Homesick

Sally and Ian hovered over the communication console in the pilot’s cone. Vlad stood near the door behind them, carefully observing.

“Greetings, Kelthy!” a calm voice, apparently male, rang out from the speaker. “Please verify that you can hear me.”

“It’s definitely Shuttlepod One,” Ian said. “And whoever’s using it knows how the com system works. That’s not English he’s speaking either.”

“Then they won’t be able to understand us if we reply,” Sally said.

“No.” Ian looked to Vlad. “Can you modify our return transmission through the translator interface?”

He nodded, looking to Sally for permission. Sally stepped out of his way, not favoring him with more than a glance. Ian noticed the exchange but didn’t comment.

“While he’s doing that, Ian, can we see what they look like?”

“Not sure,” he said. “I can get the ship’s interior, but it might not be a useful view. It’s a low-res camera and it doesn’t have much of a lens.”

“Do your best.”

Ian touched the blue controls on the console in front of him. He worked the menu bar and proceeded through the hierarchy. A video panel came to life amid the controls above the console. From a camera mounted near the port in the nose of the ship, partially obstructed by the instrument panels, they could see a fish-eye view of the ship’s interior. The view included all three couches and most of the lower compartment. Seated in the pilot’s couch was a man who could have been their pole-carrying, camouflaged assailant. His helmet was off now, revealing an almost human face. Behind him on the floor of the ship were two of the bulky, helmeted figures with tool arms glowing. One was gazing at the environmental console, experimentally keying in commands on the touch pad. The other was on his knees in front of an open access panel, making note of the components within.

“Bloody hell on a stick!” Ian exclaimed.

“Can you get a close-up on that face?”

Ian entered a series of commands and a new set of controls appeared below the screen, including a row of virtual sliders and the equivalent of a joystick. He touched its center, swiveling and pointing the camera. He zoomed in on the odd face, revealing more of its features.

This man, evidently a Master, was a sharp contrast to those they had seen in the labor camp. He was beefy, clear-eyed, and didn’t look at all malnourished. His face was unblemished, except for an abundance of skin art. His eyes were lined with dark decorative designs, which could have been tattoos, giving him the look of an Egyptian god. Above his eyes was the centerpiece, however. From the bridge of his nose to the top of his forehead was a large emblem that extended across both eyebrows. The design, obviously more than a tattoo, caught the light like a highway road sign, and was easy to see even in the low-resolution of the panel-mounted camera. The design looked like an upside-down, rounded triangle bisected on its base by a half circle. Together, these elements formed two links of an oddly-shaped chain. The emblem was painstakingly stylized with what could have been studs or implanted jewels. The skin surrounding the emblem was pale, and may have been painted in such a way as to make the mark stand out. The man stared straight ahead, as if waiting for a response he knew would come eventually.

“Vlad, how’s that going?” Sally asked.

“Try now.”

“Occupant of shuttlepod, this is Captain Sally Buds in command of the United Nations Space Ship Kelthy. I represent the planet Earth. You are trespassing on our property and I demand you leave at once.”

The man smiled, revealing polished teeth. On closer inspection, many of his teeth were also decorated with designs. But the smile itself was hideous. Both Sally and Ian recoiled from it almost in unison. Under the surface of this face was something malevolent. The word “unclean” came to Sally’s mind. She exchanged glances with Ian and could tell he saw it, too.

“Yes, Captain Buds, we know of you!” the decorated man said with a confidence that seemed unnatural. “You’ve abducted one of our citizens and I’ve come to ask for his return. I’ve also come to invite you to visit with us here to discuss our situation further.”

Sally responded with a strangled cough. She pushed the mute panel. “Did I just hear him right?” But Ian didn’t take his eyes from the face. He bit his lower lip in careful appraisal of the man, as if his words were not completely unexpected.

“You may call me Master Daaarrm. And I represent just about everybody down here on this continent.” He smiled a mocking smile that almost made Sally wince.

“Captain, I need a word,” Ian whispered to Sally.

