rest of the crew
were unwilling to involve themselves in trying to ease Jason's grief.
Suddenly, Jason looked up at him. "You were right," he said
finally. "I wasn't being selfish."
"Heh?" Mark frowned back.
"I just realized. Something Weya was trying to tell me."
"Well, don't leave us in suspense."
Jason took a trembling breath, sorting out his thoughts. "Weya's
husband died saving her village," he said slowly. "She knows that, and
even though she still loves him, she's willing to forget about him. He
died for a reason." Then he looked away, trying to keep his suddenly
volatile emotions in check. "Kerin's death was pointless, though. Weya
was trying to tell me there's nothing wrong in wishing it otherwise. Not
only that, but there's every possibility that it won't directly affect our
visit to her world."
"I see," said Mark.
"That doesn't make the pain go away, though," Jason murmured
softly.
"Thinking about it never does."
Jason stood up, finally, picking up his empty plate. "I think
I'll take you up on that offer."
"Good," Mark replied, smiling.
That feels a little better, Jason thought to himself, feeling the
knot in his chest finally loosen. And maybe I'll have Weya's company to
look forward to, when I do find Kerin.
* * *
At the park again, later that same evening, Jason sat down under
the tree, watching the swirls and eddies creep past him in the brook at his
feet.
Mark wasn't long in finding him. "What are you doing back here?"
he grumbled, climbing down the ladder. "I thought you were feeling
better." He finished climbing down and walked over to join Jason.
Jason quirked a halfhearted smile. "Hi Mark. I am. I'm just
thinking about Weya."
"And?" Mark prodded.
"I can't help thinking about it. What's going to happen back
there? I mean, they've got all the opportunities in the world. More." He
sighed wistfully. "I hope she'll be happy."
"I'm sure she is already," Mark said.
He thought for a moment, and a mischievous grin crept across his
face. "So tell me, what did you two do with all that time you spent alone
together, just before we left?"
Jason's smile widened. "It's a looong story. But I'd rather not
talk about that."
"Didn't think you would, but I can guess." Mark laughed.
Jason stared at him. "Hey!" Mark had the wrong idea altogether,
he thought in exasperation.
"Don't take it so seriously!" Mark grinned at Jason, waiting for
him to laugh at his joke. It didn't take Mark long to figure out why Jason
wasn't amused, and he sobered up. "You two...?"
"Wasn't it obvious?" Jason gave Mark a disgruntled look, and
turned away. He still wasn't really sure what he was feeling, but Weya had
touched something inside him that he had thought burned away from painful
experience.
"I guess," Mark mumbled, not very happy that he *had* misunderstood
the situation entirely. "It's not like you could hide that sort of thing,
but..."
Jason nodded. "Yeah. You get to know a person pretty well, once
you've been inside their head."
"What was that like?"
"Difficult to explain," he answered, turning around again to face
him. "Let's just say Weya got a lot more from me than I ever expected."
"I guessed as much," said Mark. "She seemed a lot more confident
after that."
"You noticed that?"
He smiled. "I notice a lot of things, and I'm not *that* dense.
It's part of my job, after all." Then he shrugged, and kept prodding.
"What about you? What did you get out of it?"
A wistful look came into Jason's eyes. "Not all that much, really.
I saw some bits and pieces. I *can* tell you that Weya's had a very
painful past, even besides the death of her husband."
Mark was silent for a moment, while he mulled over what Jason had
said. Now it made more sense, that the two of them would grow close.
Their grief had helped them to understand each other, it seemed, and quite
a lot more. Jason hadn't been able to hide anything from her, like he had
with Kerin. Still...
"One last question," Mark continued, finally. "I guess I'm
curious. What was the name of their planet?"
Jason gazed out across the park, letting his thoughts settle on
something rather farther away. "Nefaroo. They called it Nefaroo.
'Precious life'."
* * *
Two weeks had passed on Nefaroo. More of the reawakened spiders
were arriving on the planet every day, now that the sleeper ship had been
locked permanently in orbit. Though the land area of the planet had shrunk
tremendously over the eons since the spiders had left, there was enough
room left to develop a city-sized area on the continent, as well as fashion
floating settlements for the returning inhabitants. The last of the
hibernating spiders would not be revived for years to come, but it was a
new beginning nonetheless.
Weya had elected not to stay with her people, but instead chose to
work with the spiders to begin construction on the continent. With the
sea-dwellers' aid, the city would be home to both peoples. While the
spiders' architecture tended to be stark and unaccommodating, the
sea-dwellers were facile and apt at shaping the natural beauty of the land
to provide for every need. It would be a learning experience for everyone.
Weya still had her own translator and voder, and was called upon to
act as intermediary until a sizeable contingent of the other sea-dwellers
could be similarly equipped. Within another few weeks, however, the first
permanent shelters would be erected on the chosen site. An area of the
wilderness had been carefully cleared, preserving some of the flora for
incorporation into the city, and things were moving quickly already.
