ONE
“I'll be judge, I'll be jury,”
said cunning old Fury:
“I'll try the whole cause,
and condemn you to death.”
--Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll
As a violet sphere of energy, Kalli tapped the ghost winds of the Tachyon universe. This let her plunge along the curve of the galactic arm at hyper-light velocity. Her target, a yellow-white dwarf star, was close. Closer still was the Amrha ship. She could taste the emanations of its emergency beacon.
I must be almost on top of the ship. I can phase down now. She’d risked quantum dispersal by pressing on so very long without corporeality, but couldn’t have done otherwise--lives were at stake.
Skirting the Sol System’s gravitational web slowed her, but she still had to use some of her own energy to go sub-light. Arcing sunward like a comet, she passed several of the outer most worlds.
Had the missing vessel been attacked, the marauders might still be around. Kalli prepared, sorting through matrix patterns in her memory. She selected primary battle-mode, altering the parameters of her quantum field. She became humanoid, living metal. Blades fanned from her back that were both wings and swords. Her fingers ended in claws. Her feet became talons. Though she couldn’t see them, she knew her eyes were lit from within by the savage fire that warmed every fury’s heart.
A gas giant drew near. This close, it was easy to see that the rings around it weren’t solid, but the debris field of a failed moon. The high risk of collision didn’t concern her. With the energies coursing through her, it would take more than mere impact to cause a debilitating injury. Pellets of sleet drizzled off her skin while larger chunks rebounded, shattering in silence. She only made an effort to skirt pieces larger than herself while seeking the sleek blue-metal hull of the missing liner.
It had gone abruptly silent in this backwater corner of space. Mother suspected Skath activity. The scavengers were ranging further and further from the star-faring worlds, looking for easier pickings. That was smart; they got to live a little longer.
Eventually, Kalli’s patience was rewarded. She found the excursion ship tumbling without power--intact, but not undamaged. Slagging on the hull indicated a recent attack. She drifted closer, entering through a gap in the aft cargo bay. The inside was stripped bare. Amrha drifted aimlessly about, vegetable-stalk bodies stiff in death, taproots trailing like useless rudders.
There were no parasite wounds on them: Amrah were not suitable hosts for the Skath--bonding hadn’t even been attempted. That meant that there might still be living crewmembers somewhere aboard. Wanting only cargo, the parasites might have been sloppy.
She would search deeper in the vessel in case survivors were huddled behind barricades, praying that help would come in time. It made little difference to Kalli what she found, though she’d render assistance to any survivors. That was the civilized thing to do.
She made her way to a powerless air lock, and undogged it manually. Once inside, she closed the door and went to the inner hatch. It resisted, indicating the presence of air on the other side. She forced the door open and the lock around her filled with atmosphere. It was as she expected: the ship’s artificial intelligence would have automatically sealed off breached sections and repaired them whether anyone was still alive or not.
She drifted along a passageway lit by dim red emergency lights. She didn’t need to depend on them. Her vision shifted frequency. Cold became black and strong heat became white. Everything else was rendered in shades of silvery gray.
Murdered Amrha were everywhere, tendrils curled around make-shift weapons that had done them little good. Craters welling sap had been blasted into their trunks.
Kalli’s hunt progressed beyond engineering sections and crew country, to the regions that catered to passengers. Flying through semi-darkness, she listened for resonations of life. Finally, she found survivors in the gardens adjoining the hydroponics area. Artificial gravity was still in effect and Amhra were literally rooted to the spot in defiance. Several alien species--a few defying classification--hung back a bit. They shared fear, clutching debris, pieces of furniture, anything that could serve as a weapon.
She saw recognition wash across their faces as weapons lowered. Fear stepped down to uneasy relief. While Valeron was not a member of the Galactic Union, her daughters were known for occasional benevolence, when the mood struck.
Kalli spoke Galactic, “Have you means of holding out until help arrives?”
An avian with a black beak, far-spaced red eyes, and a tall crest of golden feathers hopped closer, but maintained a cautious distance. “Not this far from the main routes. We have resources for a few cycles only.”
