The navigator, p.40
The Navigator, page 40
Petal's eyelids felt heavy from fatigue. It was very late. She backed away from Cynax and leaned against the wall with a yawn. As she yawned, she rubbed her face. She paused when her fingers brushed across her eyelid.
"Do you know why I have this tattoo?" Petal pointed to her eyelid. "Does it mean something?"
Cynax lowered a tentacle down to Petal. It used it to scan her tattoo from an inch or two away. It then retracted the tentacle, pulling it back toward the ceiling.
"It is Khoi custom not to name a child until they have reached one year of age. If a child lives for one year, it is given a name, and the name is tattooed onto its body. The tattoo on your cheek is your name in the Khoi language."
"What is my real name?"
"Fatima. It means 'fire in the sea.' Perhaps an allusion to your hair color."
"Fat - eem - ah," Petal sounded out her name. It sounded melodic and ethereal. She liked it better than 'Petal.'
Cynax turned around, training its single eye on Petal.
"Enerri and Yeuro must have cared for you very much to have hidden you away, crewman Fatima, but they must also have cared greatly for this planet for them to risk their lives by returning to Amanahora to try and see that it was destroyed. Perhaps you should take some time to consider what they would want you to do now."
"I may not have known them, but don't try to manipulate me like that. You know I'm not a child - and I'm not stupid."
Cynax's mess of tentacles froze in place, as if its body had been switched off.
"If I have offended you, I apologize. I was merely informing you of your parents' exemplary selflessness, while trying to elucidate the importance of what I have requested you to do."
"Kill the Aii? You're saying that they would want me to help you wipe them out? Make Ea safe from them?"
"Correct."
"Fine. I'll do it. I'll help you. But only if you help me."
Cynax lowered several tentacles down closer to Petal, studying her intently from an inch or two away.
Petal didn't move.
"What is it you require?"
"I need you to help me find my sister, Junk. She's not my real sister - but she's my responsibility. If I help you with the Aii, I need you to take me to her."
"Where is she located?"
"Quill said she's in a really dangerous place. A prison near Hesperia called Baffin Island. Can you help me get there? Will you help rescue her?"
"If you are able to eliminate the Aii threat, I will reroute a C.G.G. starship, the Kingfisher, to safely transport you to where the human is being held. However, rescuing her will be your responsibility. My programming and C.G.G. directives prevent me from interfering with indigenous affairs."
"Okay. Then I'll do it. It's a deal."
Cynax's body made a loud, pneumatic hiss.
"Excellent. But for now, you should rest. Your body has been subjected to extreme stress. You will need to be of optimum health to undertake your task, and I have several hours of analysis to complete before I can properly plan out your mission. You and the human should return to my dome tomorrow morning. At that time I will be able to tell you how to proceed. Until then, please lie down and try to recuperate."
"Okay."
Petal's eyes lingered on the giant machine. She turned around and walked up to the door she had used to enter the mainframe.
The door remained closed. It didn't pop open automatically as it had for Sentry.
"Use the access pad located on the right side of the door. Your genetic profile will grant you access to every dome in this installation. Just press your hand to it."
Petal examined the small, rectangular access pad next to the door. It was gray and dotted with five copper dots – identical to the dots she remembered seeing on Sanima's puzzle box. When she put her fingers on the dots, the door whooshed open.
Petal took a step across the doorway, peering down the long, blue barrier hallway that cut across the snowfields, over to the next dome. She glanced back at Cynax before leaving.
"Goodnight."
"Yes," Cynax hummed from its chair. One of its tentacles slowly snaked after Petal as she exited, watching her disappear. "Rest well, crewman Fatima."
***
Quill tried to slow her breathing. She was hyperventilating in the sterile, little room. A team of doctors and nurses were hovering over her as she continued to pant. She briefly glanced at each of them as they readied their instruments and checked the various machines and monitors that lay next to her.
"You're going to be just fine. Lie back and try to relax," one of the nurses said. She was a sweet-voiced, middle-aged woman with graying hair. The lower half of her face was hidden behind a paper surgical mask.
"I – I. . .I don't feel right." Quill's tongue was heavy, like it had been dipped in Novocain. It flapped around randomly across her teeth and gums.
"That's just the anesthetic." The nurse smiled with her eyes. Their frosted blue color swirled around her pupils in a disorienting whirlpool.
"Wha – where am I?"
Quill tried to sit up so she could look around the room. She shivered in her airy gown; she felt naked in it. It was split down the back and loosely secured with two string ties. Cool air crept in through the split and ran down her back and butt crack. Her skin pricked up with hundreds of goosebumps.
"Please lie down," a doctor standing next to Quill ordered. He had his back to Quill and was studying a computer monitor. The monitor displayed a grainy black and white image that looked like a snapshot of an ultrasound.
