Sabledrake Magazine
August, 2001
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Lachesis’ Thread
Copyright © 2001 by Rina
The opaque darkness spread out in all directions, an infinite blanket of blackness punctured by the occasional star. With his head resting in his hand, Matthew Williams thoughtfully peered out into the blankness of space through the tiny window. He had been making trips like this for years, but every time he saw it, the sheer vast emptiness that was deep space, he couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed, like a man trapped on an endless ocean. It was enough to make anyone feel small and insignificant.
He swung back around on his swivel chair, reaching to pour himself a glass of water. As Matthew glanced into the reflection in the clear liquid, he smiled wearily at the sight of his appearance. I’m getting too old to be a ship captain, he thought, studying the graven lines etched deep into his face and the white that peppered his dark hair. Still, it beat being back on the homeworld, where Earth and the Mars colony had been locked in a ferocious war for almost four long years. Acts of terrorism had claimed countless lives, especially in the heavily crowded cities of Nairobi and Bombay. Being a worn-out merchant ship captain was better than living in constant fear of the next Martian attack.
Leaning back in his chair, Matthew took a sip of the recycled water and winced at the metallic taste. That was another thing he couldn’t get used to-the fact the ship water tasted like stale bile, though everyone seemed too worried about creating more efficient engines than to care about improving it.
He sighed and set the water back down on his desk, trying to ignore the horrible taste in his mouth. Instead, he thought about the fact that they would be landing on the colony of Mnemosyne in three days, and that everyone on the ship would be paid richly for delivering the relief supplies that the settlers so dearly needed.
Matthew had reluctantly begun to drink the bitter water again when the com beside his desk buzzed. Without putting the plastic cup down, he reached over to answer it.
"Yes?"
"Captain, we are receiving a distress call." Matthew immediately recognized the accented voice of Maria Fernandez, the ship’s communication expert. Putting the glass down, he replied that he would be right there. Matthew briskly walked down the brightly-lit corridor, past the steel doors of the gigantic cargo hold, thinking. Who the hell could be out in this region of space? This was not a common trade route, and he doubted that it was a passenger vessel; the only colony within a hundred astronomical units was Mnemosyne, a dry, harsh planet that was far from an ideal vacation spot.
This made him worried; he had heard stories of space pirates, groups of murdering rogues that roamed through space in search of potential victims. Could this distress call be a fabrication by pirates, craftily constructed to lure them into a death trap? The whole thing made the old captain nervous, and he rubbed his hands together worriedly as he entered the bridge, where Maria parallel to the pilots, the greenish light from her console illuminating her face.
"Have you been able to contact anyone?" Matthew inquired, as Maria craned her head to look up at him, adjusting her headset as she did so.
"Not yet," she responded, and her voice was tinged with uneasiness.
"Have you found their location?"
"Yessir. Approximately one fourth of an astronomical unit from our current coordinates. The signal seems to be originating from the beta Orionis system," Maria told him, gesturing to the screen. He squinted at the charts and spoke slowly.
"That’s in an uncharted region of space."
"I know. It’s very strange."
"I don’t like the looks of this. It could be a pirate craft," the captain said warily.
"What shall we do?"
"Let me hear the SOS," Matthew ordered.
"Something happened to it, sir. The equipment must be malfunctioning; we can’t understand a word of it, and the computer keeps registering it as being of unknown origin," the communications expert explained.
"I still want to hear it," Matthew said stubbornly, and Maria played it for him. The cramped bridge was silent for a few seconds, then the distress call began. It was like nothing he had ever heard; the voice was shrilly inhuman, talking rapidly in a singsong voice, the language completely foreign to everyone in the room. He leaned down closer to hear it as it was played again, the words little more than meaningless babble.
"Keetah quiioc awae ttaia chaa. Teilc aheaa quintah heakkee."
The high words sent chills down his spine, and he bit his lower lip as Maria played it again.
"What the hell are they saying?"
"I don’t know. The language isn’t even listed in the computer’s files."
Matthew was silent.
"If I didn’t know better, I-I would, well, I would think it was of extraterrestrial origin," Maria spoke up quietly, her dark eyes wide. The captain raised one eyebrow, wondering if she was delirious.
"Are you saying that the signal came from goddamn aliens, Fernandez?"
"I know it sounds crazy, but I can-can’t recognize the signal. It’s not human…"
Matthew narrowed his eyes and watched as the computer listed the language, the location, even as the frequency as unknown, the words sprawling across the screen. Unknown. Even the damned machine didn’t know what the hell was going on.
His mind was reeling, and though he refused to even acknowledge the possibility of extraterrestrials being out there, he couldn’t help but wonder. The very thought sentient life actually existing excited him. True, humanity had discovered alien forms of bacteria, even wildlife indigenous to various colony worlds, but actual alien intelligence, actual sapient creatures other than humans…Matthew tried in vain to speak, but his mouth wouldn’t work, and he gripped the back of the communication technician’s chair tightly.
