Encounters 1: The Spiral Slayers (18 page)

There was also an avatar present which Bugs was operating
from its ship. “Well, my friends, we’ll be back before you know it.” It bowed
slightly, then said, “May probability fold in your favor!” and the avatar went
still.

They watched as the graviton drives, which no one understood
yet, engaged and the two ships shimmered and vanished using the phased
acceleration technology that no one understood yet.

Overhead on a large screen, telescopes tracked the ships
which had jumped to relativistic speeds almost instantly. They watched until
the ships were just dots of light at the highest magnification.

Adamarus turned to the assembled group, “Well, what are we
waiting for? We have an enormous amount of work to do over the next 300 years.”
The statement, though absolutely true, brought laughter from the assembled
crowd. “Let’s get to it!”

---

Eighteen months later…

The day it happened, Radin had been in a great mood. He had a
new girlfriend and it was looking like a serious relationship. So, at the exact
moment that it happened, it was her long legs that his mind had been
visualizing.

Her name was Shannon and he had met her at the SS1 Space
Station dry docks during his ship’s last overhaul. She was an engine thrust
specialist and he liked to tell her that this was in more ways than one. She
was a total sweetheart! He hadn’t seen her in twenty-five days and he couldn’t
wait for the planet-side leave they had planned to take together.

Such were his thoughts as he led the team out of the ship
through the coupled airlocks to the rear dome of the new Asper-7 settlement and
power station. Behind him were eight technicians and engineers, plus four
technician-cast Loud (avatars) and one historian, Woodworth, and Woodworth’s
camera team of two. The historic occasion was the activation of their first
fusion power station which would produce almost unlimited power and transfer it
as needed to all the human worlds and settlements via multi-phased Barca beams.

What “Barca beams” were only the Loud knew – more Loud magic
that no one really understood. Technology based on scientific principles that
teams of their scientists slaved day and night to understand but never really
did. They were just trying to skip too far ahead – sometimes completely jumping
over scientific facts and principals that were the basis of what they were
trying to understand – like trying to understand how a train moved without
knowing about the engine. They were trying to grasp the hundreds of scientific
principals in just years that the Loud had had centuries to digest.

The new power station and the settlement for the workers that
would be needed to maintain the power station were completely empty right now. The
complex was located on the seventh moon of the gas giant named Asper – ergo the
name Asper-7.

Leaving the airlock station and entering the open dome, the
first thing one’s attention was drawn to was the enormous window on one side of
the 500-foot dome. It was hemispheric in shape, starting at the floor it curved
up the rounded wall of the dome. Radin didn’t know the specs, but thought that
the window must be 100-feet high and 200-feet wide.

Through the window they could see Asper’s bloated form taking
up far too much of the view for comfort. Seen this close, Asper’s pastel cloud
bands were startlingly clear, complex and richly textured. This close you could
see shadows created by the upper cloud layers and misty beams of sunlight
falling deeply into the multiple cloud layers below. It looked very three-dimensional
and quite beautiful.

Also through the window, in front of the gas giant, hung both
space ships, Radin’s ship
The Bet’ti,
looking like an ant next to the
Loud’s umbrella ship, both ships utterly dwarfed by the gas giant beyond.

Radin and his team took the shortest route to the control
room entrance which was a walkway that arched up and ran parallel to the huge
window. Radin was daydreaming about the wonderful curves of his new
girlfriend’s long legs as he traversed the walkway.

It happened when the precession was about a third of the way
across the window walkway. From behind, Radin heard the sound of things falling
and hitting the walkway, heard Woodworth exclaim, “What the hell!” and someone
else – one of Woodworth’s cameramen—say at almost the same moment, “Bloody
hell!”

The vision of Shannon’s wonderful legs vanished and he swung
around.

The humans behind Radin had also turned around.

Woodworth and his cameramen had seen it happen because they
had been behind the Loud.

The cause of the exclamations was immediately clear. All four
Loud, or rather their avatars, had collapsed and were lying motionless in
random odd-looking positions on the floor of the walkway!

Everyone stared motionless for several seconds. No one knew
what to do. Radin didn’t know what to do! This had never happened before. He
walked back for a closer look. Glancing up he could see Woodworth and his
camera team standing there with their mouths agape, however, they were not
looking at the fallen avatars. They were looking out the window. Radin followed
their gaze. The Loud ship was no longer there.

---

The ringing of the com unit awoke Adamarus from a sound
sleep. He looked at the time – 2:30 AM. Grace was stirring next to him. He took
his pillow and placed it gently over her head to muffle the sound and block the
light, then leaned the other way and answered the video com just as another
ring started. The top opened revealing Leewood’s concerned face on the screen. “Sorry
to wake you, Adamarus, but we’ve got some strange things happening. First off,
your friend Bugs is back.”

Bugs wasn’t due back for almost 300 years
, Adamarus
thought as he cleared his throat and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “What do
you mean? What’s going on?”

“The Loud ships have returned.”

Adamarus just stared at Leewood as he tried to make sense of
this. “Have they said why?”

“They are not answering our inquiries.”

What the hell
, Adamarus thought. “Have we asked any of
the Loud avatars if they know anything?”

