Fluency

8

Jane slid down the wall and rummaged in her pack for a dose of ibuprofen. Her head ached and she felt utterly drained. She closed her eyes. Information was still unspooling inside her head. She caught glimpses of it now and then, filtering into her conscious mind when she wasn’t distracted.

So much of it was technological in scope. It was the stuff NASA wanted—details of structure, anatomy of propulsion drives, ventilation regulation, star maps, and so much more. It should have gone to Bergen or Compton or Gibbs. They were engineers of various types. It would make sense to them. They’d be able to use it. In their hands, it would be an advantage. In hers, it was nothing short of mind numbing. How could she ever hope to convey all of it properly? It was incomprehensible.

She didn’t want any of this. All she’d wanted was to learn the language. Now she had that and so much more. How had she ended up in this position?

As her mind wandered, she realized that the exterior of the ship, the way it was constructed, like a city skyline of jutting, geometric shapes, was for the purpose of hull integrity as much as for the optimal collection of solar radiation for the ship’s most basic power functions. The many angles ensured that a portion of the ship was always collecting some amount of energy. The way the ship was oriented in its orbit maximized that.

But, why give her all of this? Why not give just the pertinent portions needed to get to Bergen and Walsh in time? At the edges of her mind she sensed there was far more that she hadn’t quite grasped yet. It was an awareness of something intangible, but growing. Was that Ei’Brai?

Walsh kept in constant contact with Compton, micro-managing Compton’s every move in the capsule, clearly compensating for his discomfort over what had happened. Compton set up a remote link so that Walsh could send a transmission to Houston. He glossed over the details of the morning and neglected to mention that Jane had made contact with the alien entity.

Bergen was pacing the corridor. He’d stop and examine the dressing Ajaya had wrapped around his injured hand or eye Jane and Walsh furtively, then resume his pacing. He looked as exhausted as she felt.

She gestured at him limply. “Dr. Bergen, it’s been a rough morning. Why don’t you just sit down for a minute and rest?”

He settled down against the wall about three feet from her, turned to her like he wanted to say something, then stopped himself and shook his head.

“What?” she asked wearily.

“Well, you…why are we back to Dr. Bergen? You called me Alan thirty minutes ago.”

She peered into his face curiously. “I was trying to get through to you.”

His lips twitched and he glanced away.

“I don’t understand. I’m just trying to maintain a professional atmosphere.”

“You call Ajaya, Ron, and Tom by their first names. Why not me?”

He actually seemed hurt. She frowned. “Why do you call me ‘Doc?’ ”

He smirked—that looked more natural. “Because it irritates you.”

She smiled back. “I’ll call you Alan, if you call me Jane.”

He bobbed his head and he leaned toward her, sticking out his good hand, his left. “You have a deal, Doc.”

She took his hand and squeezed. “Smart-ass.” She pulled up her legs and leaned her head on one knee. “Have you eaten anything today? I have some stuff in my pack.”

“I could eat.”

“Walsh? Hungry?”

Walsh had been maintaining some distance from them. He strode over now and slowly eased himself down, stifling a groan.

“Didn’t Ajaya give you anything for the pain?” Jane asked, as she searched her pack for food.

He ignored her question and said, gruffly, “How’d you get me down from that ladder?”

Bergen was peering into his own pack. “Made a harness from paracord. It probably didn’t help your situation much, but there weren’t any good alternatives. I made the sling. Jane lowered you.”

Jane shook her head, “I lowered you with some help.” She couldn’t stand to take all the credit when Walsh might have suffered a brain injury if she’d had to do it completely alone.

Walsh nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing on Jane. He clearly wasn’t happy about being out of the loop on all the particulars. She passed him some jerky and mixed nuts. Walsh didn’t like the energy bars. She opened one of those for Bergen and one for herself, then set a large plastic pouch of water between them to share. They chewed in silence for a while.

“Why’d you wait to talk, Holloway?” Walsh asked, with a sidelong glance.

“I thought I might be going nuts.”

He grimaced and raised his eyebrows. “You sure you’re not?”

She met his stare unflinchingly. “One-hundred percent? No. I did save both your butts, though. So, that’s something.”

Bergen smirked.

