Fluency

14

As Jane rose, Walsh and the others immediately gathered their things. She stood apart from Bergen, her chin lifted, her expression stern. No one else needed to know that inside she was roiling with conflicted thoughts. A good leader acted the part no matter what they felt.

She didn’t allow her gaze to linger on Alan as he labored to his feet. Alan’s confession was heartening. He believed in her. She hoped his faith wasn’t misplaced.

But there was the nagging doubt, that he was affected by the agent that felled the Sectilius. She’d had hints from him all along that he was attracted to her. That had always seemed sort of tantalizing and thrilling, but she’d never believed he really meant any of it. She’d concluded that it was just part of his nature to be flirtatious in a razor sharp way, that he couldn’t help but be enigmatically charming to stoke his own tremendous ego.

Now he seemed to be saying it was more than that and the timing couldn’t be worse. She was already scattered enough, dealing with a constant influx of revelations, insights, foreign concepts—all creating a tumult inside her head. She didn’t have the luxury of time to consider what his proposition might mean…about him, to her, the mission…any of it.

She wondered, if he’d done something similar just a month before, would she have responded in the same way? There’d been that moment in the capsule, the day she’d succumbed to childish grief, reeling from the news that her closest confidant had just given birth to a healthy child. Suddenly she’d found herself unable to contain her feelings, which ran a gamut of extremes—joy, sadness at missing the event, jealousy, loneliness, disconnectedness, and shame.

He’d embraced her tenderly, throwing her concept of his character into complete disarray. It was a bewildering moment because it didn’t change anything between them. Things continued on just as they’d been before, as though she’d just imagined it. It left her watching him curiously for other signs of depth or gestures of goodwill. When nothing else surfaced, she decided it meant nothing to him and did her best not to think about it. Though if she was being completely honest with herself, that had been hard.

At the time, she found herself behaving like a young girl, suddenly self-conscious about her appearance, finding reasons to engage him in conversation, asking for his assistance when she didn’t really need it, surreptitiously watching him work, eat, exercise…dress.

She tricked herself into thinking he was playing along, that he felt the same, that they were both feeling their way in that bizarre environment, knowing that such thoughts were prohibited, should be ignored, or extinguished. Then he’d do something callous or say something that was so off-color that she was sure she was fabricating the whole scenario as a mental defense against boredom.

She shouldn’t have kissed him. In that moment, it felt like clinging to life as it shattered around her. She couldn’t deny her attraction to him. He felt solid and real when her grasp on reality felt like it was slipping. But it also gave him a hold over her, every bit as strong as the hold Ei’Brai was wielding. She was being pulled in too many directions. If she wasn’t careful she’d be drawn and quartered before she could achieve her goals.

Time was a trap. After all the months of confinement—to be confronted with a ticking clock, after only a single day aboard the ship, was cruel. If she waited to send a message to Houston, concentrated on understanding this enigmatic disease, she might wait too long and doom the Bravo mission as well. But every minute spent getting to the capsule, arguing with Walsh, and then getting back again might be letting life trickle through her fingers.

If only Walsh had trusted her, then everything would be different now. They could split into two teams, send a couple of people to the capsule to transmit a message home while the rest of them worked on a solution. But it wasn’t like that. She wondered where along the line she’d lost his trust, or if she’d ever really had it to begin with. Maybe he didn’t think she was a worthy leader. Deep inside, she was afraid he was right.

She didn’t have any business leading others. She’d lost people in the Amazon. No one had ever faulted her for that, except for herself. The circumstances had been horrible. But she always felt that if she’d been a little better prepared, a little more vigilant, a little more proactive, she should have been able to save them.

And now it was happening again. Tom was clearly sick, possibly irreparably. Walsh, and maybe Ajaya, too.

Ei’Brai felt there was hope and she clung to that like a lifeboat adrift on a stormy sea. He believed she could solve it. That seemed frankly absurd. She wasn’t a scientist. How could she hope to understand an alien disease that struck so suddenly, dragging down the faculties needed to stop it? Like Alan, she didn’t feel affected, but knew that might be self-deception. She’d let her guard down with him, let herself get caught up in a self-indulgent moment. When so much was resting on her shoulders, so much was at stake, that in itself might be a sign that something was already going wrong.

She led the way down the hall, the lights in the floor lighting up in front of her, a demonstration of support from Ei’Brai. She didn’t have to look back to know that the lights coming on that way were pissing Walsh off.

Ei’Brai, on top of everything else, was feeding her the atmospheric mood of the rest of the group. She caught flashes of images, thoughts, emotional states—all on a level verging on subconscious. She was aware of perceiving it, even when she wasn’t giving it her full attention. She wanted to tell Ei’Brai to stop, to quit pushing her, that she couldn’t take any more of it, but that wouldn’t be true. It was unnerving how fast she was adapting to it.

The others filed into the deck transport behind her. Jane didn’t like the way they were all looking and feeling so uncertain about her. Walsh seemed more pacified since things were going the way he wanted, but still grim and angry.