"What shou-should we do?" Maria whispered.
None of them were prepared for this; true, they had all read the thick manual regarding first contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life, but after they were finished, they tossed it aside, mostly since they felt that it was useless information. After all, humanity had been exploring and colonizing space for several centuries, and there hadn’t been so much as an alien radio wave. The public’s interest in sentient beings had waned considerably since the pre-colonizing days. Now Matthew and his crew were faced with perhaps the most important prospect in human history.
His legs were shaking.
"Sir?" Maria asked again, her voice strangled.
A thousand thoughts were running through the captain’s head at once. Was the distress call a hoax, a deception made by pirates or scavengers? Or were the aliens real, and if they were real, were they friendly? What if they decided to attack?
"Contact earth central right away. Maybe they’ll know what to do."
Nodding, the young woman did so, her face flushed with a mixture of exhilaration and sheer terror. The captain’s own face was pale, his heart thundering within his chest as he ignored the dizzy feeling the best that he could.
"They’re not responding, sir," Maria said softly, beads of sweat forming on her forehead. He didn’t say a word; inside, it felt as if though two forces were violently tearing him in half. One part of him, the cool, composed side, told him to wait until reinforcements came and he knew that it was safe. The other part firmly instructed him to help the people in distress, alien or not. If they were indeed extraterrestrials, they could be dying or worse.
"I-,"
Maria watched him, her face a bright red.
"Set a course for the beta Orionis system."
***
This sector of space had never been thoroughly explored by humans; the few that had ventured out this far had just skimmed over the various planets, occasionally giving a numerical name to one or two. Matthew watched avidly as they approached the giant gaseous planet, O-46. He felt awed by it; its atmosphere was a churning cauldron of dark blues and greens, with an occasional wisp of white. Several sets of icy rings, as well as a single moon, circled the swirling planet.
"That’s where the distress signal is coming from," Maria reported, pointing to the giant’s satellite on the viewscreen. Matthew nodded, then turned to the others. It was as though he was as though time had slowed down, boggled down in thick molasses. The whole situation felt like some strange dream, and he was impatiently waiting to wake up.
Nodding, he went over the drill with the crewmembers that had volunteered. Among them was Maria, her glossy black hair tied back in a braid and an apprehensive expression on her face, the medic, Cynthia Chan, and Jack Harte, the ship’s mechanic.
"We’ll be landing in five minutes," one of the pilots said, as his nimble fingers flew over the control board.
"Has the scanners picked up anything?" Matthew questioned, hoping that they had.
"No sir. Only some hydrogen residue," was the reply.
He tried hard not to show his disappointment as they strapped on the bulky silvery-black space suits. As the captain put on his helmet, he silently debated on whether or not to bring side arms. Though this was a rescue mission, he didn’t want to fall into some pirate or alien trap. He finally decided on small caliber weapons, and instructed the crew not to shoot first.
The cargo ship passed through the moon’s atmosphere with little turbulence. It landed on the dark gray surface, sending up a cloud of fine dust in its rumbling wake. Matthew gritted his teeth; never before had he felt so unsure about something in his entire life.
" If anything goes wrong, be prepared to leave as soon as possible," Matthew ordered one of the pilots. The volunteers stepped out of the ship’s airlock and into the shadowy unknown. Instantly they felt the gravity diminish significantly. And since most of them were Terrans, they certainly weren’t use to it, shown by the fact that they stumbled about without grace or skill, making elaborate movement with their limbs as they tried to steady themselves.
" Is everyone’s radios working okay?" Maria asked and everyone nodded, almost solemnly. As they began to move forward, Cynthia looked at the captain.
"Are you sure we should be doing this? I mean-," she started. He put a comforting hand on her shoulder, though he declined to admit that he was feeling the same way.
Maria glanced down at the holo-map on her forearm and pointed in the general direction of the ship. Soundlessly, the group made their way over the dusty surface, moving with the same uncertainty as toddlers taking their first shaky steps.
As they reached a large crater, at least five hundred meters in diameter, Matthew began gesturing excitedly. The others followed, hopping about rather awkwardly in their huge suits. As they peered into the deep depression, they saw a strange craft at the bottom. It was obvious, even at first glance, that the vessel was not made by human hands.
It was like nothing they had ever seen. Long and graceful, with curved wings, the craft was constructed of dark reddish-gold material, which gleamed in the dim light. A tall appendage, which looked like a peculiar cross between a metallic sail and a spiked fin, rose sharply from the vessel’s narrow back.
