Exigency Read online

  “They’re wrapping us up!” Qin said. “Hippies or not, they’re not giving up as interesting a prize as this! They’re keeping us! They’re going to take us somewhere!”

  Aether ignored him and watched four figures quickly swim down toward the giant animal. What to do? Blow the hatch and raft, and bail? Initiate contact now? As much as she tried to convince Qin how peaceful these people were, the truth was they didn’t have all that much data on Sea Threck. What if they spoke an entirely different language? It seemed likely, given the differences in environments, land and water. Most sounds spoken in one atmosphere wouldn’t work at all in the other.

  And what if the Sea Threck tried pulling them farther out to sea?

  She didn’t have to think long about this question. Answering for her, the Sea Threck had their enormous creature submerge once more, dragging the pod beneath the surface with ease.

  “Crap! Ah crap!” Qin blurted, clutching two handles as the pod sunk deeper and deeper, sunlight from the surface rapidly dissipating, the glow of the EV’s internal lights taking over. He spewed rapidfire thoughts, “Where’re they taking us? Wha’d’we do? What if the pressure—”

  As the pod continued plunging, it accelerated to the northwest.

  Aether tried to remain calm for the both of them. “We don’t have to worry about pressure. We equalized on landing, so we’ll remain at sea level atmosphere. Also, the EV’s can withstand pressure down to … what … two-K?”

  Qin was losing it. “I don’t know! Is it? Can it? What if we run out of air? Stuck at the bottom … the scrubbers …”

  “Calm down!” Aether roared. “Our concerns are no different from being in orbit.”

  The top of the pod scraped against a rigid surface, sending a grating screech into Aether’s head. They’d been dragged beneath something solid. Forward motion slowed.

  The EV bobbed side to side as she toggled the console to the external environment variables screen. The altitude gauge had switched to read “Depth.” They’d reached 156m below the surface and continued to move northwest, albeit very slowly.

  Aether climbed up onto her seat back and peered out the porthole. There, a few meters away, she saw a Sea Threck swimming alongside the EV. A faint green glow was all that lit its bug-eyed face. Aether switched to IR and the area beyond the window appeared in crisp grayscale. They were in an underwater cavern, but not a naturally occurring one.

  The EV stopped its forward progress and swung against its line for a moment, drifting forward then backward until the pod’s buoyancy held them straight up like a tethered balloon.

  “Ahh man, so not good, really not good,” Qin murmured under his breath. He was in his seat, gripping the restraints and staring through the instrument cluster. “Wha’d’they want, wha’d’they want …”

  “Start adjusting our pressure. I think we need to equalize with this depth, and fast.”

  “But you said they couldn’t—”

  “Qin!”

  He shut up and turned to the console.

  “And make sure your suit and visor are sealed.”

  Aether climbed down and switched back to thermag, observing what had so rattled Qin. She estimated 30-40 Threck floated before them. Beyond the group of orange figures, the rough outline of a craggy wall appeared in wavy grays, and hundreds of vines grew upward, obscuring the rocky surface like a curtain. Several dark patches marked entrances to tunnels hidden behind the vines. From the vague features discernible through her optics, the whole structure before them looked like a magnified coral reef, whereas behind and above, the cavern appeared fashioned from enormous shells. Perhaps, she thought, shells of the huge mollusks, like the one currently anchoring the EV. They’d built onto a natural structure, creating a concert-hall-sized compound.

  To her left, hundreds of small fish swam frantically within a netted enclosure affixed to the wall. Tall vines grew in clusters from small pits. On her right, half a dozen large animals drifted about, tied to the opposite wall. Through thermag, their silhouettes were smooth domes like turtle shells, but with four long, broad fins instead of legs. Could they be young versions of the massive creature that pulled the EV under? The basic anatomy matched.

  “I can’t believe this,” Qin’s voice moaned in Aether’s helmet speakers. “This is unbelievable. Do you believe this? After all that to reenter?”

  “It’s less than ideal,” Aether said. “Can you check our comms status? And after that, assemble a map of this cavern. We need the shortest, safest routes to the surface.”

  “You expect we’ll need to—”

  “No, I don’t expect anything, but we need to plan for everything. Just focus on the tasks, okay?”

  Qin quietly echoed her words as he began. “Focus on task … planning and focusing …”

  Aether climbed around, peeking out the portholes again. The vines were the source of the green glow. Tiny bubble clusters along the stalks, like baby grapes, appeared to be reservoirs for bioluminescent bacteria or fungi. The Sea Threck equivalent of installing street lights, or had they simply grown wild?

  Two more Threck figures emerged from the tunnels behind the vine curtain. Aether and Qin watched in silence as the pair appeared to confer with their comrades, then proceeded to swim toward the still-anchored EV. Several other Threck sprang into action, disappearing deep below. The EV lurched, rose minutely, then sunk once more. Aether watched as the giant creature below them slowly exited the area from the direction they’d come, while the pod remained in place, apparently tethered to a new anchor.

