Beyond the Sky: Chapter 14
Grievances and Surveillances
The humans had someone else aboard, from the Land. Velli’s world. Arthur Benson led her to the room’s door, and tapped the little black patch beside it.
The door slid open, turning out to be thinner than Velli thought. The hallway outside was built in the same style: immaculately-clean walls beveling at the top towards a ceiling which glowed. To left the hallway ended in another door, closed. The alien went right.
Briefly out of his view, Velli pressed her cheek pouch with her shoulder and reached in with her other hand, retrieving the holdout knife. A quick motion, practiced hundreds of times, took it from its padded safety sheath to her pocket. Despite all the wonders she’d seen, a very real fear still lurked in her mind. She’d not be defenseless.
Benson reached another door, to a room which had been beside Velli’s all along. He tapped it open, and stepped in. From the doorway, Velli saw a Fesk staring out a square window. A woman, she saw, then, as the Fesk turned to face Benson, realized exactly who it was.
Princess Takji. Fury came over her. Takji, the loyal supporter and heir to King Delvar, Master of Slavers, conqueror of Jepsei and oppressor of its people. How many slaves did she have, personally? How many lives had she ruined, for her vanity and comfort?
Velli drew her knife, yelled “DIE, SLAVER!”, and leapt.
Someone else, standing in the corner, whom Velli failed to notice when she charged, seemed to hit her, for stars exploded in her vision and she fell down a numb lump.
She wasn’t sure how long it’d been when she regained her senses. Minutes? Seconds?
Takji the Slaver stood at the far end of the alien room. Then Arthur-Benson, in front, arms folded over his chest.
From behind, a voice said, “Attack, and I apply the stunner again.”
A black-and-yellow striped device, somewhat like a pistol, entered her field of vision, and retreated.
Benson bobbed his head. “You may stand.”
The aliens had her in a chair—both aliens, that was—another stood behind her. Velli took to her feet and turned around.
What stood there was so repulsive she screamed and fell to the floor again, crawling back. Away! Away! She recoiled in horror. Anything to flee from that THING!
It was a creature, with no back side. People of her world had fronts and backs, two sides. So did humans. But not this thing. It had three faces, three sides. Three arms and three legs, spaced equally around its body. And its head—Velli could scarce bear to look at it—bore three huge, utterly black eyes.
“If it is any consolation,” the Three-Sided Thing said, through no obvious mouth, “your appearance is equally strange to me.”
“This is Ollie.” Benson walked over, and slapped his palm on one of its shoulders. “My science officer.”
‘Ollie’ had off-color white skin, and wore an outfit similar to Benson’s. In one hand it held the sleeping-stick—the stunner. With the other two, it examined Velli’s knife.
Benson looked to Velli. “Why did you attack her?” He gestured to Takji, who seemed only slightly less repulsed. Was that creature the first alien she’d met?
“She’s...” Words were hard, in the presence of these aliens. “Do you know who she is?”
“Crown Princess Takji of Mespreth.” Benson’s head bobbed. “We’ve seen her in transmissions. Now, please, why did you try to kill her?”
“She hurt my family.”
“I don’t even know who you are!” The Princess protested.
The fury came back. “Why should you? We’re just things to you. Numbers in a book, slaves toiling in the shops while you lounge about in your palaces! You don’t care about any of us!”
“Excuse me, but who just tried to kill who not once, but twice?” Takji’s ears folded back.
“And how many times have you tried to kill us? With your taxes, in famines? Your Occupation thugs, your secret trials and people who just disappear? Your draft in the Long War, or your airstrikes into schools? That time when...” she choked up. “When Mespreth soldiers dragged my best friend from a card game and SHOT HER IN THE STREET for nothing more than daring to go against your all-mighty Throne?” The three-sided alien raised the stunner, Velli stopped after a step forward.
Takji did not respond. Velli wondered what she was thinking. Condemning this peasant, for having the gall to disrespect her so?
Arthur-Benson stopped scratching his furred chin and said:
“I can’t address disputes between your two peoples. I can, however, speak to that which threatens your civilization now, and why I brought you here.”
He went over to Takji’s version of the glass divider in Velli’s room, and tapped it. Rectangles appeared, like TV screens or computer monitors, and showed images.
Ollie turned partway, standing with his legs splayed like a stool. Velli realized he could focus on Benson without once losing sight of her, such was the structure of his head and body. His evenly-spaced eyes saw his entire surroundings at once.
Benson tapped on a colored grid of tiny squares, and a rectangle showed a video: A desert, seen from a near-inverted angle, tops of clouds drifting above it. Taken from space.
The image turned blinding white. Velli blinked. The glare began to fade, and in its center an angry orange cloud curled and burned, rising like a tree-top.
“Can you tell me what this is?” he asked.
Takji remained silent. Velli said, “An atom bomb. Must’ve been a Mespreth or Malgie test.”
“Malgie?” Benson questioned.
“The Iruktak Amalgamation. An abbreviation.”
“Ah. Such colloquial forms of speech still confuse us. The test occurred here, in what we presume is a range for such things.” He called up another view-rectangle, of a map centered on Mespreth. It highlighted the central desert.
Takji tilted her head. “Your map is upside-down.”
“We take the opposite pole to be north, than you do.” He tapped more buttons, and it flipped. “Your world’s nations possess vast quantities of these weapons, stored in ways like these.”
An image of missile siloes, then a hangar with airplanes outside, then a clump of cylinders floating in space—a Mespreth observation satellite.
That got Takji’s attention. Benson noticed.
“What is this?” He pointed to it.
“An observation satellite.” She straightened up.
“No, this is an observation satellite.” He moved a separate image into view with his hand, like sliding a paper over a desk. Velli was as mesmerized by this display-screen technology as what it showed. The new image was another satellite, four can-like modules around a central hub and a rocket docked at one. “That,” he brought back the first image, “is a space station armed with five to ten nuclear warheads.”
“That’s—” she sputtered, and Velli relished every moment. The dissident press, proved right yet again! “You’re not supposed to know that!”
“I’m a member of an advanced alien civilization, with technology far beyond your own,” replied Benson. “Trust me, there is very little about your world’s current events which I do not know.” He brought up another picture, a sleek black airplane like the Black Triangle, but with an elongated fuselage and oversized engines. “This is a high-altitude, supersonic spyplane.” Then another aircraft, strangely faceted with swept-back wings and a forked tail, which Velli hadn’t seen before. “A stealth bomber.” Now an airfield or military base. “A research center with some very interesting things going on.”
Takji burst, and pointed to Velli. “Don’t show it to her!”
He raised and lowered his shoulders, a human expression of unknown meaning. “She’s not a weapons expert.”
“So you know all our secrets.”
“Not all of them.” Benson bared his teeth, another expression. “Your planet’s makeup of species, for instance. On our homeworld, we humans were the only one to ever evolve.”
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