She held up a finger to him and released the mute button. “Darm, with all due respect, you must think we’re insane! We rescued one of our crewmembers from your prison camp and I’ve spent the last few days trying to repair the damage your people inflicted on him. If you think I’m going to send him back to you for another round of that, you’re sadly mistaken!”

“Captain, you must be reasonable,” the man said with a more diplomatic voice. “The man you abducted is part of our society now. We love him and need him. He also needs us. Surely he’s made that clear to you by now.”

Sally shook her head in pure amazement. “Yes, but only because you screwed up his mind with whatever sick torture you put him through!”

“Captain, we’re not as you depict us. It’s clear you’ve jumped to conclusions. Why don’t we meet? Let us show you our society at its best! If you come down and meet with us, we’ll guarantee your safe return. If you don’t want to join us, you surely don’t have to.”

“Is that the choice you gave Scott Anderson?”

“In a way. 4702 was welcomed as a member of our society and he chose to stay with us. Had he not, he could have returned to this vessel and gone back to you whenever he wished. As you must have seen, he was not restrained in any way.”

“Look, Darm __”

“Master Daaarrm,” he corrected.

“Yeah, whatever! Let’s cut the crap! You brainwashed Scott Anderson __”

“4702.”

“You brainwashed Scott Anderson! And, as I said before, we’ve had enough of your abuse! I have no intention of returning to your planet. We want nothing to do with you, and I ask you again to get out of that ship!”

“Odd you should say we abused you,” he said, as if trying to be patient with a troublesome child. “You took one of our citizens from us against his will. When we tried to intervene, you murdered two of our highly skilled Builders and almost killed me, a Master! Don’t you think you owe us more than that?”

His smile continued to sicken Sally. He now reminded her of a bully taunting a weaker child on a playground. She fought again to hold back her temper. “As commander of this ship, I decide who goes where, and Scott Anderson is under my command. We’re not leaving this ship, and that’s my final word!”

His eyebrows twisted in an expression Sally interpreted as a shrug. “Then I have another idea for you to consider. My Builders have told me this vehicle is capable of reaching you from here. Might a few of us be your guests up there?”

This time Sally did laugh. “If you think you’d be welcome onboard my ship after what you did to Scott, then you’re more screwed up than you look!”

“We have matters to discuss with you.”

Ian touched her shoulder and punched the mute panel. “I need a word, Captain, and now! This may be important. Don’t say no yet.”

Sally unmuted the console, throwing him a confused look.

“What do you want to discuss?” she asked Daaarrm, while trying to read Ian’s face in more detail.

“We’d like to know of your planet and your intentions here,” Daaarrm said too calmly. “Surely we have that right, do we not?”

Sally had been mentally winding up to launch a final verbal assault on the disgusting face, and would have taken great pleasure in breaking the connection immediately afterward, but something in Ian’s face gave her pause.

“Let me confer with my crew and my government,” she said in as confident and neutral a tone as possible. “I’ll get back to you.”

He smiled and nodded. “I’ll wait for your word. A Builder can find me if I’m not here.”

On the screen they could see Daaarrm reaching for the command key and pulling it free. The image went blank.

“Damn!” Ian shouted, “That’s exactly what I figured!”

Sally stared at him.

“Don’t you see, they know what they’re doing! They know how the key works and they know what it does! They probably knew we were watching them! And they also know that, without that key in place, I can’t do much of anything from here! They’ve got us by the short and curlies, Captain, and I mean they do!”

“Vlad, go to your quarters until I call for you.” Sally said without looking at him. She listened for his steps before continuing. “Okay, Ian, I’m listening. As long as you aren’t seriously suggesting we let those animals loose on this ship, you’ve got my full attention.”

“Captain, we’ve got a problem here, and I’m afraid that may be just what I’m suggesting. I didn’t bring this up before because I wasn’t sure what we could do about it and I didn’t know how far it would go, but now . . . we definitely do have a problem!”

“Explain.”

“I’ve been monitoring the other shuttlepod since we got back. I could tell they’d been tampering with it, but I didn’t know what they were doing. At first, I thought they were simply looting it or trying to destroy it. But, when they started transmitting, I was able to get the control logs. They’ve been getting into everything! They’ve accessed navigational control, they’ve experimented with the ignition sequence, they’ve obviously mastered communication, and they’re working on accessing the computer systems!” He shook his head in frustration. “I grossly underestimated those people, Captain. They’re dangerous!”

