Damocles (10 page)

She pointed to his right, to the Ketter Sea, where the Red Sun nearly touched the roiling water. When his gaze returned to her, she then pointed behind him and up to his left where the archive cameras gathered high on metal poles, their shade screens blocking out most of the pale light of the Fa Sun behind them. Then she pointed behind her right shoulder to the media webbing that rose high enough to block out terrestrial media and scramble most satellite receivers. The rising Ellaban Sun had just started to color the white webbing a rich shade of orange. When she turned back to Loul, Meg bent her slender neck, her head dropping forward as her long, thin arms came up and wrapped around her skull. She sat that way a long moment, her head almost totally hidden within her arms, before looking up at him again.

The Ketter Sea, the archive cameras, and the media webbing had something to do with the reflective bubbles and the strange arm-head gesture. His first thought when she’d brought her arms up was that she was hiding, coiling up the way a sand snake did when a predator came near. Was she afraid? Was she injured? He brought his hands up and pulled his knuckles apart, saying the word with the gesture. “No.”

She flattened her hands once more, the way she had the first time, and faced her overlapping palms again toward the Ketter Sea. Then she pointed them toward the archive cameras and then, twisting around, toward the media webbing. Each time she made a point to keep her face behind the thin, splayed fingers. When he dropped his knuckles once more, she turned to the Urfers and chimed out a soft, high sound. One of her crew—Loul thought it might be the Urfer who had stood beside her—chirped something back and made a strange lifting motion with its shoulders. Then, turning its back on the crowd, it dropped into a crouch and clambered inside the bubble. A moment later, it stuck its head out of the opening and showed
its palm to Meg and Loul with a back-and-forth motion. Once more Meg pointed to the sea, the cameras, and the webbing and waited for Loul to put it together.

Was he just dense? Did anyone else on the other side of the barricade see what she was doing and understand it? He ground his teeth together in frustration and looked again in the directions she had pointed to. The Ketter Sea. The archive cameras on their posts. The high media webbing. Why not to the sky behind the shuttle where the scrub brush still smoked from whatever sort of fuel the ship had burned landing? Why not directly behind the generals where another wall of media webbing rose high and white?

Color? He looked again. The Red Sun made everything in that direction red, and the webbing behind her glowed more orange by the minute as Ellaban rose. But the archive cameras didn’t match. The shadows grew around them as the light changed, but for the most part the screens stayed the same dull gray as always. They were hardly even needed since the cameras had been positioned in such a way that all they had to block out was the faint light of the Fa Sun.

And then he got it. He banged his knuckles together, grinning as he saw Meg’s teeth come back into view. He knew she knew he got it, and once more they bumped the outsides of their hands together.

Loul turned as much as he could to speak to the generals without losing sight of Meg. Not that he feared turning his back on her. He just didn’t think he’d ever get enough of watching those wet eyes widen for him. “General Ada? I think those are shelters. I think they’re some sort of protective film. It’s the suns. They don’t like the suns.”

“What do you mean they don’t like the suns? What are they doing here then? What’s inside those bubbles?”

“I think they will be.” Loul watched the Urfers set up two more bubbles. “I think they stay inside them.”

“Why?” The voice sounded gravelly and feminine so he assumed General Famma spoke.

“I don’t know. Their skin is…different. It’s really smooth and shiny. And their eyes are wet. I wonder if the suns are too hot on them or maybe interfere with their body chemistry.” He’d run these and other possible scenarios years ago in his ill-fated report on an alien invasion.

“Well, tell them they can get in their bubbles back at the military research station just as soon as we get them loaded into the trucks.”

Loul huffed in frustration. It had taken him forever to figure out how to say
yes
and
no
and he was still only guessing about the bubbles. Now Ada thought he could casually explain that the military planned on moving them?

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to explain that, General.”

“You’d better start trying, Pell. We can’t keep this webbing up forever. The reporters are already getting nosy about why the site is shut down. We’ve got to get these…these things into lockdown before we start a worldwide panic.”

Loul ground his teeth. How was he supposed to pull this off? “Keep it simple,” he muttered to himself and saw Meg’s head tilt again at the sound. Her eyes fixed on his mouth and he knew she’d heard him. Sharp hearing, he thought. Good to keep in mind.