Walsh was unfazed. “Why’s he hiding? Why not meet us face to face?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think he can. I don’t know what he looks like. I’m not even sure he’s a he. I just picked that pronoun because it fits his voice.”

Bergen watched her with an intense expression. Walsh was grim.

She looked down at the sugary bar in her hand, connecting her disparate thoughts as she articulated them, “The structure of this new language is similar to languages with Proto-Indo-European roots—like Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit. We know that there are common words that are very similar among many of our languages—‘mama,’ ‘night,’ ‘star,’ and ‘no.’ I can’t help but wonder if this ancient language, stored genetically but never consciously examined, comes out of us in this beautiful, wonderful way. Most linguists over the last 50-60 years have rejected the idea of the monogenesis of a proto-human language. In fact, my own work would tend to discount such theories. Linguistic polygenesis is the current prevailing theory, but….” She trailed off, her enthusiasm deflating, as she became aware that this revelation probably meant very little to them.

Walsh leaned in slowly with a pained expression and took a sip of the water. “What’s he like?”

Jane sat back, chastened, as she suspected he’d meant her to feel, and wiped her sticky fingers on her clothing. That’s when she noticed small holes forming on the leg of her flight suit. She met Bergen’s eyes and he tugged on his own suit, revealing holes of his own.

The others had been instructed to bring changes of clothing for all of them. Unless or until she started feeling unbearable pain, she’d keep the flight suit on. She’d rather be burned than strip down to her undergarments in front of Bergen and Walsh right now. She felt vulnerable enough as it was.

She continued, more solemnly, “He’s pretty ambiguous most of the time. He doesn’t like to answer direct questions. I thought for a while that he might actually be the ship’s computer, but I don’t think so now. He didn’t want you two to die. A computer wouldn’t react like that, would it?”

Bergen raised his brows. “It depends on programming. Could be an AI.”

Jane frowned. “Oh. Artificial Intelligence? He sounded emotional. I…really?”

Bergen reached out and snagged the water pouch. “So it’s just him, huh? No others in a ship of this size?”

“That’s what he says. I got the feeling that they died a long time ago. I intend on asking a lot of questions next time.”

“You do that.” Walsh said a lot with those three words. He didn’t believe any of it. She was surprised at how painful that was, given that was actually the reaction she expected from him.

She let her expression go blank and dropped her hands into her lap. She resisted the urge to try to make herself smaller, less conspicuous, or to close her eyes to escape his watchful glare. Walsh was efficient, critical, skeptical, but he was also fair. She would eventually convince him, but she wondered what that would take.

She couldn’t be sure what Bergen was thinking. Given his personality, the fact that he wasn’t openly disdainful was encouraging. But she suspected he might be humoring her because he was worried about her. She wasn’t sure if she liked that. She suspected his forbearance toward her went back to their time in Houston. Either someone at NASA had assigned him the dubious honor of watching over her, or this was his way of expressing friendship.

The silence was thick and painful.

Walsh got back on the radio with Compton. It sounded like the others were about to return. They were wrapping up some details.

Bergen cleared his throat. He was reaching for her hand. “Jane, you’re hurt too,” he said softly, turning her hand palm up.

“It doesn’t hurt much,” she replied.

He held onto her hand. His hand felt strong and warm on hers. She let it linger, glancing curiously into his face. She liked this side of him and wished he would show it more often.

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to work, you know,” he said, with a sly smile.

She resisted smiling back. “What?”

“You’re supposed to be the damsel in distress. We’re supposed to save you.”

She snorted and pulled her hand away. “Times have changed.”

“But what does that make us? Two dudes in distress? Pathetic.”

“Two colleagues in distress. Gender doesn’t matter,” she replied and let a hint of a sad smile cross her face.

“Mm.” He nodded and dug into his pack. “I have something for you. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion. Not-asphyxiating seems as good an occasion as any other.” He pulled out a closed fist and held it out to her.

She put out an open hand and he plopped a small plastic pouch into it. She gasped with surprise and quickly closed her hand to obscure what was there. “Chocolate? Alan Bergen, I am going to tell your mother about this!” she hissed at him.

He chuckled. “She won’t be surprised. Are you going to share?”

