Mano á Xeno
by Mike Adamson
Engineer First Grade
Cameron White was lucky to have been in EVA armor when
the ship was hit – or cursed.
The Altair was
running in partnership with the Alnilam, two
identical fleet scanning and support vessels, each 300
meters of spaceframe, antennae and engines, charting the
orbital interplay of the ice asteroids trailing the
small gas giant Acrasius C-5, building a dynamic model
of the system. The likelihood of the Sendaaki – the
enemy – using the jumble of ice moons as a duck-blind
from which to strike at Colonial convoys supporting the
Marines on the ground in the Acrasius sector warranted
full survey, despite Fleet Intelligence being unaware of
any previous alien traffic in proximity.
This far behind the zone of main contact, it was deemed a non-combat op,
and the survey ships were running at green, without
escort. The fact the enemy was already there meant more
layers of double-think were in effect than Intel had
allowed for.
White was in aft airlock
trunk 3, preparing to go outside to perform minor
repairs on one of the dozens of scanning masts and
meteoroid shield grid generators. He had just closed is
visor when the warning klaxon brayed suddenly in his
helmet speakers along with a jumble of cries from the
bridge, before the ship lurched sickeningly, hurling him
into a wall. He rebounded, thankful for the tough
exoskeleton of the suit, and his heart rate soared as
acceleration pinned him to a bulkhead, the artificial
gravity out.
Was the ship making an
escape burn? Logic was cruel – he was pinned to a
lateral wall; therefore, the ship was spinning.
Com was filled with static and cries, and none had
answered his own desperate call before the loop crackled
harshly and faded to background EM pulses.
Acceleration lasted
seconds before planing off, then he could move. Servos
whining in his ears, he fought to the inner bulkhead and
hammered the hatch release with the palm of his
gauntlet, but annunciators flickered on the instrument
panel, and went out. Systems failure – chamber
pressurization was down, power was wavering.
Suddenly the
transparency in the inner hatch was filled with flame, a
short-lived burst that used up the oxygen and left all
beyond a roil of smoke, before the lights died. His
heart fluttered like a bird, and he forced calm. No way
could the ship have been taken completely unawares. A
call would have gone out, help would be coming. As of
yesterday a fleet cruiser had been bombarding Acrasius
B-6; they could be here in hours....
The corridor inboard was
hot and toxic, and without chamber pressurization, what
remained of computer oversight would not allow the door
to retract. White turned and launched himself to the
outer door, where stars whirled beyond the transparency,
and operated the release. Power was on, but the
spaceframe seemed twisted, and he resorted to the manual
emergency crank, forcing the door back.
Now he had silence, and
rose head and shoulders from the lock, the sight
revealed striking him cold – the little that remained of
the ship he had called home for so long. The Altair
was severed amidships, the rear section spinning with
the force of the explosion, and he saw the bow now
several kilometers away, trailing gas and plasma, a haze
of debris between them. The other ship had fared no
better. As the ruined hulk rotated he saw the twisted,
burned wreck, tumbling end over end about five
kilometers off to sunward, as she impacted an ice mass.
Silently, she came apart, tanks rupturing to spew
volatile gasses in short-lived bursts of flame, then she
was gone, an expanding cloud of debris that filled space
with hurtling fragments.
Acrasius C-5 was a pale,
cloud-banded sphere a million kilometers away, half-seen
through this Trojan asteroid group, and White felt more
terribly alone than at any moment in his life. He bit
down on panic, let training take over – was he safer
where he was or should he leave the feeble protection of
the wreck?
The sight of the Alnilam
meeting her fate convinced him he could not survive
should the whirling pieces of the Altair also
encounter asteroids. He clung to the hatch surround,
closed his eyes, fought for calm. He was on the brink of
a precipice and his only logical choice was to step off.
You accepted the
chance when you enlisted,
he thought blankly and took quick stock of his
resources. The suit was undamaged, had 48 hours life
support, and transmitter range to call to any ship that
came looking.... Time to go.
He released his grip and
centrifugal force took him gently away from the rotating
wreck. A hundred meters out, he used a small part of his
maneuvering pack fuel reserve to stabilize his flight
path. Now infinity yawned under his boots, and he raised
a hand to make a sad, symbolic wave to the retreating
ruins of his craft, bearing the mortal remains of
friends and shipmates he would ever see again.
Alone. Silence. Stars.
He aligned himself so
the great, pallid face of the gas giant was centered in
his field of vision, used it to anchor his orientation,
then hit his scanners and searched the asteroids around
him. The nearest was a few kilometers away, a
slow-moving giant of frozen methane and ammonia, and the
crevices of its pitted surface offered at least the
illusion of safety. Perhaps he would be safer clinging
like a flea to a dog than as a dust mote in infinity. He
plied his pack’s input control grips, turned and began a
long, slow glide toward the monster, trying with all his
might to be inconspicuous, even his running lights
doused.
The enemy was probably
still around.