He brought his hands together between them, trying to mimic the settling stance he’d seen her take before, what he was coming to think of as the start-over position. Meg seemed to recognize it because she mirrored him immediately.

“Urfers.” He waved his hands over her crew. She tapped her knuckles together.

“Trucks.” He waved his hands over the line of cargo trucks lined up to the left of the archive cameras. Feeling a little bit stupid, he swung his hands like a monkey from the alien crew to the trucks. “Urfers. Trucks. Go.”

Meg tilted her head again, narrowing her eyes. Something told him that was her equivalent of the chin dip confusion pose. So much for universal gestures. He repeated the motions again. “Urfers. Trucks. Go.” He didn’t know how she’d react to his grip, so he let his arm sort of hover in the area near her side, rocking on his feet toward the trucks. “Urfers. Trucks. Go.”

He saw the moment she understood. She made a wide sweeping gesture that held a thousand times more grace than his had, her sweep encompassing her crew before whipping like a palm frond toward the trucks. She even turned her body toward the trucks and took a small step in that direction.

He grinned, knocking his knuckles together. “Yes!”

She held her hands before his face and let the knuckles drop. No.

Maybe she had misunderstood, so he repeated himself, rocking toward the trucks as he had before, starting a small step as she had. “Urfers. Trucks. Go. Yes.”

Again her knuckles fell away. No. “Urfers.” He could just make out the high, breathy tone of her voice, but he clearly understood the strong stabbing motion she made with both hands toward the ground. He looked up into her eyes, noticing that in her refusal she had pulled her body up to its full, narrow height. He sighed, feeling tension building in his throat as he turned.

“General Ada? I don’t think they’re going to go.” He ignored the rumble of disapproval as a familiar feeling washed over him. “Oh, and General? You’re gonna want to send someone out here. I’ve got to drop.”

“Get ready for some more synchronized swimming, everyone.” Meg backed away from Loul while he shouted to the officers at the barricade. “They want to move us into those trucks.”

“Why?” Jefferson asked, standing up from where he’d been fastening a shelter tent. “Are they planning to take us to some top-secret medical lab and dissect us?”

Cho didn’t pretend to see any humor in that. “That’s what we would do.”

“Yeah,” Meg said, backing up several steps, keeping her eyes on Loul. “I think it’s safe to say that leaving the ship is a very bad idea until we have a much stronger language bond.”

“What do you recommend, Meg?” Wagner asked.

“Go back to standing absolutely still. Look how they fidget.” She scanned the crowd before her. “They never really stop moving, adjusting.”

“I’d wager it’s their musculature,” Cho said. “Their build is incredibly dense. The muscles on their legs alone could probably take a bullet. I don’t think they’re fast but my money’s on them being strong.”

“I’m with you.” Meg stopped retreating and now stood halfway between Loul and Cho. She wished she’d thought to get out of her suit at some point before now. The heat pouring in from the direction of the sea baked her skin, even with the steady salty wind pounding against her. She noticed with envy that Cho had shed his suit while inside his tent.

She heard his low laugh in the coms. “You’re wishing you had that suit off, aren’t you?”

“Stop reading my mind.”

“Get over here.” When Meg didn’t move he sighed. “I’m the chief bioscience officer and I’m telling you to get your ass over here and get out of that suit.”

Prader snickered. “That’s a new one. Why don’t you two get a room?”

“Well, unless any of you packed IV fluid bags in your packs, I suggest you all get out of your suits.” Cho knelt at the edge of his tent. “This sunlight is going to drain us. Keep your sleeves rolled down and put on a hat, but these suits are going to overheat us all. Meg, keep your eyes on your boy and back up toward me. I’ll get you out of yours.”

She did as he told her, backing up until she felt his hands on her shoulder. The suit had two release clips, one beside her left ribs and one just inside the rigid rim of the collar ring. Either one would release the magnetic zippers that ensured the suit remained sealed. She felt Cho’s warm, dry fingers against her sweaty neck as he deactivated the fastener. A puff of stale air blew out from the suit as the fabric separated down the length of her spine.

“I bet I smell good,” she laughed, knowing how sweaty she was.