“No. We can’t. That’s the other thing…” Leewood looked away
for a moment then back. “Forty-seven minutes ago, every Loud avatar currently
operational in the solar system – there were thirty-two – simply stopped
functioning and just fell to the ground.”

Adamarus was wide awake now, “Shit.”

“This happened to all the avatars at the same instant as far
as we can tell. Also, at probably the same exact time, the ship which was at
Aster-7 – it had just dropped off Radin and a small team to bring the reactor
on-line – did one of those ripple and vanish tricks – without any
warning—without a word.” Leewood leaned forward, “Several minutes later one of
the Deep UV platforms we have at the comet shell pushing comets in system…”

 “Right.” Adamarus said.

“…reported it had three Loud ships headed in system.”

Adamarus interrupted, “Three ships?” This was not making
sense.

 “Yes, the Deep UV Platform got scan data including video and
sent it. Two of the ships are definitely the ones that left here a year and a
half ago. The third one we haven’t seen before. We’ve picked up the one that
was with Radin – it’s on its way to meet the three ships headed in.”

Adamarus sat up on the edge of the bed and angled the com
unit toward him. “Based on current data, where will the ships meet?”

“In the same orbit they had before they left.”

“So…where are the ships now?”

“ETA is about an hour.”

“Are you at the control center?”

“Yep.”

“Okay. I’m on my way.”

“Good.” On the small screen Leewood leaned forward. “Adamarus,
we have to assume the worst – I don’t know what that is, but I’m assembling
everyone. We’ll keep trying to hail the Loud ships.”

---

Leewood had been the leader of the original special team, and
even though Adamarus outranked him, had more experience and had been the
initial Loud contact. Officially, Leewood was still in charge. However, over
the years the two had worked so well together that often leadership seemed to bounce
between them. Because Adamarus had had more contact with the Loud than anyone
else, he was leading the current debate.

“We must assume for now that they encountered the fourth ship
on their way out,” Adamarus said as he paced the conference room, coffee in
hand. It was now 3:40 and everyone available was there – eleven people. “And we
must assume that the third ship was coming here from their home system.” Everyone
agreed with this. “The ship must have had news that compelled Bugs to bring all
their ships back here.” He continued, “The Loud ship at Aster-7 suddenly
cutting the links to all of the avatars as well as its rapid departure – all I
can think is there was some type of disaster. And if you add that to the radio
silence,” he paced to the back of his chair and paused there, “perhaps
something has happened—news that the new ship brought from home—and perhaps
they don’t know what they want to say to us yet. It looks like they have gotten
all four ships close enough to use a narrow beam ship-to-ship communication
link to talk among themselves privately.” Adamarus pulled out his chair and sat
down. “That’s all I can come up with. Anyone else?”

After several seconds Harrington spoke up, “Given that the
new ship is just arriving now, and assuming that they came here as fast as they
could, that means that they left the Loud system about sixty years after the
other ships left. If something happened, you would think that they would have
sent a message. However, my understanding is that the instant message
technology they have does not work over long distances.”

Leewood jumped in, “That’s right, so a message sent at the
speed of light would have been received over ten years ago.”

Adamarus slowly shook his head, his eyes staring into the distance,
“Well, there’s not much we can do until the Loud decide to talk to us.”

---

Five days went by. All four of the Loud ships remained in
orbit, very close to each other, arranged in a box formation. On the sixth day,
they answered the hails saying only that Bugs would meet with Adamarus alone in
the listening chamber at 9:00 AM.

The next day the landing craft came down at 8:30 AM. Adamarus
got to the room early and waited for ten minutes. At exactly 9:00 the large
door opened and Bugs entered.

Adamarus had talked with Bugs face to face in the listening
chamber enough to remember its mannerisms, expressions and body language. As he
watched Bugs extend upward to take in air before speaking, he knew something
was very wrong.

The first difference he noticed was the sharp black thorns on
the gray wrinkled lung area – these normally pointed down when the lung was
deflated, and when the lung expanded with air as the Loud extended upward, the
thorns stood up but remained slightly downward, as if they were relaxed. Now,
however, they pointed straight out even when the lung was deflated, and when
the lung was stretching up, filling with air, they seemed to bulge outward and
even quiver a little. At the base of the thorns where they came out of the
lung, white and reddish tissue could be seen. That had not been there before. It
was as if they were being forced out, so much so that their roots were showing.

Another thing was Bugs’ eyes – they were no longer clear
beneath the green transparent membrane but were clouded and red. Also, the off-white
light receptors were different – about a third of them were no longer mushroom
shaped – the oval top seemed bent back.

In addition to these changes, Bugs did not expand straight
upward, but went off to one side almost losing its balance! And Adamarus
noticed another peculiarity, the tentacles which extended and retracted from
the gray area just above the layer that touched the ground – these had always
been either completely retracted or completely extended. Now, however, they all
protruded a few feet and just stayed there. The overall appearance and
mannerisms gave Adamarus the impression of utter depression mixed with raw
fury.

After Bugs expanded he seemed to waver there for many
seconds. Finally, he pushed downward, but on the way down he halted several
times and the normally ear splitting screech was much softer and broken by
coughing sounds and clicks.

Adamarus looked at the translator and watched the progress
bar progress from left to right. Finally, Bugs’ words issued from the
translator, “Adamarus…I…have…terrible…news.”

"Bad things come in threes."

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