Gibbs gently urged Compton to keep up, caught Compton’s arm when he tottered. Compton was shuffling along, completely withdrawn. He seemed to have aged at least 20 years since the last time Jane had seen him. Once a lively junior/senior pair of colleagues, a gulf of age seemed to have opened up between them. Gibbs fell naturally into the role of youth, caring for revered elder.

Jane pressed the symbol for the deck where the Providence was docked. A beat later, the door lifted midway, paused, then shut again. Everyone watched her expectantly. She frowned, reaching for the control, but before she could make contact, the door slid up, this time completely opening.

A large grey mass, slightly larger than a football, hit the floor with a sickening, wet thud and wobbled to a stop. Thin, webby tendrils stretched from the object to the top of the open doorway. A fetid odor, redolent of rotting garbage, hit them like a wave. The hallway was dark.

“What the hell?” Bergen grimaced, pulled a flashlight out of his pack, and shone it on the mass at their feet.

Walsh’s face was red with choler. “Holloway—what are you playing at? Is this the right deck?”

“Of course it is,” she replied, trying to hide her own bewilderment.

Ei’Brai surged in her head, a disorienting, buzzing flood, and she reached out a hand to steady herself against it. He was filling her head to overflowing with urgent warnings.

Ajaya was pulling on latex gloves. She took a pen out of her pocket and scraped it over the top of the door, effectively lifting off the gooey strings connecting the object with the door, and stepped out to inspect the object itself.

“It’s not safe here anymore,” Jane murmured out loud to the others.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Walsh eyed her suspiciously.

“We need to go. Come back inside, Ajaya.” Jane took a step forward, reaching for the door control.

Walsh blocked her. He towered over her, manner threatening. “Stay put, Varma. Nobody’s going anywhere until we have some answers. What is that thing?”

Jane stood her ground, resisting the urge to back away from him.

She could sense Alan’s protective ire rising one second and Walsh’s seething anger the next. It was coloring her own state of mind, making her feel like lashing out, losing control.

She forced herself to stay calm. “I don’t know what it’s called. It’s the next stage in the life cycle of the slugs. Whatever is going to hatch out of there—we don’t want any part of it. We need to go.”

“More delay tactics,” Walsh growled.

“It’s a pupa,” Ajaya murmured and they all turned to look at her. She was using the pen to move the mass from side to side. The tip of the pen disintegrated under the gentle pressure she exerted at the point, leaving blue plastic blobs dotting the thing.

Then the mass moved, swelling under the surface on one side. Ajaya gasped and scrambled back.

“That’s enough. Let’s go,” Walsh barked. The others stared at him, unmoving.

“Wait. Hold on. I’m not saying we don’t go back to the capsule. I’m saying we protect ourselves better first. I can take us to—”

Walsh bellowed over her, silencing her, “I said, enough! Move out.”

Gibbs looked back and forth between Jane and Walsh and then put an arm around Compton, urging him forward around the mass at their feet. Gibbs’ eyes darted around nervously, his weapon still clutched in his hand.

Jane reached out to touch Walsh’s arm. “No! This is too dangerous. You have to listen to me.”

“Like hell I do.” Walsh leveled his gun at her chest and swung wide, ready for an attack from Alan.

Alan’s fists were clenched. His nostrils flared. He was on the verge of doing something reckless. Ei’Brai was silent in her head—he was as appalled and unnerved as she was.

Chagrin left her feeling cold. Hadn’t she just been contemplating using the same tactic against Walsh, if necessary? How could she possibly change the balance of power now?

Jane slowly raised a placating hand. “Ok, ok, Commander. You’re in control. Let’s go, Alan.”

She moved cautiously toward Alan and turned him bodily, forcing him through the doorway, just as Gibbs had done with Compton.

Walsh ordered, “You two take point.”

Jane glanced over her shoulder. Ajaya and Gibbs looked uncomfortable, but weren’t saying anything. Alan shone his flashlight down the hall in the direction of the capsule and started moving. Jane stayed at his side. She didn’t have a flashlight or her pack. They must have been left behind.

There was some murmuring behind them, then Ajaya quietly handed Jane an air canister/harness and an oxygen monitor. Jane slipped the harness over her shoulders and glanced at the monitor as she fixed it to her flight suit. The levels were normal.

Inside her head, Ei’Brai was perturbed, exasperated. Jane struggled to keep her own thoughts moored. He informed her he was working diligently on getting lights back on for her. He said there was damage to certain neural-electric pathways, the conduits that carried his commands all over the ship. He reassured her that air quality sensors and controls were fully operational, but regretted to tell her he was barely keeping gravity under control. There was a 57% chance of losing gravity in the immediate future. She considered sharing this information, but Walsh’s current mood was not receptive to input from her, so she stayed silent.

As they walked, there were more pupa in various sizes clinging to the walls and ceiling, sometimes singly, sometimes in clusters, oozing thick, stringy slime. After seeing what that slime had done to Ajaya’s pen, Jane stayed alert to avoid walking into any of it.