Sally looked on, saying nothing.

“Captain, don’t you see? They can fly the shuttlepod!”

“Are you saying they could board us?”

“Well, not if we didn’t want them to, but that’s not really the point, is it? If they keep going like this, there’s no reason they couldn’t revive their own space program adding our technology to theirs! Captain, the computer banks on that shuttlepod contain a great deal of information. They have the specs of the Kelthy, for one thing! And, most importantly, they have the location of the fold! If they find out how close Earth really is, we could all be in danger!”

Sally looked at him with gentle skepticism. “Ian, are you sure you aren’t reaching just a bit here? You remember what the surface looks like.”

“Yes, it fooled me, too,” he admitted. “But, no matter how crudely they generate their power, they still have it. And somebody down there knows how to engineer complex technology, and they apparently learn very quickly. We’ve got to stop that process now! The computer on that shuttlepod was never designed against espionage. It’s an open book! Remember, we were never expecting trouble out here. Everything on that ship is as straight forward and user-friendly as possible!”

“Except for the security user levels,” Sally agreed.

“And Scott had almost as much authority as you do! They’ve got his key, Captain, and they know all his pass codes!”

Like slow osmosis, Ian’s fear was seeping into Sally. She had never seen him react so strongly to anything before. Even on the planet when they were both scared out of their wits, Ian had been a tower of control. She’d often pictured him as a storybook knight defending ancient England, never turning aside from the dragon. Or sometimes she saw him as one of the stone-faced guards at Buckingham Palace, serving with unshakable composure. But now the stiff English soldier was beginning to buckle. His cheeks were trembling and she could smell his tension. When a brave man becomes afraid, there’s usually a good reason.

“We can’t wipe the computer?”

“Not as long as they have Anderson’s key,” he said. “When they put it in, they could wipe the banks, but we can’t. I suppose we could try, but they’d be able to stop it. Whoever actually has the key always has the advantage. Remember, that ship was designed to protect the pilot. Anything we tried to do from orbit would have to be approved by the person actually seated at the controls! And they’d have warning prompts up the wazoo!”

“But they can’t read the screens,” Sally countered.

“We don’t know that!” Ian said, trying not to shout. “Who’s to say they don’t have some kind of translator of their own? And who knows what they got out of Scott before we rescued him! He learned their language, didn’t he? They managed to contact us, didn’t they? And, even if we had full control, we can’t wipe all the data anyway! Some of it’s backed up on optical disks! Even if we erased the whole works, they could just re-install it from the backup! That’s another bloody safety feature!”

Sally nodded. “So you recommend we let them onboard so we can get access to the ship?”

“Just long enough to remove all data concerning us and where we come from,” Ian pressed. “I’m not just talking about erasing files, I’m talking about removing all computer components. Even if they’ve taken the discs, they’re no good without the drives to read them, and the drives are no good without the processors. We turn the onboard system into a dumb terminal. We fly them back down with an empty board, which they can’t re-construct. And then we put in some kind of self-destruct mechanism to boot. Give them a few minutes to get clear, if you prefer, but destroy the bloody pod!”

Sally thought for a moment. “What if they try to take our ship?”

He shrugged. “We’ll have to be creative about that. We still have a mag of bullets left and then some.”

She sighed, visibly struggling with the idea. “I don’t know, Ian. I’m still feeling like we made it out of there by the skin of our teeth as it is. Maybe we should leave well enough alone.”

“I’m not sure it is well enough. That’s the problem!”

“You know, Vlad wanted to nuke them.” Sally turned to him. “He was talking about irradiating the whole area.”

“Really?” Ian said with mild amusement. “That explains why he was accessing those schematics of the power grid.”

“You were checking on him?”

