Guardian of Night (29 page)

“Yes, of course I can read.”

Another gash movement on the human’s head. Then it/he/she? It scratched the paper.

Good evening, Lieutenant Gitaclaber. I saw your name tag. My name is [garbled nonsense]. You are currently being held on a United States Space Craft originating from planet Earth, Sol system. Although I am able to understand your language to some extent using my sense of smell and a computer translation device, the other humans aboard this craft cannot.

The tentacle-finger lifted from the paper for a moment, and the words ceased flowing. Then the human continued scratching across the page.

We have grave concerns for your health, Officer Gitaclaber. We’re doing all we can, but it may not be enough. In the meantime, I am able to understand much of your language. You speak Long-Arm Hypha Standard, if I am not mistaken?

“How do you know this?” Gitaclaber wheezed out.

The human sniffed, nodded its square-shaped head. Then it manipulated its fingers over some sort of device. A moment later, Gitaclaber heard a familiar sound. He turned this head to see—could it be? Yes. A computer printer. How had the humans obtained such a thing? But then he realized they must have come across it in wreckage or some such place. They had been able to destroy the occasional smaller Sporata vessel—though mostly through dumb luck. Or so the propaganda said.

The human pulled the sheet from the printer and began scratching the words out once again.

I am an analyst specializing in Guardian languages and cultural activities. We have acquired various Guardian texts, and we have carefully monitored your broadcasts for years. There are a few of us who have trained ourselves to “hear” your speech through our own sense of smell—although this is a rather primitive ability in comparison to what you are capable of, of course.

“The other human, the female who saved me? Is she alive?”

Now the human made sounds so low they were vibrations toward the device in his hand. It wafted out an answer through a tube into Gitaclabber’s confining bubble.

“We have been able to restore her. See, she is well.”

The human, the Speaker, Gitaclabber thought of it, made a sudden motion with one of its extremities. After a moment, the human female, the one who had saved him, came into view across the translucent barrier. The Speaker rumbled again.

“She has been by your side,” came the words through the tube.

“Good,” said Gitaclaber. “Tell her . . . will you tell her she has my thanks?”

A moment’s pause. A thunderous exchange of noise between the humans.

“She has heard you,” the human said via its speech-producing device. “She says she could not have made it without you, either.”

The human returned to the writing device again—it was using some version of a symbol pad—and created another sheet covered with words from the printer. Despite the dull pain that never quite left his body, Gitaclaber had to admit he found this . . . amusing. He was only Sporata by necessity, of course. This was his true calling—playing with words.

We believe that you are the broadcaster we call the Poet. In your last broadcast, we have determined that you encoded information concerning vessels that would be arriving in or near our system. The cinnamon code key was clever, by the way. Furthermore, we received the schematics of the weapon the vessel carries. The next part of the broadcast was cut off, however.

I was staying quiet so that monster DDCM goon Transel couldn’t hear me, Gitaclaber thought.
But no matter. No matter.
He touched the paper and continued reading.

After this point, you abruptly ceased transmission. We did not receive the location for meeting. Are there coordinates? Some signal to look for? A time and place we should know?

Gitaclaber slowly breathed in, sighed. He was going to do it. Explain. He would be able to fulfill his mission.

The human held out its hands, palm forward, and closed them into fists—the proper gesture for “So, then what?”

“Who is coming?” said the puffing little machine via the tube.

A speaking machine? What was this? Where was he?

Drifting, drifting.

The Sea. Upon the Sea . . .
 

Wait. Not yet.

Come back.

Yes, he remembered now. The human speaking through the machine. He’d known that, had forgotten. Gitaclabber yanked himself back to awareness as best he could.

“A Mutualist craft and, most importantly, a Sporata vessel,” he said. “The Sporata war vessel is named
Guardian of Night.
It carries Mutualist refugees. And the artifact. Powerful. Destructive. That’s where the craft gets its name.”

Is this vessel a danger to us? What is its purpose regarding us?

