A little more forward velocity now. A few change-ups, too. Hang on.

Music? I think you’ll soon discover why Duchess, the second track on the album Duke, by Genesis, is just about perfect. 

First You Make a Stone of your Heart, 5.12

“Please describe what you saw, old friend,” Pak said. “Everything, even the smallest detail.”

Callahan leaned back on the bed – and watched readouts and live imagery of his body react in real time as he shifted on the bed, and on several holographic displays around the room. “You said decontamination, Pak. What was I exposed to?”

“The micro-organisms within the wall you passed through. They are invasive and there is no known method to counter their effect.”

“I felt something as I passed through the wall. It felt like I passed through an electric field of some kind.”

“What else?”

“This is more like a vague impression, but it felt like they were moving away from me.”

Pak nodded. “They were. We have never been able to penetrate the ship’s defenses, so these organisms have never experienced such an infiltration. They learn quickly. You will not be able to return.”

“Great! I have zero interest in going back…”

“What was the first thing you noticed when you entered the control room?”

“Conduits. Huge electrical conduits, running from the control room to a huge sphere below. There was a spherical array of lasers firing into the sphere when I entered…”

“What color were the beams?”

“Most of them were green, but I saw two large violet beams at the poles.”

“And the sphere? Was it stationary?”

“Yes.”

“This sphere, was it transparent?”

“No, not at all. In fact it looked like – titanium, maybe?”

“The surface smooth?”

“No. All kinds of protuberances, and the black sphere I saw came out of a large circular divot.”

“A divot? I am not familiar with this word.”

Callahan made a cup out of his hands as he spoke. “Like an indention?”

“Yes, I understand. This sphere was black?”

“Yes. Transparent, and shiny black. Very smooth.”

“And you saw men…?”

“Yes. Several already inside, and at least another half dozen floating from an airlock towards the sphere itself. I saw one man simply enter the sphere. No doorway, either.”

“Weapons?”

“None that I recognized.”

“Anything that looked like weapons inside the sphere…?”

“No, nothing. The men were…it appeared like weightless conditions both inside and outside of the sphere.”

“Are you sure the other man with Sorensen was the Austrian? Herr Hitler?”

Callahan nodded. “Yup. It’s not a face you forget, if you know what I mean.”

Pak looked at the displays, then turned to one of his technicians and they appeared to communicate, but Harry saw no lip movements and heard nothing spoken between them, then Pak turned back to him. “Your clothing has been sterilized. As soon as you are ready you may return to Hyperion.”

Harry sighed, then looked up at Pak again. “There’s one thing I haven’t told you, and I think you should know.”

“Go on.”

“When I entered the control room I couldn’t see the humans in their spacesuits. I closed my eyes and thought about the far side of the room and jumped across. Literally, in zero time.”

Pak blinked rapidly, then turned and found a chair and sat. “Your abilities are…they have progressed faster than expected.”

“What does that mean?”

“One day, perhaps one day soon, you will no longer need ships to explore the stars,” Pak said, clearly interested now. “This explains why the Grays and the Owls suddenly became so interested. When this happens, this change, you will be beyond the ability of the Grays to control. They grow troubled.”

“These Grays? Was I on one of their ships?”

Pak nodded. “Yes, but Harry, you must remember this one thing about Grays. They do not know fear. This is their greatest strength, but it is…oh, what is the term? Their Achilles heel. You understand this?”

“Yes. Their weakness.”

“Not just the words, but what the words mean. This fearlessness works to their advantage, until it doesn’t.”

“Am I the only one that can jump like this?”

“No. There are more – not many, but more. And then there are the orca.”

“Orcas? You mean…like killer whales?”

Pak shrugged. “They do not kill from hate or anger, old friend, yet long ago they ruled your planet, and it was then that they learned to reach out. The Owls felt this; they were the first to come to your homeworld to study them. They came long before your first ancestors, I think.”

“Can they, the orcas…do they travel like that? Out among the stars?”

“Oh, yes, very much so,” a suddenly smiling Pak said, and Callahan had never seen him smile like this before.

“Does this make you happy?” Harry asked.

“Oh, yes. I have many friends among them.”

“Excuse me?”

“Why?”

“What?”

“You asked me to excuse you? For what?”

Callahan shrugged. “Sorry, I misspoke. So, you have friends among the orca? How does that work?”

“Perhaps we, you and I, will have chance…a chance to meet one. Would that interest you?”

Callahan nodded. “Yeah, swell.”

Pak shook his head, then turned to one of the technicians in the room – and again they communicated wordlessly – then Pak walked from the compartment. 

The tech went to a chute and held up a clear bag with his clothes inside, and Harry nodded and started digging the unfolded garments from the bag. “Cleaned ‘em pretty good, huh? Well,” he said as he pulled his boxers out of the bag and looked them over, “at least you got the brown stripes out…”

+++++

The shuttle, Callahan saw, was almost horseshoe shaped – and the broad, curved fuselage appeared, from a distance, to have been fashioned from leather, or at least from some kind of organic material, but the closer he got to the shuttle’s entrance the more metallic the material looked. They, he and four of Pak’s crew, were jetting in zero-G down a clear passageway towards the shuttle, and the sheer size of Pak’s flagship quickly became apparent. His shuttle, the one they were heading to, appeared to be at least a thousand feet long and 300 feet across, maybe a little more. The shuttle’s propulsion system wasn’t obviously apparent; in fact, he saw no windows or openings of any kind – aside from where this clear tube entered the shuttle.