"I – I don't. Where am I?" For a moment Quill felt lightheaded, but then she felt a severe, stabbing pain in her lower abdomen. "Owww! What's going on?"
"Breathe." The sweet-voiced nurse grasped Quill's right hand tightly.
"Her contractions are less than ten seconds apart."
"Con? Con what?"
Quill was dizzy. Her back ached with an unbelievably sharp pain. Someone bent her knees until they were slightly above her head.
"What are you doing to me?"
The doctor swiveled a bright light into place, about a foot above Quill's head. Its glow was blinding.
"Ooooooow!" Quill cried out as she felt another sharp pain shoot down her back, followed by a gurglely rumble in her abdomen. She looked between her knees and saw a large bulge in her belly. She began to writhe around. "What's happening? Help!"
"Calm down. You're in labor. You're going to be fine. You need to start pushing."
"I – oooooh." Quill was rocked by another sharp pain. She wanted to scream. Her whole body was hot and covered in sweat. She felt the worst cramps she'd ever experienced.
"When I squeeze your hand I want you to breathe out and push." The nurse leaned over Quill. "Try to match my rhythm."
Quill couldn't see the nurse's face; it was washed out by the overhead light. Her pain was so intense, she couldn't do anything but nod. She tensed her body with each breath and tried to flex and push.
"How's her heart rate?"
Quill felt the doctor's cold, clammy hands come to a rest on her upper thigh. He hiked up her gown and went to look between her legs. Quill reflexively tried to turn to the side and snap her legs closed.
"Keep your legs spread," the nurse holding Quill's hand said sternly. "Her pulse is one-sixteen over ninety and stable."
"Ooooow!" Quill started to cry. Her face was bright red. She continued to squirm on the bed. Another nurse walked over and held her arms down.
"Please – I know you're in a lot of pain but try not to move."
Quill heard the voice come from somewhere behind her bed. She strained to look up past her bangs, but she couldn't see anyone. Another horrible, shooting pain made her shriek.
"Ahhhh! Stop it! Make it stop!"
"I can see it. It's crowning. I need forceps."
Quill's felt something shift inside her belly and poke at her insides. It seemed to be clawing at her intestines, pinching them, trying to bite its way through her abdomen.
"STOP! Help! Something's wrong! Get this out of me! Plee-ase!"
"You're fine," the doctor snapped. "The head is almost through."
One of the nurses fiddled with a row of steel surgical implements. Quill heard them jangle and then felt a cool strip of metal touch her sex.
"AHHH! FUCK!"
Quill gasped from the sudden cold. She was wriggling in the burly nurse's grasp, trying to slide off the bed.
"It's almost out. Come on - push. Push!"
"I can't! It hurts too – ahhh!" Quill felt a tremendous amount of pressure build up inside her gut and then release all at once. She screamed. It felt like her lower body had been torn in half.
Vertigo overcame her and her body went limp.
"It's a boy – a healthy boy," the doctor announced. He whispered to the nurse next to him. "Watch her vitals. She's lost a lot of blood. Keep her warm."
"Where is it?" Quill mumbled, eyes closed. "Where's my baby? Can I see it?"
Quill listened for the wails of her newborn but heard nothing. The nurse holding her hand swiveled the overhead light away so it was out of her eyes. She then scooped up a bundle of blankets the doctor had been cradling and went to hand them to Quill.
Quill peered at the little bundle, eyes trembling. The blankets were red – soaked in blood. Swaddled in the stained fabric was a black, hairy spider the size of a football. Its segmented legs made an insectoid twitch, as its mandibles opened and closed, pinching the air.
"Isn't he beautiful? Here, hold him."
"Ahh!" Quill recoiled from the hideous spider-creature which still glistened with afterbirth. "No!"
***
Quill jumped out of her cot. Her eyes swept across the room. She was inside of the same alien dome she'd woken up in the day before. She nearly fainted from relief; she'd never had such a terrible or more visceral nightmare.
Quill opened and closed her eyes as she lay still, chest heaving. The dome around her had been dimmed so she and Petal could fall asleep. She glanced around the dark dome, searching for her.
Petal was lying on a cot across from Quill, fast asleep. Her hair dangled down from the edge of the bed, hanging halfway down to the floor.
Quill lay in place trying to calm herself. She was still panicked. She slipped out of her cot and slowly stood up.
The dome was sickeningly warm. Cynax had adjusted its temperature to be ideal for Petal. That temperature was about ten degrees too hot for Quill. She felt trickles of fresh sweat make their way down the small of her back.
"Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh."
Quill heard a strange panting noise. At first, she confused it with her own rapid breathing. But, when she turned her head, she realized it was coming from Sentry.