Gitaclaber puffed out a laugh. This set off a coughing fit that took a while to control. When he finally did bring it under control, he was noticeably weaker. His breath was short and choppy—and there was the unmistakable stink of microbial decay in his mucus. Not a good sign. He probably did not have long.

“A danger? Yes. But not from attack,” said Gitaclaber. “On the contrary. The captain and officers of the
Guardian of Night
plan to defect.”

The human poked at its symbol board quickly, stripped the paper from the printer, strummed a sentence from the page as if it were a musical instrument.

Defect? As in change sides? Defect to whom?

“Why, defect to you humans, believe it or not.” Gitaclaber stifled a laugh. He did not think he could survive another coughing fit. “Defect to this nation-state you serve, the Gathered-Something-or-other . . . the United States. Ricimer explained it to me, but he may as well have been spewing into the wind. I do not understand politics. Never did.”

The human was silent for an
atentia
or two. Then he wrote and handed Gitaclaber the paper.

Where do we meet this vessel? Where do we find it?

Yes, that was the information he must deliver. The bit he’d left out before, knowing he’d been discovered. Knowing . . .
 

Gitaclaber spoke, but felt he was not making much sense. Drifting. Away.

What seemed
tagatos
later, Gitaclaber dreamed his way toward the Sea of Words, his mother’s ocean, the liquid past, present, and future from which he had always imagined poetry must arise. Shape itself around the stones of the world. Recede with the tide. Swell again and again against the shore of reality. Whatever reality was.

The question was no longer of concern to him.

His gaze shifted from the Speaker to the female, the one who had pulled him from space, saved him, if only for a little while. They’d never spoken, yet he felt he knew her. For so many
tagatos
, they had lain together like mates. The mate he’d never had. Had never wanted with his dangerous life. His mother, the Mam. This female. Such brief closeness, such brief warmth.

To be yanked away. Always yanked away.

He needed to tell
her
.
She
needed to know.

Yes. There was one more bit of reality to attend to.

One more word.

For a final moment, the Poet swam to the surface of his mind. He looked at the female human. He’d thought her so grotesque at first.

But she saved you.

He gazed into her tiny pinprick eyes. So very like stars.

Her face cracked longwise. The human smile. The one expression he’d come to understand.

She pulled you from the emptiness.

“The Vara Nebula,” the Poet said. Quietly, but comprehensively, the words drifted from him. “You will find
Guardian of Night
at the Eridani gate.”

There was more, but this was all he could muster, all the tide would allow. The out-rushing tide. His words were enough. They had to be.

Enough.

The tide, the sea . . .
 

Now delight. For on this visit to the Sea of Words, he was not confined to the beach. No, he was tugged away by the undertow.

No longer would he have to content himself with pulling out mere fragments of meaning from the spray, the crash of the waves, the tidal leavings in the pools and estuaries.

This time, with a happy thrill, a satisfied sigh, Gitaclaber realized he could do as his mother had done. He could plunge into that forever liquid and drown in words. Dissolve.

Find her. Speak himself to her. Travel as one to the place where all words abide, where one great poem makes and remakes the world.

He could speak himself home.

And so he did.

Migration Song

—For My Two Mothers

by Gitaclaber

In this dream

Rain rounds the shoulders of stones

For a million cycle of cycles rain falls

Rain that turns stone against stone

grinds a face

a me

into one stone

into one sunlit now

This dream became my dream

and I, a dreamer,

dreaming stone,

dreaming creation

But now the rain is past

The sun is dead. The stars blink broken code.

And I have traveling to do

away from this endless necessity to feed.

19 January 2076

Vara Nebula Eridani Exit

A.S.C. Scout Craft 5040, 5050

“Anvil, this is Blade. Are you seeing what I’m seeing? Contact, contact.”

“We have got beta on it as well, Blade.”

“Approach vector fifty-five. Five-five. We’ll take orbit.”

“Understood. We have your coverage and backup, Blade. Lucky you saw her first.”

