Beyond the Sky: Chapter 32
Stowaway
It was huge, bigger than battleships before the War Against the Sea: a maroon-and-white arrowhead, streamlined, with a tailfin and white dots that might be windows. At its stern sat an open hangar, two Black Triangles inside.
He’d been right! That ridiculous flight of fancy he’d had in that cab ride, about the origins of this Ninth Species! What went through his mind next was simple:
Now who will ever believe me?
Toras stared further. Strange symbols and insignia, orange-tipped antenna pointing back along its profile, lines and patches shining in mysterious blue, but no rocket nozzles or other apparent means of propulsion. He grew afraid, very afraid. This was no Malgie capsule or Mespreth rocketplane, stripped down in weight and constantly at risk of exploding on the pad—its builders, these aliens, traveled through space as elegantly as his own people crossed land and sea.
The scout ship neared the huge vessel, drawing up alongside a docking arm, and eased against it. Mechanisms locked in place with a dull clang.
Tapping issued from the hatch. Toras grew scared—what kind of creatures lurked behind there, in the holds of that giant craft?
“Watch them, Steve,” Abdul said to the pilot, rising and going aft to open the hatch. White light poured in. “We’re clear, Captain.” He turned back to the scout ship cockpit, and motioned. “This way.”
Toras went first, when the pilot waved his stunner. Beyond the hatch were another set of doors, also open: an airlock. After that, a white-walled hallway, brightly-lit, two more aliens standing the center. And beside them—
The Princess!
Toras fell to his knees, holding out a sheathed dagger. “I have failed in my duties, Your Highness. My life is yours, do as you wish.”
“Stop.” Benson pushed it back. “There will be no ritual killings aboard my ship. Now, who are you?”
The Princess answered, “This is Toras of Clan Gulin, appointed to...work for me, before I was taken.”
“He’s an accursed spy!” Velli spat. “Meant to hand us over to Occupation torture!”
The alien captain, Benson, turned back to Toras. “Is this true?”
“I answer only to the Throne.”
“That’s a yes.” The alien standing to Benson’s right was a different species, with fur, pointed ears, and a muzzle.
“Listen to them,” Princess Takji said. “They’re trying to stop a nuclear war, that’s why they’re involved in this stuff about Burrowers and bombs.”
“You truly are aliens?” Toras asked.
Benson replied, “What else did you think?”
Toras grunted.
Without warning, yellow accent lights and stripes along the corridor walls came on, amid the sounds of alarms.
“Intruder alert,” a disembodied voice said.
Abdul took another device from his belt and stared at its screen. “In the scout ship!”
One of Udan’s rebels, still aboard? No, Toras tallied them himself—couldn’t have anyone interfere with his abortive hijacking. Abdul put a foot through the hatch, and immediately a grey blur launched itself at his head. He grabbed at it, amid yelling and screeches in at least two languages, then hit a control on his wrist. An invisible force launched it away, to thud off the wall and fall to the deck: a child-sized creature with four arms, two legs, and a head whose coloration matched the black deck plates. It stirred, and Abdul clicked his sleeping-stick.
“What is it?” Benson seemed startled.
“That,” the Princess replied, “is a Shadowstalker.”
“Report.” Captain Benson stepped into the medbay, its doors sliding shut behind Takji, Velli, and Carter’s guardian drone. Doctor Cooper stood in his medical uniform, tapping on a panel beside the barometric chamber.
Cooper consulted a tablet. “I put him in the scanner once I got the neural damper on.” He nodded towards the chamber’s thick round door and hexagonal window. “He’s a real piece of work: intestinal parasites, broken bones set all crooked, and a bullet under his right mid-elbow. I can’t operate until we know more about their biology.”
“Can I talk to him?”
Cooper nodded. Benson approached the hatch and peered in. The barometric chamber was built into the bulkhead, a cylindrical compartment with white walls and benches. In the far corner sat a puddle of what Benson assumed was urine, and the Shadowstalker himself stood on one bench, investigating a pressurization nozzle further up. Its clothes were a mishmash of fabrics and colored, lathered in places with dyes or paints, while the skin on its legs were black like the cushion. Its white head and arms matched the wall, shifting subtly in hue as it moved.
“It’s a color-changer!” Benson exclaimed.
Takji asked, “You didn’t know?”
“We thought your TV was exaggerating. I don’t know of anything quite like this.” He tapped a screen, opening the communications menu, and said, “Hello.”
The Shadowstalker jumped, looking around for the source. Benson pressed a button below the window to make it two-way, the alien cocked its head, stared up, and hissed.
“Quite the agreeable little fellow,” Doctor Cooper remarked.
“They’re creatures of night, it may be too bright in there,” Velli said.
Benson dimmed the chamber. The Shadowstalker’s skin reacted accordingly, darkening where exposed. On its head and down the backs of its arms and tail it sported patterns of translucent quills, these too seemed to contain chromatophores. Far more advanced than those of Terran biology, Benson observed, and wondered how complex its visual cortex must be, to mimic its surroundings so well. “Six limbs, like the Burrowers.”
“Yes, they share an evolutionary ancestry,” replied Takji.
“Life probably came out of your oceans in two events: four-limbed and six-limbed clades.” He scratched his chin, and returned to the comm panel. “Please, don’t be afraid. I mean you no harm. Why did you sneak aboard our scout ship?”
“To see where it went.” The Shadowstalker’s voice was strange, compared to those of Fesks and Cepics. It remained silent a few moments, then continued, “Will you punish me?”
“No, you were only being curious.” And avoiding death-by-airstrike. “I do not hold it against you. What is your name?”
“Glint. To the Clan, I am known as Sparkhands.” Glint Sparkhands, then.
“In that case, Glint, will you permit me to help you?”
Glint seemed puzzled by his choice of words, eye narrowing while the long, pointy ears sprouting from the sides of his head drooped back. “How so?”
“Your injuries. Allow us to fix them.”
“And what do you expect in return?”
Benson shrugged. “Nothing. I only want to help.”
“No one helps for free.”
“I like to think we do.”
“As you did with the Cepic of the National Front?” He pointed to Velli.
“You know this—” Benson paused. “Him?”
Velli said, “He met with me when you sent me back. He was there, when the Slavers took the Burrowers and their bombs.”
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