In time, she knew that their two peoples would return to the stars
together, ready to seek out the wonders of the universe. She had felt that
longing in Jason's mind, quescient though it was, buried beneath a mountain
of grief, and she wanted to share in it. Perhaps one day they would meet
again.
It was a glorious morning, and the dew was still wet on the ground
when she arrived at the landing pad that had been erected. Another group
of spiders was arriving, and she wanted to welcome them personally. She
was pleasantly surprised to recognize one of the spiders almost
immediately.
"<Krrlik! I had thought that you were to remain on your ship to
oversee the revivification. It is good that you could come, nonetheless.>"
The aged spider separated from the others and bowed slightly,
settling forward on two of his forelegs and then standing straight again.
"<Is good not at all, though pleasant indeed is meeting again. News have
I.>"
Weya blinked. "<News?>"
"<Studied probe from cavern have we, and have found that was no
accident that caused plague that probe. Deliberate it was, but caused it
who know not I. Hope that dead long since are they.>"
She was taken aback. "<D-deliberate? But why? Why would anyone
seek to destroy us?>"
"<Is impossible to know,>" Krrlik replied solemnly. "<Must hope we
that return they do not.>"
Weya nodded, still unable to comprehend deliberate genocide, but
able to see the consequences. "<Otherwise, the Great Death can happen
again. And this time, we will not have the means to save everyone.>"
"<Yes,>" he agreed. "<Go now I must. Much remaining to be done
is there.>" With that, he followed after the departing group of new
arrivals, leaving Weya alone with her thoughts.
She looked up at the sky, thinking... -I hope you do not meet
them, my friend. Whoever they are, they hold no value in life.-
Though her eyes could not tear, her heart cried nonetheless.
-I will miss you, Jason.-
End of Volume 1
* * * * * * *
WARNING -- WARNING -- WARNING -- WARNING -- WARNING
* * * * * * *
Classified material -- Top Secret -- Eyes Only
Project Blue Lightning, project member profiles, as
originally entered 2/19/98 by Mark Stevens.
Jason Hamilton, Male Caucasian
Age 24
Hair Dark brown
Eyes Dark brown
Height 5'7"
Weight 135 lbs
Jason, as the leader of the project, is the biggest
potential security risk. He has refused training
in self defense or use of firearms on numerous
occasions, preferring to leave the duties of personal
defense and security to myself.
His mental stability is unquestionable, as is his
loyalty to the project. However, he is currently
engaged in a semi-serious relationship with one
Kerin Gray, a known intelligence agent. His original
stated purpose for this relationship was to draw the
opposing forces into the open, where security leaks
could be checked before they became problematic.
Unfortunately, his emotions have clouded matters,
although he is very careful not to let anything about
the project itself slip.
Mark Stevens, Male Caucasian
Age 25
Hair Sandy brown/blond
Eyes Blue
Height 5'9"
Weight 162 lbs
I am the security officer for the Blue Lightning
project, and oversee internal communications to
check security leaks before they occur.
John Vost, Male Caucasian
Age 25
Hair Sandy brown/blond
Eyes Blue
Height 5'2"
Weight 126 lbs
John is the medical doctor associated with the project.
He was recruited before graduating from Harvard
University, and never completed his degree for what
he declares are personal reasons. However, his
internship experience and exceptional scholastic
record show him to be an excellent candidate for the
position.
John is opinionated in the extreme, argumentative,
and sarcastic. These character traits may potentially
cause problems during the later stages of the project,
although they were not deemed bad enough to reject him
from candidacy.
Christine Quinn, Female Caucasian
Age 27
Hair Blond
Eyes Green
Height 5'11"
Weight 155 lbs
Chris is the Astronomer/Astronavigational specialist.
Her skills are unequaled, having graduated from
CalTech on a full scholarship, with honors. Her
understanding of the physics and the calculations
involved seems to be intuitive, as far as I am able
to tell. Chris is unapproachable socially, and is
prone to fits of temper when under pressure. She is
competent and capable of doing the job, but may
refuse if she is angry enough. I had recommended
that she not be included for this reason, but was
overruled under protest.
Eric Brandt, Male Caucasian
Age 23
Hair Blond
Eyes Blue
Height 5'10"
Weight 167 lbs
Eric is the geological specialist. SPECIAL NOTE:
He should be watched for any signs of unusual
behavior. If there are any potential security
leaks resulting from questionable loyalties, then
this is the suspect to look at.
Thomas Macmillan, Male Caucasian
Age 24
Hair Brown
Eyes Brown
Height 5'6"
Weight 140 lbs
Tom is the engineering and electronics specialist.