Whatever weapon had hit
the two ships, given the force of the strike, the ship
that fired it might not be far away. It was likely in
the lee of one of these asteroids, maybe even the one
toward which he was coasting. Now he prayed, something
he had not done in many years, for he felt each meter he
covered toward the million-tonne ice mass brought him
that much nearer annihilation. The enemy would hardly
leave a witness alive, one able to call a warning to any
ship whose transponder showed up on his instruments. If
a search ship came in at red, shields hot, they would
stand at least a chance, and as a space farer loyal to
the cause, his only duty was to warn them of a concealed
adversary.
The dull, blue-white
mass of ice grew slowly before him. He advanced at five
meters per second, slow enough to not draw attention,
quick enough to cover the distance in ten minutes. He
had done asteroidal EVA in training, was no stranger to
tethering onto a microgravity worldlet, but the crushing
loneliness weighed upon his faculties, his breathing his
only companion. As he drifted closer, he set his
frequency search routine to monitor the radio sky,
waiting for an incoming transmission or a burst of
X-rays to indicate a ship leaving hyper. The moment he
had either, the clock was ticking – get a warning to
them, if he was able, or potentially watch another
vessel succumb.
Where the hell were the
enemy?
They must have lain dark
among these asteroids for weeks, even months, the
fiendish patience of alien minds. Even now, no one knew
what they looked like, though rumors had done the rounds
that a black op had somehow snared a prisoner – or a
piece of one. The not-knowing was a dark place in every
space farer’s soul, a fear that gnawed unseen at the
mind. Who and what was humankind fighting? Soldiers in
the field had reported what they assumed to be fallen
Sendaaki personnel disintegrating in bursts of blue
energy before they could be investigated, their drones
and mechanisms likewise. It seemed the enemy had more
regard for their anonymity than for their existence,
making them a very difficult enemy to fight.
Like ghosts, White thought
distractedly, the words replaying in his mind as he
watched the mesmerically growing cliff of ice before
him. Like ghosts....
He knew there had been
diplomatic contact at one time, but the aliens had never
revealed themselves in the process. Curt, rude by most
standards, they had entered into a terse and sporadic
dialog with the expanding human colonies, much of it via
third parties who were either also oblivious of the form
and nature of the Sendaaki, or preserved their
diplomatic status with the enemy by sharing nothing with
humankind. Whatever the politics of the matter, the
colonies were fighting blind, and it was nothing short
of remarkable they were holding their own.
A ranging laser gave him
distance to planetfall, and as the field of dirty,
gray-blue ice filled his vision he trimmed approach
speed to walking pace, looked around for some cleft or
crater, and selected a depression into which he might
tuck himself. A sense of giddy elation went through him,
tinged with horror, as he acknowledged he was the first
human to touch this precise piece of the universe, and
may perhaps be the only human ever to do so. That was
the nature of deep space – unpredictable, and mistakes
were very, very final.
Playing the force grips
with skill, White edged into the shadows, found a
crevice lit only with the reflected blues of the other
asteroids and the great, bland face of C-5, brought
himself up motionless and stretched out a hand. The ice
was solid matter, pitted with grit and spacedust, but at
least he had touched it. He could carve his name, add a
date, and it may still be legible in a million years.
Rotating with minute
blips of the thrusters, he turned to look back out at
the universe, and sighed. Time. He had just substituted
movement for action, and used up ten minutes. He had two
days to go before the option of the termination drug
became crucial. It was stored in the helmet, an
automatic jab into his carotid artery would bring
oblivion in a second or so, death soon after, should he
enter the appropriate commands – the ultimate escape
from anoxia, delirium, madness, going out the slow,
painful, fighting way. To have it was both comfort and
terror.
But destiny had other
plans for Engineer First Grade Cameron White.
###
Fatigue can do strange
things to the mind, but the simplest is to send it to
sleep from sheer boredom. Too late to chide himself,
White thought in a desperate, disjointed way, as he was
jerked from his fitful rest into a terror that sent his
pulse racing wildly, words he would never recall pouring
insanely from lips slack with terror as shapes
moved against the pale face of C-5, shapes he could not
quite understand, for they were both familiar and
anything but. His hands were pinned from the force grips
of his pack by members which flashed about him, strong
as steel cable, and he was lifted from the crevice
bodily, as if the merest plaything, snatched up by
forces powerful beyond measure. His helmet speakers were
filled with an ululating whistle that built from whisper
to shriek, filled his mind, overcame resistance, even
thought itself, and plunged him, against all will, into
the welcome relief of unconsciousness.
Where am I? was his only thought as
he came groggily back to awareness. He was comfortable,
warm enough, and after a few moments dared open his eyes
– hesitantly, for nothing felt as it had.
Soft, bluish light met
his pupils and a faint, deep thrumming sound resonated
in his body, and he registered two things. First, he was
still in zero-G; the other was that he was quite naked.
Bereft of armor and inner suit, he floated in a stable,
oxygen-rich atmosphere within what seemed a faintly
pulsing sphere composed of threads of light, beyond
which he glimpsed faintly the impression of some chamber
whose walls were of planar geometry and gleamed faintly.