She sighed at the bother, and then determined the best course of action for herself. “This system has a habitable planet. I’ll take you there.”
The avian shook his head in negation. “An interdiction is in place; contact is forbidden with the Terrans. The world will either destroy itself soon with technology, or regain its soul and be found worthy of membership in the GU.”
Kalli’s cold metal lips formed a smile. “Since when do Valerons care about Union restrictions? You act like I’m giving you a choice. Besides, I‘m sure there are wild corners somewhere on Earth where you can hide until someone picks you up.”
“The natives have instruments that can detect our ship’s approach,” offered a bouncing creature that looked like a pink cluster of inflated bladders.
Kalli didn’t know the species, didn‘t care actually. She shrugged. “Then I’ll just have to be fast and elusive, unless you’d rather I just leave you to die.”
One of the Amrha spoke through a mechanized larynx strapped to its trunk, “We accept your solution, warrior-maiden. Can we assist you in any way?”
“Secure yourselves well. The ride might get rough.”
“Wait,” a bright blue insectoid clicked mandibles and its voice box translated. “Do you want to see the made-thing left by the Skath?”
“Made-thing?” Kalli’s curiosity was triggered.
The avian turned a bobbing head so that his other eye could watch her for a while. “A smoke-quartz cylinder with changing patterns of light inside, we were afraid to go too near it.”
“Show me the Skath toy,” Kalli ordered.
If it were a time-delayed explosive, it would have gone off already--unless there was a failure in the detonator. It wasn’t likely: Skath were skilled in the arts of destruction. It might be a bio-weapon, something new being tested. If so, she needed to move it someplace where it couldn’t do harm. She had no fear for herself. Were she utterly destroyed an enharmonic bond would carry her essence back to Mother. Kalli would rise again, reborn. True death as other races knew it was only a curious abstraction to her, along with fear, doubt, and love. Courage and unrelenting rage ruled her heart—this was the way of the fury.
The avian led her to a control console in an adjoining chamber. The cylinder lay there, a dark mystery. She picked it up peering through the casing, scanning all EM frequencies above and below visible light. There were no particle emissions, gamma rays, or radio signals. Nothing generating a sub-space field or tachyon pulse. Probably is a bio-weapon. The ship may have provided enough insulation to keep the device from receiving a detonation signal, lucky break for the survivors.
Holding the Skath device casually, she retraced her path, leaving gravity. She flew through corridors and compartments, back to the air lock. The doors were manually cycled once more, returning her to the airless cargo bay. As she was about to angle toward the rent in the hull, the cylinder shattered in her hand. Dark fire bathed her, clinging to her substance, eating into her core.
Vacuum trigger--a trap!
Thoughts fractured. Perceptions altered alarmingly; colors slurred into primal distortion, registering as intermittent sounds. She felt the radiant energies of space, like crawling nano-mites over her metal skin. Her motor control lost precision. Limbs spasmed, flailing wildly.
Kalli mouthed a scream of agony as molecular bonds unraveled in a way she was not used to. With reason damping out, she barely noticed the space liner exploding, casting her toward the inner worlds as a feeble ball of ghost-light flickering erratically in torment.
* * *
Jason climbed into his Jeep as the warm August evening settled in. He needed to get away from all the people who wanted to tell him how good his mother had been. Their eyes accused him of being unworthy, of having broken her heart--killing her with his neglect. What could he say? It was true . If he’d have only known…if he’d been here and not traipsing across the countryside with his band, she might have fought the cancer just a little harder. It might have made a difference.
He’d never know now. That truth weighed down his soul. His eyes misted with tears he’d not yet found a way to shed. His armor of stoicism had fed the whispers of busybodies about the sleepy town, but his grief and pain were his own private business, as was his guilt. He felt like yelling it, pulling away from his mother’s house, not really caring which direction he was headed.
Flipping a mental coin at intersections, he eventually found himself crossing a long steel bridge. On the other side lay no sign of civilization other than the continuing road. He slowed, stopped on the shoulder of the road, and killed the engine. Through the side passenger’s window, he studied a clearing walled in by shadow-choked woodland. In the foreground, a jumble of boulders offered a good place to brood. He got out and strolled over.