Ei’Brai was desperately searching the ship’s data banks for scraps of information about this species. Apparently, it was virtually unheard of for it to ever reach this life stage. In fact, it was prohibited by law to allow it to happen. There were many, many safety protocols in place to prevent such an occurrence. Unfortunately there’d been no one on board to carry out those protocols for decades.

The slugs were regarded as problematic enough. Capable of spawning in the larval-stage, they reached maturity swiftly under optimal environmental conditions, even when minute in size. Both the larvae and their eggs were also capable of near indefinite dormancy, making them a prolific and tenacious foe. Every shipyard and dock was infested despite constant vigilance. They developed resistance to every chemical agent used against them, thwarted every method intended to retard their growth. Constant vigilance and mechanical removal were the most effective means of control. They were essentially monster cockroaches in space.

Ajaya mused, “So many, so quickly. We’ve only been gone for a few hours. How can this be?”

Jane walked steadily on, experiencing two disparate states of mind simultaneously. On one level, she was alert to her surroundings—tense, adrenaline pumping through her. Yet, on another level, she carefully monitored Ei’Brai’s intake of information, noting each important detail he uncovered, knowing it could be critical to their survival. This mind-sharing—it allowed her to think in new ways she couldn’t have conceived of before. It gave new meaning to the concept of multi-tasking.

She came to an abrupt halt, heedless of the others, as she centered all her attention to a razor sharp point. Ei’Brai had just uncovered something of monumental importance—and in his surprise and dismay, revealed information that he did not intend to.

These slug creatures were originally native to Sectilia’s moon, Atielle. After the two cultures integrated, some of the creatures were inadvertently transferred to the planet. The population exploded—like rabbits in the Australian Outback. Without a natural predator, they multiplied out of control. A highly adaptable species, they filled many new niches and interbred with similar terrestrial fauna until their genetics were quite different from the original, moon-based creature.

When this newly hybridized creature was reintroduced to its native habitat, new characteristics were unmasked. Atielle, as one of several moons orbiting such a large planet, was extremely geologically active. The annual cycles of tectonic and tidal activity influenced by Sectilia’s gravitational fields resulted in a localized volcanic emission of xenon gas. The gas, normally present in Atielle’s atmosphere in low percentages, became quite concentrated, triggering a transformation. The formerly benign species became a dangerous predator: the nepatrox.

All of this was new information to Ei’Brai. Normally, the slug population was not his concern. He didn’t bother himself with trivialities that had no effect on him. Perhaps this was common knowledge among the Sectilius who inhabited the ship—so common, it wasn’t necessary to discuss it.

It was the leak…the xenon gas…that had set this in motion. The despicable part was that it hadn’t been accidental. There had been a leak of xenon gas, but it’d been minor. Ei’Brai augmented it, purposefully, for effect—to create a scenario that would push her to be dependent on his help so that he could demonstrate his power and ultimately gain her trust.

He’d tried to hide that from her. It had been but a momentary lapse in his control of the information she received from him. But she’d seen it. And it changed everything.

A painful, tingly sensation rioted from her core outwards. Her face felt hot. Her ears burned. Why did he think he needed to force anything by manufacturing a situation? Why couldn’t he just have given her the time she needed to adjust to communicating with him?

He’d wanted her to learn to trust him. But he hadn’t trusted or respected her at all, had he? He could have killed Alan or Walsh, or both, with that gas. She could never have forgiven that. And what he’d started wasn’t over yet. There were still plenty of opportunities to die from the reckless choice Ei’Brai had made. Jane stood there, stunned. Walsh was right all along.

Ei’Brai inundated her thoughts with apologies, contrition. He begged her to see his desperate need, reminded her of the bigger picture—the Sectilius goal, the Cunabula and the hope humanity could provide to the uncounted centillions of species in the universe. It was a torrent of ingratiation and regret. She wanted none of it.

“Neu!” she cried aloud.

She came to herself abruptly with the others gathering around her. She closed her eyes and stood stock still, raging silently, Get out of my head, goddamn you!

All at once, he withdrew. She rocked on her heels as she felt him slip away. She was completely alone inside her head for the first time since they docked with the ship. The hum had gone silent. Not even a tingle at the back of her mind was left. She felt surprisingly empty. Now, in his absence, she could see that he’d infiltrated her mind so completely, she’d begun to feel normal with him there.

It was a relief. And it was lonely. That was disconcerting.

Walsh nudged her roughly. “Quit stalling, Holloway. Keep moving.”

Alan pulled her away from Walsh, propelling her forward again. Before he could query her about what just happened, she whispered, “Do you still have a weapon?”

He nodded slowly, looking confused and uncomfortable. “In my pack. Jane, I did fine at the shooting range, but I’m no match for Walsh.”

She put a hand on his arm, squeezing, and darted a look back. “I…no, no. Walsh is right—I think we should go. I’m just worried we aren’t going to make—”

She froze. Something had moved in her peripheral vision.