“Not if she fires on us with that . . . whatever it is supposed to be.”

“Understood. Watching you in, Blade.”

The one-pilot primary scout craft, its Guardian pilot using the call sign “Blade,” hurled toward what was, at first, a point of light. The point of light grew steadily larger. Took on definition.

The secondary craft, its pilot designated “Anvil,” followed behind at a discreet distance. If Blade were taken out, it would be Anvil’s task to scramble and report back to the armada.

A definite possibility if what they had found was, indeed, the
Guardian of Night
.

Blade zoomed closer.

Weird. The image resolution didn’t seem to be increasing upon approach.

“Anvil, I may have equipment malfunction.”

Damn,
Blade thought.
I’ll have to give up the ID.
She liked Anvil. They were part of the same scouting group and had attended the Academy together. But she didn’t want to give up a prize like this.

It was moments such as this that could make or break a career. Determine whether you made captain, even admiral. Or hit the glass ceiling of commander and never moved forward.

“Suggest you pull out, Blade,” said Anvil. “I am nominal on all remote sensing.”

“Just a minute,” Blade said. A bit closer.

“Blade, if your equipment has a fail and you don’t pull out, you could be subject to disciplinary protocols. You know that.”

A little closer.

Still not resolving. The vessel still a blur.

“Curse it.”

But then Blade understood.
The throes
. She was seeing a vessel in the throes, a particular, known craft failure. Relief flooded her. She puffed out a laugh. “Anvil, Anvil, no malfunction on my part. Repeat: no malfunction. Quarry vessel is in an out-of-control spin.

She glanced at the beta-signature analysis.

A transport vessel of some sort. What was it doing near the Vara?

The answer dawned on her. She’d found a Mutualist vessel. One of the crafts purported to be rendezvousing with the rogue
Guardian of Night.

“Blade, will you comply with my request or do I have to—”

“Anvil, this is Blade. I am nominal. No sensor malfunction.”

“Repeat.”

“It’s Mutualist,” said Blade. She laughed again. “Vessel is in the throes. Complete seizure, looks to be.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not,” said Blade. “The idiots have even left their beta beacon on. She identifies as the
Efficacy of Symbiosis.
”

“So it’s a match.
This
is the dreaded Mutualist resistance craft?”

“We’ve found his rendezvous, Anvil. This is the
Guardian
rendezvous vessel. Has to be.”

“I’m on approach,” Anvil replied. “Yes, I see the same thing you see.”

Anvil laughed along with her.

The Mutualist vessel was an eyesore upon the galaxy, truly she was. Even before the throes took her, she’d obviously been lubberly, a planet-dweller’s idea of keeping a craft trim and bright, no doubt. She had a dull, worn hue that no churn would ever shine, and she appeared a beaten thing, dented and dinged and not once taken care of. Some sort of crystallized plume trailed away from her. Could the stupid crew not even bring itself to plug its own atmospheric leaks?

Barbarians. Traders. Symbiots.

“We’ve got her,” said Blade. “She’s not going anywhere in this condition. We could fire on her, even. End this here.”

“Blade, do
not
, repeat, do
not
fire on that vessel. We’ll have our guts pulled out in hand-length increments. CAP and the admiral will want that honor.”

“I know it, Anvil,” said Blade. “Just a passing fantasy, that’s all. Shall we report?”

“We’d better.”

“What about leaving the craft here?”

“You know as well as I do that the throes is fatal. Nobody recovers. Nobody gets out.”

“Yes, all right, all right. Reversing now. Vectoring toward base, Blade.”

“Acknowledged and agreed. Right behind you, Anvil.”

The scout pilots made a very accurate banking turn away from the crippled Mutualist craft.

As they were speeding away, Blade risked a glance back.

She hadn’t made the kill, but she’d made the ID. There would be a citation. Surely a promotion.

This was a career-defining moment. There was no doubt.

She was going to make admiral after all.

The “
Efficacy of Symbiosis”