Using a three-foot rock as a stepping stone, he scrambled up onto a larger boulder that he couldn’t have managed otherwise. Leaning back, his eyes sought out a thin sickle of moon as it emerged from lavender and pink cloud streaks. The brighter stars were beginning to wear through a periwinkle sky headed for midnight-blue. The colors were soothing; reminding him that beauty still existed in the world.
He saw a flickering light that might have been a coded message from the cosmos, burning stronger than a star. The color was oddly undecided; shifting pastel violet to an angry red, back and forth. A satellite? he wondered. Space shuttle? It fell with ponderous slowness, fighting gravity remarkably well.
Remembering an old tabloid headline, he laughed at a new thought; maybe it’s the mother-ship and Elvis is coming back from Jupiter. I could call the Air Force, but they‘d just tell me I’m seeing a weather balloon leaking swamp gas.
Loosing altitude, the mystery-object grew more defined. He couldn’t judge its size, but it appeared to be a sphere of light headed toward the bridge.
He slid off his rock, onto the lower one, and hopped to the ground. He passed his vehicle and started across the bridge. The light seemed small now, just over a meter, wafting overhead like ball lightning.
Headlights caught him and a horn sounded, reminding him he was on a public road. He jumped toward the railing, lost his footing, and fell heavily, slamming the breath out of his body. A beat up truck passed. Its driver shouted a comment. “Get out of the road, you moron!”
Levering himself up, he sat back on his heels. The surface under him seemed to well with blood, but it was only the same color light. Turning his head, he saw the sphere of light ten feet away, balanced on the railing. The energy dimmed to violet. Ripples made its surface quiver. The parameter of the field became shapeless, creating an amoeba of light that kept trying to define itself, but couldn’t cling to a particular shape for more than a few moments.
I wonder if its alive in some weird way--maybe attempting to communicate with something like sign language. Of course that’s assuming it knows I’m here and it has something to say.
Fascination drew him to his feet. He eased closer, approaching along the railing, one hand on it. The steel didn’t seem to be conducting heat or electricity. He stopped a few feet away from the sphere, feeling a tingle against his skin, smelling ozone in the air.
The light became a sphere again, darkening further in defeat. Jason felt sorry for it--an alien something, far from home, in need of help.
It moved suddenly, catching him by surprise, tagging his hand with a glowing tendril from its core. There was a brief shock, a crackle of current that made him jump in place. He grabbed his hand and looked at it. It had been oozing blood from a minor scrape. Now that scrape was gone, healed in a moment. His gaze went back to the entity. It seemed to have benefited from the touch as well. Its field lengthened, stabilizing. The light darkened into substance.
Jason stared at a very human, very naked, very pretty woman. Her beauty struck him a numbing blow that he felt all the way to his toes. She balanced on the railing as if it were the perfect place to be. Her pale violet hair waved in the breeze. Her perfect lips parted. She reached toward him, hands trembling. Her face showed fatigue that went to the bone, and then nothing as her eyes fluttered, then closed.
She slipped from consciousness and the bridge at the same time--there one second, then gone.
Galvanized, Jason leaped to the rail and peering over. He saw her hit the water and vanish. The drop didn’t look more than fifty or sixty feet. She’d probably survive long enough to drown. He couldn’t let that happen. He’d always been afraid of heights, a condition going back to childhood. If there’s ever a time to face my fear…
He meant to jump heroically, but wound up slipping, bouncing his butt off the rail, biting off a curse, and plummeting feet first toward the dark water that rushed at him too quickly for comfort. Going in felt like slamming into a wall. Bubble-filled water enclosed him. It was icy cold, running as it did from the Sierra Mountains into the foothills.
He kicked his feet with manic determination, cupping water with his hands. Going with the current, he hoped he’d guessed right about where the girl was being swept. Unable to see very clearly, fortune still favored him. His hand brushed something soft. He went after it, seizing a leg that led to a torso. It’s her…thank God! Struggling upward, Jason’s lungs burned with the need for air as the rest of his body numbed with cold.