She glanced at Walsh again. “I shouldn’t. But, I’m going to.” She tore open the plastic wrapper. They were the kind of chocolates that usually came in heart-shaped boxes. The kind with flavored, creamy centers. She slipped Bergen one, popped one in her own mouth, and left the third in the plastic, secreting it in an intact pocket of her suit. She shook her head and threatened him with a menacing glare. She whispered, “You’re terrible—blaming Ron and me for eating all the chocolate when you hid it somewhere. I’m going to tear that capsule apart until I find your stash!”

“Good luck. I have my own secret hiding places built in.” He nodded smugly and popped the morsel in his mouth.

She beamed at him, shaking her head. She didn’t doubt it was true. “Now, I’m complicit. You’re going to have to pay me blood-chocolate for my silence.”

He laughed, a loud, barking laugh. She couldn’t help but giggle at him. He had a way of figuring out exactly what she needed sometimes. Just when she thought she had him figured out, he surprised her again.

Walsh shot them a censorious look.

Bergen slid closer and bumped her playfully in the shoulder. “I’m not passing any judgment here, but you two were going through that stuff awfully fast. Would it have killed you to choose peach cobbler now and then?”

She rolled her eyes, savoring the chocolate still melting in her mouth. The peach cobbler was a joke. She didn’t know how it had escaped the excessive quality-control process NASA employed for every detail down to their underwear. Sometimes it rehydrated as a disgusting, soggy mass, sometimes it tasted like someone had used a heavy hand with some exotic spice, and sometimes it was perfect—well, as perfect as rehydrated food can be.

It was funny, but in a weird way, because they kept eating it anyway, because their choices were so limited. It became a joke. Which peach cobbler would it be this time? They’d complained to Houston about it, in a cheeky, teasing way. The brass in Houston got the director of the Space Food Systems Laboratory to send a reply, during which he admitted there’d been an intern in the lab on the day the peach cobbler had been prepared. He swore there’d be nothing amiss with the food waiting in the capsule on Mars for the trip home. The thought of the return capsule sobered her and she sighed.

“Hey.” Bergen’s arm snuck behind her and rubbed her lower back. He leaned in and asked softly, “You ok?”

“I’m fine,” she answered automatically, stiffening under his sudden solicitousness.

“You sure?”

He was hovering so close, seemed so concerned, she could almost believe…but no, that was ridiculous. He was kind of a legend at NASA. Space geeks were surprisingly gossipy. He was the local boy who made good, on a regular basis, or so his wingmen bragged. She was definitely not his type. He was just being friendly and that felt awkward because he probably didn’t have a lot of practice being friends with women.

“Yes.” She stood up and pulled her ponytail loose, to cover her nervousness created by his sudden attention. With the band came a clump of damp, matted hair. She stared at it, uncomprehending, and then dropped it with a squeal. Her hand was glossy with slime.

Walsh and Bergen were on her in seconds. Before she could react, Bergen was sloshing her hand with water from the pouch until it was empty, but her hand was already becoming painfully red and sore. She fell to her knees and pulled a bag of wipes from her bag. She pulled out wipe after wipe, scrubbing at her hands, her face, in case she’d splashed herself, determined to not release the tears that were so close to the surface.

Walsh stood nearby, stoically observing.

Bergen knelt next to her and touched her shoulder, saying, “It’s ok, Jane. It’s just a couple of inches.”

She flinched. “Stop it! Don’t touch me. Stop looking at me. It’s just hair!”

He backed away.

She turned her face up to keep the tears at bay. The tough nomex suit was holding up. She would take it off soon and get under running water.

She felt a light hum, almost tentatively, like a question, at the back of her skull. She tensed up even more. Was he watching them, through cameras hidden throughout the ship? Or was he dipping into their thoughts, listening to them like a telepathic peeping tom?

You need not endure such discomfort. The vermin’s caustic exudate is a common affliction, easily treated. Please make haste to the medical facility where you may receive treatment without organic assistance—the Sectilius practice medicine quite differently.

Jane stood, her chest still heaving. She turned to see Tom, Ajaya and Ron striding toward them, laden with packs, bags, and equipment. Jane picked up her pack and set off down the corridor without a word.