Sentry was sitting next to the dome's exit, scratching the bottom of his massive jowls with one of his razor-sharp claws, in the frantic, kicking motion of a housecat. The sight of the ugly, six-eyed beast reminded Quill of the spider from her nightmare. The linkage made her stomach churn. She sat down on her cot and pulled her feet up, sitting cross-legged. Her heartbeat refused to slow. She was wired and full of anxious energy. The balmy air in the dome was suffocating. She shot up from her cot and scurried over to Sentry and the exit. She pointed to it while scraping her bare toes across the floor tiles.
Sentry cocked his head and stared up at Quill, expressionless. He then methodically licked each of his bulbous, empty eyes.
"Could you open this? I need some air to clear my head. . .and – and I want to ask the giant squid thing – Cynax – I need to ask Cynax something."
Sentry stood up. The door behind him whooshed open.
Quill tiptoed past Sentry and walked through the open door, out into the blue barrier hallway.
Outside, it was a cold polar night. Although there was no sun, the sky wasn't black – it was a purplish blue, illuminated by the reflection of the moon glowing across the endless snow fields.
Quill stood in the hallway, staring at the frozen polar plateau. She wasn't wearing pants – it had been too warm in the dome so she'd taken off most of her clothing. She now felt surreal, standing out in the icescape in her underwear. When she focused on the surrounding snowdrifts, she could see the refractory outlines of several other domes. The snow blew over them with a sad whistle.
Sentry brushed by her right leg. His hair felt coarse and wiry. She watched him lumber his way over to the far end of the hallway and disappear inside Cynax's mainframe.
Slowly, she made her way after him.
Cynax was still in its copper seat, tentacles darting from monitor to monitor.
Quill followed each of its sickening, alien movements. She watched intently as it went to plug into a monitor that was hanging high above her head. When it did, a large glop of blue goo detached from a tentacle and landed on her shoulder with a thud.
Quill whimpered when the cold goo struck her shoulder. The ooze quivered in place on her skin, and then seeped down her arm and soaked her undershirt.
Cynax adjusted its tentacle so it was looking down at Quill. It spoke to her through the monitors.
"Are you in need of something?"
Quill scraped the excess goop off her neck and shoulder, revolted.
"What is this goo you're always leaking?"
"An antifreeze. It helps keep my machinery well lubricated and it prevents my joints from locking up in subzero temperatures. To conserve energy and keep a low heat signature, this facility is normally kept at a temperature close to freezing. I raised that temperature prior to your arrival so you would be comfortable."
Quill casually walked around the circumference of the mainframe, until she was facing Cynax's eye, making a half-circle.
"So are there more machines like you? On another planet - somewhere?"
"Yes. My model is quite popular with the Colonial Galactic Government."
"Why are all of those monitors up there blank? What do they do? What are they there for?"
"Those monitors were placed there for the benefit of the interim Consortium personnel, so they could evaluate some of the data I receive. I am able to visualize that data without the use of those screens, so I have turned them off to conserve energy."
After Cynax finished speaking, it plugged a stray tentacle into one of the monitor ports, and the entire row of screens flashed to life.
On each of the screens was an image of a blue, watery world.
Quill looked up at the monitors, studying the blue planet.
"It's Ea."
"Correct."
Quill stared more closely at the monitors. Although each screen displayed Ea, all of them displayed the planet in a slightly different way. One screen had overlaid green and red lines over each of Ea's landmasses – highlighting their topography. The screen next to it seemed to show Ea's ambient temperature both above and below its surface, all the way down to the core. Next to that monitor was a plain image of the surface of Ea that looked like a snapshot taken from a camera in high orbit.
Quill squinted at the perfect snapshot of her planet. A picture from that altitude hadn't been taken by any human since before the Flood. The image was centered on the Kanya Lull. East of the Lull was a giant, monolithic ocean dotted with a smattering of green and gold islands. The only sizeable speck of land was a long, green oval that lay well to the south – the Isle of Mann.
On the western side of the Kanya Lull was Hesperia. Quill studied the varying green, brown, and tan surface of the sole continent. Hesperia was long yet thin. It stretched north to south, covering most of the distance from pole to pole. Running down the middle of Hesperia was a craggy white spine - the Kingdom of Roc. Quill followed the mountain peaks halfway down the continent and then out to their western-most edge. That outlying, heavily forested region bordered Dhaj Njang Province.
Quill tried to see if she could make out Lake Stillwell. Her house was less than a mile away from the lake, in the shadow of Roc's soaring mountains.
"Are those images current? Is that how Ea looks right now?"
"Some of those representations are current. Others are models of future weather patterns and other meteorological activity."
The screen on the far right showed a huge, shimmering cloud hovering over the eastern half of Hesperia. The giant cloud swelled and contracted – the monitor seemed to be displaying its estimated growth and dissipation in time lapse. It had the speckled, nauseating appearance of TV static.