He graduated from Carnegie Mellon U., as did
Jason. Jason himself was the one who selected
Tom for his qualifications, which were substantial,
I have been told. I've seen that he can make
brilliant, intuitive leaps when his work calls
for it, and works very well under pressure. He is
an ideal candidate.
Benjamin Pike, Male Caucasian
Age 26
Hair Black
Eyes Brown
Height 5'11"
Weight 189 lbs
Ben is a physicist who also graduated from
Carnegie Mellon, and who was also personally
selected by Jason himself. Ben's skills are varied
and extensive, but his primary function is to
provide a further technical resource for the
design and construction of Blue Lightning.
[Addition, 3/25/2000, Mark Stevens]
Tylman Dunn, Male Caucasian
Age 25
Hair Brown
Eyes Brown
Height 5'8"
Weight 153 lbs
Ty is the genetics specialist. His skills are
unremarkable, although he is competent enough to
handle the job of investigating and classifying
foreign genetic material.
Ty is married to Andrea, see entry below. Because
government scare tactics include raiding
suspected antigovernment citizens, their house
was destroyed and their infant son murdered in
cold blood. Ty has no love of the government and
even less of the intelligence agencies the
government employs, and so his loyalties are
assured.
[Addition, 3/25/2000, Mark Stevens]
Andrea Dunn, Female Caucasian
Age 25
Hair Brown
Eyes Brown
Height 5'6"
Weight 138 lbs
Andrea is the biologist/zoologist associated with
the project. Her duties consist of investigating
and classifying foreign flora and fauna.
Andrea is very quiet and subdued. Although not
as prone to emotional outbursts as Ty, her
murdered son is enough of an assurance that she
will not be a security risk of and by herself.
[Addition, 7/3/05, Mark Stevens]
Ryo Himitsu, Male Oriental
Age 28
Hair Black
Eyes Brown
Height 5'6"
Weight 145 lbs
Ryo serves as one of the two linguists of
the project. When construction of the ship is
completed and if it succeeds in reaching other
star systems, Ryo will perform consultant duties
and provide necessary linguistic analysis of
local languages, perhaps serving as translator.
I personally doubt we will have the luxury of
actually meeting an alien race.
Ryo's loyalties are not questionable. He has
the simplest reason possible for not wishing to
remain on Earth: he is sick of the killing.
[Addition, 9/11/05, Mark Stevens]
James Tsai, Male Oriental
Age 26
Hair Black
Eyes Brown
Height 5'9"
Weight 180 lbs
Jim's background is unclear, but what is known is
that he lost both parents in an earthquake when
living in Japan as a boy. He survived the rigid
schooling and indoctrination into the 'global
society' there, and was schooled in linguistics as
part of his training to enter the 'global
marketplace'. His loyalties are for his homeland,
but he despises the people who have gutted its
culture, he says, in exchange for a place in the
modern world. He is willing and able to work with
others, but takes his heritage very seriously.
[Addition, 11/20/07, Mark Stevens]
Teresa Wagner, Female Caucasian
Age 25
Hair Black
Eyes Brown
Height 5'8"
Weight 175 lbs
Tessa is solid enough. From years of training
together with her, I know that she wants to practice
her martial arts skills, but refuses to do so for
causes that she does not agree with. Too much
corruption has crept into the police forces, she says
(and I agree), and this is her chance to make use of
her talents for good purposes.
[Addition, 11/27/07, Mark Stevens]
Robert Tyrell, Male Negro
Age 29
Hair Black
Eyes Brown
Height 5'8"
Weight 197 lbs
Rob is a firm believer in people. He trusts those
who treat him fairly, and won't deal with anyone who
doesn't have any regard for common decency. That
places his loyalties beyond question.
Rob is the ship's historian, very well educated in
Earth's history, and the political machinations that
have shaped it. Although he is idealistic, he can
understand the baser motivations of humankind, and so
is able to interpret the evidence of historical
research without much difficulty.
[Addition, 11/28/07, Mark Stevens]
Frank Collera, Male Hispanic
Age 45
Hair Black
Eyes Brown
Height 5'8"
Weight 168 lbs
Frank, or "Lucky", as he prefers to be called, is
precisely that. He was born with two club feet, and
was told by the doctors that he would never walk.
Through sheer determination and bullheadedness, he
has proved them wrong many times, although he cannot
manage more than a hobble. Although political
correctness dogma should have allowed a cripple like
himself a place in the world, the moral corruption
that permeated the industries and the government
prevented him from developing his talents.
His skills are with communications equipment. As he
has the ability to concentrate intensely on the task
at hand, he has taught himself the intricacies of
radio, television, radar, and various other forms of
electronic communication. He has an intuitive feel
for the variables in their standards, and has a knack
for knowing how to compensate for differences in
transmission formats. This skill makes him invaluable
aboard the ship if we ever come into contact with an
advanced alien civilization.
Damon Casale, damoo@universal-net.com
Spam, spam! WONDERFUL spam! ^_^