“As per your orders. You were right, he was up to mischief, but in this particular case his motivation isn’t far off. These people could be a real threat. If we don’t act now, we could have a real bloody mess later. I’m not saying they’ll come in with an armada, I’m just saying I don’t know what they could do! I’d like to go back to our side of the universe without dropping them our address! I’m pretty sure they know there is a fold now, but as long as they still don’t know where it is, it could take them centuries to find it. Maybe one day we can reason with them, but I’d like us to decide when that day is. Not them!”

Sally thought silently for a moment, shaking her head. “I’ll have to think it over, Ian. It’s a big risk you’re talking about.”

“I know. It may be the biggest most dangerous thing we ever do, but we risk far more by not doing it! We’ve already handed them all our secrets. We have to take them back before they use them!” He faced her seriously. “Captain, you know I’m right about this. It’s your decision, but you know I’m right.”

She thought again and slowly nodded.

“And, if we do it, you’re going to have to face something else.”

“What?”

He sat down next to her and grasped her hand. “Sally, can I speak frankly?”

She nodded.

“I know you didn’t ask for this mission when we got out of that mining drone, and I know you’ve had to learn a great deal since then.”

She nodded.

“But you did it. And, even though we’re in way over our heads here, your judgment has been excellent so far. But, that said, you’ve also been on the hot seat since this nasty business started and it’s beginning to show. I’m telling you this as a friend and off the record __”

“You mean Vlad?”

“Yeah, primarily.”

“He disobeyed orders and tried to tamper with the ship while we were gone. He’s a loose cannon and I can’t trust him. And that’s both on and off the record.”

“But we need him,” Ian insisted. “On and off the bloody record, we need him! I know it’s none of my business what happens between you and him, and I’d never presume to tell you what to do, but we have to see this thing for what it is! Now, I don’t want to bring those bastards onto this ship any more than you do, but once they’re here we’re going to need numbers! We don’t have Anderson, he’d probably be on their side given the choice, but we do have Vlad. You and I got lucky on the planet, but we almost didn’t make it. Vlad has skills. We need those skills on our side. We also need to know we can count on him to work in our best interest as well as his own. Now, I’m not telling you to forgive what he did or even accept it. I’m asking you to make a deal with him. Have some kind of parlay until we reach Earth.”

Sally nodded, taking it in.

“Because, if we’re not meshing like a well-oiled machine, we’re dead! If we can’t count on him to work the pod, I’ll have to. That’ll leave you alone with them. I don’t want that and I’m sure you don’t either.”

Sally sighed, smiled lightly, and patted Ian on the back. “You’re right, of course. Thank you for having the guts to tell me.”

His shoulders sagged almost imperceptibly.

“But I’ll still want more time to prepare before we actually bring them onboard.”

Ian’s concern flooded back. “More time might give them a chance to access those files! Once they have that information, we may as well not bother. Then all that’s left would be Vlad’s plan or something like it.”

“Would you support that?” she challenged.

“Of course not! We’d be killing the wrong people. That’s why bringing the pod back makes more sense to me, but we must do it soon! Failing that, Vlad has a point, and I’ll bet there’d be support for it on Earth.”

Sally sighed, supporting her head with her hands for a moment.

“I’m sorry, Captain.”

“No, Ian, you’re right again,” she said through her fingers. “I’ll call our distinguished guests back and arrange to invite them onboard. But no more than two of them. I don’t want to be outnumbered on my own ship, and I don’t want any of those guys with the helmets either.”

“We’ll maintain a visual of the interior until they arrive,” Ian said. “We’ll tell them so. Maybe, if they know we’re watching, they won’t continue to tamper with the systems.”

“I’ll mention that.”

“But try not to act concerned,” he advised. “Make something else up! And don’t call back right away. We want to do this quick, but we can’t afford to let them think we’re scared.”

“Maybe you should make the call,” she suggested.

“Good idea! Because I’m your subordinate?”

“Yes, and because you seem to have a better poker face than I do.”

“We’ll wait one hour and I’ll call them,” he said, relieved.

Ian turned to leave, but Sally took his shoulder. “One more thing, Ian.” She swallowed and tried to fend off her exhaustion. “I’m glad you’re on my side and I consider you a friend, too. I think we both need one.”

He clasped her hand and managed a smile.