His hands slid around her waist, doing more than was strictly necessary to help her step from the suit. “You smell okay.” When her right leg and arm were free, he helped her pull the rigid collar over her head, shucking the rest of the suit. As Cho slipped her gun from the suit pocket to her pants, she pulled down the sleeves of her lightweight regulation shirt, feeling the specially designed fabric wicking moisture from her damp skin. When she sighed at the relief, she heard Prader and Jefferson laugh and speak in unison.

“Get a room.”

“Look at me.” Cho ignored them and turned her to face him. She tilted her head, lifting the back of her thick brown ponytail to get a breeze on the damp curls beneath. Cho leaned in close and shocked her by kissing her right on the mouth. “Did you feel that?”
She stepped back, staring at him. It wasn’t that he’d kissed her—he’d done plenty of that and more—but this hardly seemed the time.

“Did you feel that?” His voice was soft and low.

“Uh, I…this is…Cho?”

He smirked. “My mouth tastes like glue. So does yours. We’re all getting dehydrated and we don’t have a lot of water. Why don’t you make your next conversation with your new boyfriend about finding us some supplies?”

She rolled her eyes as she turned around. “You could’ve just asked, you know.”

“Uh-oh.” She and Cho spoke in unison. A section of the barricade had separated, and two Dideto approached, pushing a squat wheeled cart between them. The cart came to their shoulders and the uneven terrain didn’t make the movement any easier. They moved steadily, their eyes fixed on Meg and Cho, dropping only to navigate a bump or divot.

Loul called her name. She pointed to the trucks and pulled her knuckles apart. No. Loul did the same. “What do you suppose this is?” she said to Cho as much to herself.

“They’re opening it.” Cho stepped in closer to her, pressing up behind her shoulder. They watched as the two newcomers punched into the top corners of the carton, releasing some sort of catch. The sides of the carton dropped slowly on pulleys, revealing racks filled with metal containers. The figures—women presumably, judging by what looked like heavy breasts riding low on their torsos—crouched down beside the carton and began selecting containers. Beside them, Loul crouched, watching them and talking to them in low, rumbling tones. Meg heard Cho’s breath catch. “Let’s go closer.”

“Cho,” she said, but he stepped ahead of her and she hurried to keep step. “Slow down, Cho. We don’t want to seem aggressive. What are you doing?”

“I’m thinking what we would do if the situations were reversed.”

They heard Prader snort in the coms. “If the situation was reversed, we’d have blown these fuckers out of the sky before they hit atmosphere.”

“Thanks for the encouragement, Prader, you psychopath.” Cho stopped a yard away from the open carton and its handlers. He crouched down for a better look and Meg could hear the pitch of the Dideto thrumming rise. “We’re a new life-form to them. We haven’t hurt anyone. We don’t have laser beams coming out of our eyes, so now they’re trying to figure out who or what we are. And how do you do that?” He smiled to himself. “You send in scientists.”

One of the women took a damp cloth from a jar and handed it to Loul. After a brief exchange, Loul began wiping his hands with the cloth thoroughly, getting in between fingers and scrubbing especially hard on the outsides of his palms. Another word from the woman and he dropped the cloth into another container, which the woman promptly sealed.

“They’re testing him for contamination,” Cho said softly. “They saw you two touch and they’re assessing any threat level. Maybe they’re going to run a DNA sequence.”

“Are we a threat?” Meg asked. “Didn’t you test for microbes and contaminants before we opened the hatch? Isn’t that part of the initial probe?”

“Shit,” Jefferson hissed in her ear. “It’s a little late to be worrying about that, isn’t it?”

“I found nothing that would contaminate us. It doesn’t mean I found everything or that we won’t contaminate them.”

“Oh my God,” Meg said. “Did we just bring smallpox to the new world?”

“Hey, have a little faith in your science officer, okay? In the first place, BESS expunged our systems of most lingering
parasites and viruses. Second, why do think our protein tasted especially bad the past few days? Purifiers. We’re as clean as we’re going to get and we have no choice but to take our chances.” He huffed out a breath. “We’re agents of change and evolution just by being alive. Deal with it.”

The scientists turned to face Meg and Cho as Loul held out his hands for them to see. “He’s showing us he’s fine,” Meg said. “He wants us to come to them.”