But then he saw at least ten more shuttles precisely docked along the longitudinal axis of Pak’s ship, and suddenly he saw another row of at least ten more shuttles beyond the first row – and now she true size of Pak’s flagship became apparent. And so to did the purpose of this ship. 

Pak’s flagship hadn’t been built for exploration. No, this was a warship, probably some sort of carrier, and as he approached his shuttle he started looking for clues that might reveal armament or weaponry…but nothing jumped out at him. Something caught his eye just then and he turned a little, saw another row of ten more shuttles behind this row and he shook his head at this staggering display of strength.

‘A staggering display…?’ he thought. ‘So, why now, and what is Pak trying to tell us?’

And then he felt Pak inside his thoughts again.

‘You are the first to see my ship, old friend. Not even Den-ton has seen this ship.’

‘Why are you showing me?’

‘When you return they will ask. You must tell them what you have seen.’

‘I can’t see you. Where are you?’

‘In another ship, a ship like the one you will enter, this thing you call a shuttle. I must return to my home.’

‘May I ask why?’

‘I will need more ships.’

‘More? How many more?’

‘As many as I need.’

‘How many – shuttles – are on this…carrier?’

‘This is a small carrier ship. There are only a thousand shuttles attached.’

‘Jesus Christ!’

‘Why do you speak of the Jesus? What has he to do with shuttles?’

Callahan took a deep breath and tried to collect his thoughts as privately as he could…but that proved useless. 

‘Yes, I know him,’ Pak said.

‘What? Who?’

‘The man you know as Jesus.’

‘You know him? But…how…?’

‘Old friend, you must stop thinking of time as linear. If I confront a question in logic, it is not a problem to visit Aristotle. If I want to understand religious mindset I will talk to the Buddha, or to the Jesus.’

“So, you are saying you know these people? That you have met them?’

‘Of course, but old friend, you think of these people as dead. But no one is dead. You must remember, time is not your enemy, old friend. Time is a tool.’

‘And the Grays. They are fearless, but that is a strength, and a weakness.’

‘Very good, old friend. Remember the desert. Do not forget.’

‘I won’t.’

Callahan saw a shuttle in the distance lift off from the carrier’s deck; soon it began rotating, reorienting relative to a small cluster of blue stars in the distance, and then the shuttle disappeared. And still Harry could see no visible signs of propulsion.

He drifted inside his shuttle a few minutes later, and he saw a woman sitting in a small section of this cabin, and obviously fitted out to accommodate humans. He pushed off a seat back and drifted her way, then stopped his momentum on an armrest and finally sat beside the woman. She was wearing the same blue coveralls and insignia as the crew on Ripley’s ship, Hyperion, and as he settled into the mesh seat he looked at her and smiled.

“I’m Callahan,” he said as he looked her over. Tall, muscular, brown hair and eyes, and she sported a lieutenant’s single bar on her collar. She had burns on her hands, and a recent scar on her neck, so he assumed she had recently seen combat.

“I know,” the woman said, “but you’re really old. What are you doing out here?”

“As soon as I find out, I’ll let you know.”

She nodded, but then he realized she had not stopped staring at him since he’d entered the shuttle, and now he was beginning to feel a little like an amoeba under a microscope. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t catch your name.”

“Tell me about the creature you saw on the Gray’s ship.”

“What?”

“The creature laying the eggs. Describe it to me.”

So he did. A height of fifteen feet was about the only solid fact he had, but the impression he’d gathered was that the creature’s structure was similar to that of an ant, so he described a large ant-like creature. “And there was a large tube connected to her. Something that looked like an egg came out of this tube, and I saw dozens of eggs in this room.”

“A queen,” the lieutenant whispered, now shaking her head in despair. She looked away for a moment, spoke into some kind of device, then she turned and resumed staring at Callahan.

“Has anyone ever told you it’s not exactly polite to stare at people?”

She shook her head, almost startled out of a reverie, then she grinned a little. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I’ve never met anyone older than fifty.”

“Swell.”

“Just how old are you, anyway?”

“Ninety three.”

“Fuck.”

“You got that right.”

“How’d you lose the leg?”

“A sniper got me.” He pulled up his sleeve and showed her the angry reddish white scar on his right forearm. “Fucked up this arm a little, too.”

“I can see that,” the woman said – a little too sarcastically for his comfort.

“So, I’m assuming there’s some kind of regulation that prevents you from telling me your name?”

But she held out her right hand and he marveled at the comforting warmth of touch, then he took her hand in his.

“Ripley,” she said. “Ellen Ripley. And in case someone asks, yes, Captain Ripley is my father.”

“Well, nice to meet you, Ellen Ripley…”

The lights in the cabin turned from amber-white to deep cobalt, and then Callahan heard a chime, then two chimes…

“Hang on,” Ripley said. “This part is a real mother fucker.”

“Oh no, not again.”

She handed him a barf bag and smiled. “You’re developing quite a reputation, Mr. Callahan. Try not to get any on me, okay?”

“Well, damn. I just got these back from the laundry, too…”

His vision dimmed, he felt all pinched and distorted again, like taffy being pulled at one of the candy stands when the circus came to Santa Cruz. He was a kid when he rode his first roller coaster there, too, and suddenly he remembered how he felt when the rising tide of bile came for him that afternoon, just before his eyes went wide with fear…

© 2024 adrian leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com | this is fiction and nothing but, plain and simple.

Why not close out with Close to the Edge, from the Yes album of the same name. Because you are, you know…