Untranslatable, looping shapes, writing perhaps, was etched on both sides of the craft, starting from the blunt nose to the flaring tail. Maria moved up to the craft, gently tracing the exotic designs with one finger, her mouth agape. Matthew, however, was more interested in how the thing could have possibly flown. There were no clear engines, only several peculiar series of holes near the back of the red-gold ship, spaced far apart.
He wasn’t an engineer, so he couldn’t have even begun to guess what the odd holes were for. And he wasn’t exactly thinking calming at the moment, either; it was all so mind-boggling…
The crew cautiously approached the alien vessel. Matthew tried to look through the craft’s numerous windows (or that’s what he thought they were.) But the diamond-shaped windows, spaced far apart and trimmed with ornately carved metal, were dark and there was no movement from inside.
" How do we get in?" Someone asked. That was a good question; Matthew couldn’t believe he hadn’t considered that. The crew circled the craft slowly until Maria located what had to be a doorway to the outer airlock, though it was much too large to be of human design.
They slid a gun into the crack between the door and its metallic frame. But try as they might, the door wouldn’t budge. That made sense; it was probably designed to withstand the vacuum of space, and a mere piece of steel couldn’t break through that. Matthew stared at the strange sail thing protruding from the top of the ship, thinking. That was when he noticed a large jagged tear alongside the sail, almost twelve feet, the gleaming metal along the edges peeled back, like flayed skin.
" What about that?" He inquisited, indicating the big rip.
" That might work," Jack agreed. The crew managed to clamber up onto the top of the craft, helping each other up on shoulders. Matthew shone a halogen light into the long crack, half expecting some alien monster to spring out and clamp onto his faceplate, like in those old science fiction vids. But nothing stirred below, though he could vaguely make out a room.
" We’ll only be dropping about twelve or thirteen feet," Matthew replied. He reminded them not to fire any weapons unless it was totally necessary; starting a war with these unknown beings was something that he was trying hard to prevent. They climbed through the tear, being careful of the sharp edges that glittered viciously in the white light. The merchant ship’s crew landed ungainly in a large chamber.
That rip probably had something to do with why the ship crashed, Matthew thought to himself, staring up at the huge crack. Stars sparkled in the jet-black sky, and the thrill of what was happening was like nothing that he had ever experienced before.
I could write a book on this…
The cavernous room they had fallen into was silent and dim. Everyone turned on his or her lights, but there wasn’t much to see; the place was bare. Everything in the room had probably been sucked out violently into space when the tear in the ship was made, though they could see more extraterrestrial patterns on the pale green walls.
They did, however, spot a door. The crew managed to force the door open, revealing an even larger room. It had obviously been an alien version of a ship’s bridge. Now it was in shambles. Machinery and pieces of unrecognizable metal were sprawled carelessly around. Sparks of blue electricity illuminated the debris and the dead bodies sprawled amongst the tangled wreckage. Matthew focused his light on one of the alien corpses. It was lying in a drying pool of purple-red liquid, probably blood, its scaled body curled up into a fetal position.
"Sweet Jesus," Matthew heard himself muttering.
The alien was inhuman to say the least. It resembled a large reptile, like a dinosaur, except it had bright plumes of feathers the vibrant colors of autumn on its head and tail. Huge bat-like wings lay broken and battered on its arced back. The tan and black pebbly hide was caked with thick blood, creating grisly patterns against the pebbled skin. There was a ragged purple stump where one of its arms had been, the other section of the dismembered limb nowhere to be seen. The other arm was still there though, its delicate three- fingered hand grasping for some unseen object.
On closer inspection could see the face had been intelligent, albeit not human at all. The visage resembled a mutated parrot’s, with a curved toothless bill and large nostrils. Azure eyes stared unseeingly, the gauzy nictitating membrane half shut. Matthew noticed three decorated gold rings on the thick tail, inscribed with the same peculiar writing. The only other thing the creature had been wearing was a lacey white piece of fabric, an alien garment cut in the style of a flowing robe and soaked in dark blood.
" Are any of them alive?" Matthew said, turning away from the grotesque scene of death. Cynthia shook her head grimly.
" Search the rest of the ship. There still might be survivors," the captain ordered. They split up; Matthew was with Jack Hart, who had to be torn away from the bodies.
The nearest hall was murky, thin wisps of grayish-black smoke rising from the damaged equipment and the circular vents. Slowly they made their way down the corridor, searching avidly for survivors. Their bright lights played over the walls, creating eerie shadows that seemed to move with a slithering life of their own. As the reached a T- junction in the passageway, there was a flurry of movement behind them. Spinning around, they instinctively drew their weapons, just as something hit Jack hard. He slammed into the wall and slumped down, unconscious, his head limply lolling against his chest.
