Authors: Mary Sisson
Trang (17 page)
“For now, let’s put them in that
unit,” said Shanti.
They headed back into the no man’s
zone, with Shanti carrying the bags. As they waited for the door to open,
Philippe gave George a quick rundown of what Max had told him to
expect—knowledge that would be both useful and easy to grasp.
“So it sounds like they’re giving
us something that is exotic, yet familiar,” George said, thoughtfully. “Hmm.”
“We could just ask Max what it is,”
said Philippe.
“Don’t do that yet,” said the
doctor. “Let me take a crack at it.”
The door opened, and George
snatched the bags out of Shanti’s hands and took off down the hall to the
infirmary.
“I note a certain spring to his
step,” said Philippe.
“The man loves his science,”
replied Shanti. “Hey, did you read Baby’s report?”
“Oh, yeah, interesting,” said
Philippe, gesturing for her to join him in his office. “It sounds like the
Hosts have a real theocracy going—the priests are the ones who get to travel
into space and have the translation gear.”
“And get married. What did you
think of the whole women-stay-at-home thing?”
They speculated for a bit until
Philippe decided to pull up the report to re-read part of it, and Shanti
noticed the mass of messages.
“Man, you really need to clear out
your office folder.”
Philippe sighed. “And that’s all
from
today.
I mean, look at this—I swear I have a message from every
person on Earth who has the security clearance to read our reports.”
Shanti glanced over the folder.
“Oh, fuck,” she said. “I know what’s happening. They can’t talk to us, see, so
everyone’s doing an end run around our people and putting it all on you. What
you gotta do is do what we do—we got people on Earth whose job it is to handle
this shit. Our messages go to them, and we only get messages if there’s a
question they really can’t answer that isn’t totally stupid. It really cuts
down on this kind of bullshit. I mean, look at this—even if you made sure
everything was in text mode and just scanned it over, it would take you all
day. You don’t have time for this kind of shit.”
“I really don’t,” said Philippe.
“Yeah,” said Shanti, in a
completely different tone of voice. “Oh, OK—another alien, we’ll come out.
What? Really? Fuck! Com Trang in.”
There was a brief pause. “Hey,
Trang?” Cut’s voice was in his ear. “Um, we got a White Spider out here at the
outer doorway, and I think he wants to see you.”
“I’ll—” Philippe realized that his
com mike was in his suit jacket, which he wasn’t wearing. He started looking
around for the mike he left on his desk, but Shanti pulled her collar toward
him so he could speak into hers. “I’ll be right out.”
“I don’t know if you can do that,”
said Cut. “He’s standing right on the door, and he’s kind of pawing at it. He’s
not saying anything, but I think he’s trying to get in.”
Chapter
8
“He wants to get in?” asked Philippe.
“I think so, yeah,” said Cut. “I
can’t say for sure, but he’s sure acting like he wants in.”
“So, let’s let him in,” said
Philippe.
“
No,
we can’t just let him
in,” said Shanti. “Don’t let him in.”
“OK,” said Cut. “But right now, if
we open the door, we’re letting him in.”
“
Don’t
open the door,” said
Shanti, starting to leave.
“Why can’t we let him in?” asked
Philippe. “He could be a diplomat. He could be the White Spider diplomat.”
She stopped and stared at him. “He
could be that. He could be an assassin. He could be a tourist. It doesn’t
fucking matter—if he crawls onto the ceiling of the no man’s zone right now,
he’s going to have the shit blown out of him.”
“Oh,” said Philippe. He hadn’t
thought of that.
“Were you expecting a visit?”
Shanti asked.
“No, I haven’t been able to
communicate with the White Spiders at all, which is why I want to meet this
one,” he replied.
She hit her com mike. “Escort,
report to the no man’s zone,” she said.
Philippe followed her out into the
hallway. Shanti walked over to Ofay, who handed her a small electronic device
he pulled out of a niche in the wall.
“MC Shanti Pax. Disable defenses,”
she said, and stuck the device back into the wall. A red light under the device
went green. Bubba, Patch, and Raoul appeared, Raoul still chewing what was
presumably a ration bar.
“OK,” she said. “We’re letting him
in.”
“Shouldn’t we be there to greet
him?” asked Philippe.
“In the no man’s zone?”
“I want to make a good impression,”
Philippe said. “It’s kind of a creepy place.”
Shanti sighed. “OK. Outer guards,
it’s going to take a minute. We’re going to go into the no man’s zone first,
and then you can open the outer door.”
Philippe checked: The translation
mike was still stuck to his shirt. He ran his hands through his hair.
“Bubba, you come in with us. Patch,
Raoul, and Ofay, you stay here,” Shanti said.
Philippe wondered for a moment if
Bubba was the best choice for what could be a delicate interaction, but a
glance at the three remaining SFers quickly reminded him that the options were,
at best, limited. The door opened and the three of them stepped in.
“Who are we meeting?” asked Bubba.
“A White Spider!” said Philippe.
“Ugh, I hate those things,” said
Bubba.
Philippe opened his mouth to
suggest that perhaps Patch would be a better choice for this mission, but the
door behind him clicked shut, and the outer door began to open. An exploratory
white foot immediately appeared in the widening crack, followed shortly by the
creature’s entire body.
“Hello!” said Philippe. “We humans
welcome you to our living area!”
The White Spider said nothing in reply,
merely walking slowly across the ceiling of the tunnel as the outer door closed
behind it.
“We are very happy to meet you, and
we wish most ardently that the humans and the White Spiders can become
friends,” Philippe continued.
“It can’t even understand you,”
said Bubba.
“Shhh!” said both Shanti and
Philippe.
“You don’t know that—maybe it’s
just not talkative,” Shanti whispered.