Panic rose in him and he
felt his chest squeeze. He was helpless, held in
freefall, he could move his limbs but they felt
sluggish, as if he were trapped in a viscous liquid, his
energy levels low.... How long had he been unconscious?
The enemy – memories
cascaded back of nightmare impressions,
barely-understandable shapes in the gloom of the
world-light, taking hold, overwhelming him. His heart
raced with the reality that he was utterly beyond the
human sphere, for if any had fallen captive to the
Sendaaki before, none had ever returned.
Gods of my
forefathers, what will they do to me...? he thought helplessly,
the instinctive terror of every captive throughout all
history. The fact they had removed his garments as well
as his space suit suggested strange and unwholesome
things, and he fought for composure. If meeting his end
with some shadow of dignity or control was all that
remained, his task was to let the enemy know what a
human could constitute. While the chamber was dim and
silent, such bravado came to mind, but he knew it for
the desperate thoughts which ran like sea froth ahead of
such realities as may face any prisoner of war.
They came silently,
figures emerging from a sudden, dim corona as if a
portal had opened wide. Three beings – and White
blinked, stared, forced himself to record what he saw,
burning it into his memory. His first reaction was one
of vague disappointment, for these creatures were more
or less humanoid. That was the only similarity, however.
They must have been double his height, and the limbs
seemed double-jointed, legs like an antelope, clearly
designed to cover ground fast, ended in dual toes with
blunt hooves, while the hands came with four digits,
each of four elements. They too were naked (a
monogendered species, White wondered obliquely?), the
whole a dusty beige, though the color wandered as the
beings moved through the dim light, and it seemed their
hides were subtly scaled. The face was a mask from hell;
binocular vision, solid black orbs over a flat
countenance, the mouth a wide and expressionless meeting
of thin lips. Flaps moved in the sides of the neck with
a regular pulse of breathing, and the crania were of odd
proportion.
All this White took in
as the beings stood silently, observing him inscrutably,
and at last one of them adjusted a control at a wrist
band it wore. Its lipless mouth moved in a sound like
the rustle of wind in dead grass, but White heard
English words in the air about him, and started in
surprise.
“Human,” it said, blunt
and assertive, the voice boomy and massive, flat and
unaccented. “Know you are held by the Sendaaki military
forces. It is not our policy to take prisoners. We
swiftly learned all we needed of the human organism. But
you have a task you must fulfill.”
White found his voice
with difficulty. “My name is Cameron White, Engin – ”
“Irrelevant.” The word
cut him off. “Your compatriots approach. Time is
limited.”
White struggled for a
moment against the helplessness of freefall. “What do
you want of me...?” His words seemed pathetic in his own
ears.
“We know how the war
began.”
The statement was blunt
and at first made no sense to White, until realization
dawned. They were claiming they did not start it.
Speechless, he waited for the being to continue.
“We are aware of dissent
among humans, reservation among large sections of the
military itself, and it is to this division you will
carry our message. Your intelligence service will take
charge of you and verify all we are about to give you.”
The central being
extended a spindly arm through the sphere of blue
filaments, one digit outstretched, a wrist device
glowing softly, and White flinched in momentary horror
as the alien’s fingertip came to a cool, firm contact
with his forehead. He barely felt the rush of
information uploading into his memory, but abruptly
faces, scenes, and events poured before his closed eyes:
people and places, chains of causality ... and the
sudden, sick realization that the aliens perceived
themselves to be the wronged party – that humans had
attacked them.
The long arm withdrew
and the aliens stepped back. “Your military will know
what to do with this information. They will know we can
repeat this seeding as often as necessary should they
fail to act. The facts will be known.” The strange hand
lifted, and the rustling voice came one last time.
“Remember this moment, human, for this is the beginning
of the end.”
###
White came to adrift in
deep space, tumbling gently between the icy Trojans of
the pale gas giant. He shuddered with momentary shock,
knew he was back in his suit, but the memories the
aliens had gifted him burst forth with startling clarity
each time he remembered the moment the finger made
contact. Perhaps it was a trigger to liberate the
others. He walked through them at will, saw politicians
and industrialists from Old Earth in deep discussions,
the issuing of fleet construction contracts several
years in advance, then the penetration of Sendaaki space
by a survey ship – the incident everyone understood had
sparked the conflict.
What the Sendaaki were
claiming was that it was sent in deliberately to provoke
that response, to the financial benefit of those
appropriately invested.
He breathed shakily,
knowing Fleet Intelligence electronic recall processes
would lift these memories from his mind, dissect and
verify them – the only thing riding upon fate was
whether they were taken for verifiable fact or alien
propaganda.
We’ll soon know, White thought,
exhausted and needing rest, but knowing he would not get
it any time soon, as a fleet scout appeared over the rim
of the nearest asteroid, and his suit computer
negotiated at lightning speed with the ship’s systems.
The vessel came about and a search light blazed, swept
across spatial debris, and bathed him in harsh white.
For better or worse, the
ball the enemy had served was now in play, and the lost
engineer could only surrender to forces beyond his
control as the vessel grew to fill his sky and an
airlock opened like a warm, golden eye.
THE END
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