Just when he thought he was dead for sure, he broke the surface. Turning the girl face up, he continued swimming with the current, but angled also for the bank. He cushioned her from injury as the water slammed them against the bank. He fought for a grip with his free hand, but the water dragged them both away. A snarl of rock and branches caught them at last. If not for the tough jean jacket he wore, his arms and back would have gathered nasty scrapes and slashes. As it was, he’d have some impressive bruises by morning.
But at least the girl was spared further trauma.
Streaming water, gasping from exertion, he pulled himself higher, carefully drawing the girl along, mindful of her unclothed state among the jutting branches. Out of the water and past most of the tangle, he paused to check her vital signs. Despair washed through him. She wasn’t breathing. He threw her over a shoulder and scrambled as fast as he dared to solid ground. Once there, he laid her down, tilted her head back, pinched her nose closed, and forced air into her lungs. He switched to chest compressions, counting silently to himself. Once more he forced breath into her.
How long do you think you can keep this up? he asked himself. Help isn’t coming, you’re on your own, and she’s dead. Angrily, he brushed his inner voices away. No. Not giving up. No matter…what! He counted off chest compressions, and then returned his lips to hers.
Her eyes opened, but she still wasn’t breathing. His breath caught in his throat. The kiss of life became a real kiss as she latched onto him with arms like bands of steel. What she lacked in skill, she made up for in boundless enthusiasm. As he went limp, vision graying out, she released him. He came back to his senses to find that she’d regained her feet and was holding him cradled effortless in her arms.
Peering into his open eyes, she smiled. “Oh, thank goodness! You’re alright. I was so worried.”
The ghost of a laugh left him. “Why? All we did was fall off a bridge and nearly die together.”
“Oh!” She actually squealed. “That’s what I love about you--so brave, so handsome, so modest…”
“So wet,” he said. “But never mind that, you’re not breathing. Before I dropped out of medical school, I learned that’s not a good sign. People are supposed to breathe, frequently.”
“I don’t know,” she sounded doubtful. “Seems like a waste of time.”
He laughed again. “Maybe so, but I’m going to keep right on doing it, if it’s all the same to you. Uh, you mind putting me down now?”
“Oh! Sorry.”
She set him on his feet and, uninhibited in any way, leaned in to him as if he were a comforting fire. He noticed that she was several inches taller than him…and still quite naked. “Maybe we should get you something to wear. I know I’m cold.”
That caught her attention. “Oh! We have to do something!” She glanced around as if seeking a handy solution.
“Back over by the bridge, in my Jeep, I’ve got a bag with extra clothes and a blanket. I should drive you into town and get you looked over by a--hey!”
Picking him up again, she leaped. The bank fell away as they ripped across the deepening sky. Snuggling, the girl sighed in satisfaction while he fought panic, hanging onto her for dear life.
After the first initial rush of fear, he found he was safe enough. I really shouldn’t be surprised at what she can do. I know she’s not human, no matter what she looks like, or how wonderfully soft she-- He diverted his thoughts to safer areas, Marveling at the unseen force that powered the girl’s flight. I wonder what else she can do.
The landing on the bridge proved gentle. With slow reluctance, she let him loose.
“You gotta warn me when you’re going to do that.” He kept his gaze on her face, resisting the temptation to enjoy the rest of the view she offered. His mother had always taught him to act like a gentleman.
With vast seriousness, she met his gaze. “I’ll remember.”
He thought she probably would, to the end of time. Her obvious devotion to him was a little scary, but understandable: he was literally the only person on the planet that she knew.
“Come with me.” He started toward his Jeep.
“Always,” she sighed, taking his hand.
He led her to his vehicle, belatedly realizing that he had no name for her. Perhaps, introductions are in order. “My name’s Jason. What about you?”
“No, I’m almost certain that’s not my name, but I can’t remember what it is.”
Short term memory loss induced by trauma? I‘ve got to get her to a doctor. Human or not, she‘s not well. He dropped the tailgate, moved his guitar out of the way, and opened a duffle bag. He handed her some of his clothes--they’d do for now.
“So, what should I call you?” he asked.
She shrugged. “You’ll think of something. You’re good at that--I can tell.”