Matthew turned to face Jack’s attacker. He raised his gun, but wasn’t fast enough. His opponent slapped the weapon from his hand with one easy motion. Matthew tried to hit his attacker, but to no avail. The giant alien leaned forward to stare at him with intelligent, pale blue eyes, the long tail lashing behind it.
***
Paaqui opened her eyes, her head spinning. The last thing she remembered was the Eisheet-icana crashing into this gods-forsaken moon as the awful sounds of dying surrounded her. She shook her head to try to get the heartbreaking sounds out of her mind and silently prayed to the gods that at least some of her companions had survived the ordeal. Her legs warbling slightly, she forced herself up. Paaqui glanced around somberly at what used to be the ship. It was supposed to be just a standard trip, she thought.
She remembered the day the Eisheet-icana had left the homeworld with a cargo load of fine tianeara cloths and perfumes. Paaqui, along with her fellow merchants, was heading toward the Breeshj colony to trade their goods with the ruling Iyir. If the venture had worked out as it was supposed to, they would all have another keatee on their tails, a higher status, and
wealth beyond their wildest dreams. She could recline on a plush couch, sipping phiij wine and showing off her fourth keatee…
But that was before the accident, before her dreams were shattered like a brittle eggshell. Indeed, Tyoup, the god of fortune, had not been on her side. Or her fellow merchants either, she realized as she stepped over the body of one of her friends, who was slumped over a crate of tianeara cloths, her blood staining the expensive fabric. Paaqui mourned her in the proper way, so that her soul could reunite with The Great Egg and the great Mother, Cei. She stopped when she heard a noise behind her, followed by strange voices speaking a language she did not know. Paaqui crept out into the main passageway, her heart beating within her chest, wings flared slightly.
Paaqui watched two small creatures clothed in strange clothes walk down the hall. From what she could see, they were quite different from a cyree, and at first she thought them to be alien animals, until she saw the weapon in their deformed hands. They had odd pinkish-yellow skin with patches of fur and big ears, their round faces reminding her of a jaasquiia, a hairy, long tailed mammal on the homeworld. Their bodies were scrawny and completely upright, giving them a rigid, tree-like appearance. They also lacked the wings and tail of the cyree. Paaqui wondered how they indicated status if they didn’t have a tail to put keatee on.
She dropped down to all fours and ran after them as quietly as she could manage, her gossamer skirts rustling ever so slightly. As she grew closer to them, she could smell they were male. Paaqui was confused. What female would send a poor male out alone? Maybe these creatures were primitive or very stupid, like the inferior rroa-tyu. Paaqui studied the weapons in their hands. At least, that was what they resembled. She decided that if she just waited for them to find her they would kill her. Paaqui had never been trained in fighting; usually jobs that required physical confrontation were reserved for those of lower-class families.
She wasn’t quite sure what to do so she lunged at them blindly. Paaqui slammed into one of them, sending him crashing into the wall. He drew his weapon, pitifully slow, and she knocked it out of his hand without thinking. The creature, its ugly little mammalian eyes rolling with fierce savagery, smacked her across the face as she held the thrashing thing up. It didn’t hurt exactly, but it shocked her because she had never been hit before in her life.
The very audacity…!
Paaqui stared down at the little creature, who had finally ceased writhing in her grip, his eyes filled with terror. He wasn’t much bigger than a cyree male and didn’t look very dangerous anymore, with his blunt teeth and his tiny fingernails. The small male held up his five fingered hands and made strange noises, more like small animals snorting around for edible roots than anything resembling a sophisticated language. She cocked her head, listening. The male pointed to himself and spoke slowly, the fluorescent blue light from the jagged volts electricity erupting from the ruined computers reflecting off his strangely flat visor . Then he gestured toward Paaqui.
***
"Please," Matthew said softly, petrified at the sight of the hulking alien, "I won’t hurt you."
The huge, reptilian creature didn’t answer, its bluish eyes, like those of an eagle, boring through his soul. It did tilt its feathered head slightly, its sharp beak opened and its fingers digging into his skin, even through his space suit.
"I-I am Matthew Williams. Wha-what is your name?" He gestured as he spoke carefully, hoping that the extraterrestrial holding him wouldn’t clamp down onto his face with that enormous bill. Cautiously, he motioned toward the big creature.
***
Paaqui realized he wanted her to say her name. She did not know what to do at first; the thought of telling her family name to some repugnant little beast made her cringe. Still, she knew that contact with a new species could be quite beneficial to her, especially if they provided the cyree with the same amount of work as the rroa-tyu had. So she told him it, hardly believing that she was talking to an actual alien. Then the male did something odd. He held out his small hand vertically to the cyree. She stared down at it, then gazed at him. The creature said something and took her hand gently, shaking it as he showed his small, white teeth. Paaqui glanced at him for awhile. Then she shook back.