“I do know that whispering don’t
help none when you’re wearing a mike. Which it’s not,” said Bubba.
“Do you mind?” asked Philippe.
“Look, it wants to go on in,” said
Bubba.
Indeed, the White Spider had
crawled over to the door leading to the living area, and was now reaching out
with its legs and stroking the door.
“So, now what?” said Shanti.
“Let’s let him in,” said Philippe.
“Let’s not,” said Bubba. “We’ll
have a damned infestation like they do in the common areas.”
Philippe slapped off his
translation mike and turned to the soldier.
“You know, just because he doesn’t
look like he’s wearing translation gear doesn’t mean he isn’t,” he said in
exasperation. “Do you know what their gear looks like? Do you?”
He waited for an answer. Bubba
looked at him, then to Shanti, and then shook his head.
Philippe continued. “Could you then
perhaps refrain yourself from insulting them because you think they don’t
understand you?”
“I’m just saying what I think,”
said Bubba.
“Well, here’s what I think,” said
Philippe. “I think this could be the White Spiders’ way of reaching out, and I
think it would be foolish to spurn them. Perhaps they aren’t intelligent, in
which case he’ll just hang around on the ceiling, harmlessly, like they do in
the common area. But considering they had
to build
a space ship
and
fly it
to get here, I think they are intelligent enough that we
should at least not turn them away at the door.”
“Maybe they just
infested
a
space ship,” muttered Bubba.
“Bubba,” said Shanti mildly, “shut
the fuck up before I stab you. Ofay, open the inner door, please.”
The door to the living quarters
opened up, and the White Spider made its leisurely way out into the hallway as
Ofay, Patch, and Raoul watched. They were soon joined by the other SFers, who
watched as the creature crawled across the ceiling unhurriedly from room to
room, never reacting to anything they said or did.
“Remember, be polite” said Shanti.
“Anybody try to touch it or throw something at it, and I’ll break your fingers
off and shove them up your ass.”
“I thought you weren’t on the
roster,” said Five-Eighths.
“Don’t talk like that!” said Baby,
pointing up at the ceiling. “And Shanti, you don’t talk like that neither!”
“Sorry!” said Shanti in the
direction of the White Spider. “I didn’t mean you.”
Time passed, and watching the White
Spider began to lose its novelty for the SFers, who gradually dispersed.
Philippe felt an obligation to stay with the alien and act as its guide, but
after an hour of talking and receiving no reply, he thought that perhaps his
presence was unwelcome. Bi Zui had been assigned the job of monitoring the
visitor, so Philippe returned to his desk, his unwritten report, and his
thousand messages.
He was in the midst of it all when
someone knocked at the door.
I am never, ever going to get anything done,
Philippe
thought
.
“Come in!” he called.
The door was opened by Bi Zui, but
it was obvious who had requested entry. The White Spider crawled in, still on
the ceiling.
“Hello!” said Philippe, feigning
cheerfulness. “Welcome to my office! Please feel free to look around.”
The White Spider crawled over to
one corner, utterly unresponsive.
Philippe looked at Bi Zui, who
shrugged his shoulders.
“You can sit there if you want,” he
told the soldier, gesturing to a chair. “I’ve got a ton of paperwork to catch
up on, so I’m just going to get on with it.”
He was putting the finishing
touches on his report when Vip walked in. “Shit,” he said. “How long has that
thing been sitting there?”
“About half an hour,” said Bi Zui.
“Hasn’t moved.”
Philippe looked up. The White
Spider was still in the same corner.
“Do you think he’s sick?” Vip
asked.
They stared at the White Spider for
a moment. It hung on the ceiling, perfectly still, giving no indication of
health, illness, or awareness of their presence.
“Maybe he’s dead,” said Bi Zui.
“You know what I think,” said Vip.
“I think he’s a little drone thing, like what the Swimmers use. Think about
it—it’d be great for surveillance, and it’s parked right here in Trang’s
office.”
“You think he’s a spy?” asked Bi
Zui, suddenly interested.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Philippe.
“If someone wants to spy on me, they can go ahead. What are they going to find
out, anyway?”
Vip looked at Philippe with a
raised eyebrow.
“Well, if he’s just going to hang
out here, then what?” asked Bi Zui. “I can’t stay here forever.”
Vip went to get Shanti and Patch,
and then Patch went to get George, and Philippe decided that he would gladly
risk getting spied on or attacked or eaten by aliens if he could only get all
these gabbling people out of his office. They finally settled on having Vip
install a camera and motion sensors on the ceiling to monitor the creature.
The surveillance equipment was
promptly dubbed BugCam, because at this point none of the SFers was willing to
even entertain the notion that the White Spider could understand a thing they
were saying.
The White Spider was still in the same spot on the ceiling
the next day, when Philippe received a message from the Hosts that the Snake
Boys were willing to meet in a few hours. When he left for the meeting, he was
escorted by Patch, Gingko, Ofay, and Sucre. Five-Eighths’ maps proved accurate,
and they found their way to the Snake Boys’ living area easily enough.
Once they got there, however,
things got difficult. The Snake Boy who was supposed to meet them was waiting
for them outside and seemed friendly enough, but when the door to his living
area opened, all the humans reeled. The common area was warm, but the Snake
Boys’ living area was hot—very hot—and the air wafting out of it smelled acrid
and bitter enough that Gingko discreetly took a reading and gave them a quick
thumb’s up before they entered.
The Snake Boys’ name was
appropriately descriptive—their bodies were thin, sinuous, and longer than the
SFers were tall. Unlike a real snake, the Snake Boys had many legs, more like a
centipede. They also had what at first appeared to be eight pronounced ridges
across their backs, although Philippe had seen enough of the Snake Boys to know
that these were actually arms, each ending in a three-fingered hand, which
folded across the tops of their bodies when not in use.