  “Ho-hey!” Qin exclaimed.

  Two Threck now swam just outside the EV, running their long, arm tentacles along the hull. Despite all the vids and pics she’d seen on the station, it was still astounding to see them so close. In the water, with leg tentacles fully extended, they appeared so much taller than all the on-land images—perhaps half a meter longer than an average human male. Out of water, they walked on a calloused bend in the tentacles, sort of shuffling along as if on very low knees. Near the center of Threck City there was a statue of a famous historical Threck leader with his arms in the air and standing on the very ends of his “legs,” but Aether wasn’t aware of Minnie ever observing someone fully extending their legs to stand or walk on the ends. Perhaps if there were a Threck ballet.

  The two Threck swam around the EV, studying the hull, until one made its way to the top and found Qin’s porthole. It summoned its companion and another head appeared in the window. Their big eyes, like flesh-hooded billiard balls, touched and slid around each other as they tried to see in at the same time.

  Aether made a decision. She stood up and faced the porthole straight-on, holding her arms out at her sides in the shape of an arrow. This was the City Threck equivalent to waving hello to a distant person. The two Threck gawked at her—not moving for a moment, appearing to consider—then whirled back to life. A third swam forward, passing what appeared to be a small stone to one of the two observers, who then struck the EV hull with it.

  “Nononono …” Qin’s shaky, whispering voice.

  “Just one tap … stay calm.” Another tap, harder. “Your suit ran a check, right?”

  “Ahh yeah ... it’s fine. Hey, do MWs work underwater?”

  “Good question,” Aether said, checking her waist to verify the multiweapon was still there. “Look it up for us, would you?”

  A rapid buzzing alert rang out in the cabin as the ambient light flashed from blue to orange and back.

  “What?” a flabbergasted Qin shouted. “He figured out the hatch access!”

  Aether peered through the still-sealed hatch and saw one of the Threck fiddling with the opening mechanism. Manipulating it was not an intuitive process, and the Threck’s nubby pad just didn’t seem up to the task. Then again, those nimble little cilia …

  She barked, “Shut off that racket!”

  The sound stopped but the lights continued flashing.

  The Threck had poked the bar that pushed the semi
circular handle out (thus the alarm), but to actually open the hatch they’d have to grip the handle, pull it out a couple centimeters, and rotate it 180 clockwise before pushing it in. Aether crouched close and watched the club struggling with it. Did the Threck know that the thing it was fooling with was an access mechanism? Or was it simply the first moving part they could find? A similar latch resided at the back of the EV for skimmer deployment, but everything else on the hull was tooled on.

  “MWs work underwater,” Qin said. Aether heard a new determination, as if he’d come to terms with the situation and was ready to suck it up. “Stunshocks auto-disable when submerged. It also advises lethal setting for effective defense as nonlethal is severely diminished. Also, we should reset the EV. Prep it for reentry.”

  “Why?”

  “So the lockdown bars reengage. I just remembered. They can’t open the hatch if we reset.”

  Aether thought about it. “Will we be able to? When the time comes? And what about the pressure?”

  “Yes, it’ll be like a landing simulation as far as those instruments go. The pod’s already equalized for this depth, but its environment won’t be affected anyway. Plus, our suits are handling environment individually now.”

  She looked at his intense face through the visor. She’d never seen him panicked before today, and it was good to see and hear him getting it together. “Okay, do it then. Lock us down.”

  A new alarm sounded, more insistent.

  Beep-beep-beep, beep-beep-beep … and the orange light began to strobe. From the hatch frame, a thin bar of water blasted in, striking Aether’s body and helmet, thrusting her against the seat back. She struggled to turn sideways, grasping fruitlessly for the holstered MW.

  The gushing water abruptly stopped.

  Aether looked down and saw that she was sitting in a shallow pool. She clambered once more to her feet, climbing back onto the seat. Outside the EV, five Sea Threck appeared to be in a heated debate. One poked another in the face. The other returned with a swipe. Two more pulled the poker away. Which one had figured out the hatch access? And why did it stop? Had the external pressure been too great to pull the hatch open more than a crack, or had the ones at the portholes seen the water streaming in and ordered a halt? Aether had suddenly become a goldfish in a little bowl.

  Three Threck swam to the top of the pod, pushing down with their legs while pulling at the vines. The EV began to roll in place, sending Qin and Aether scrambling to stay on their feet.

  “They’re tipping us over!” Qin shrieked, his voice atop a layer of static.

  They stepped off of their seats as their world rotated forward, the pool of water splashing over the hatch, consoles, and EV controls, shorting out instruments. Lights flickered and popped off, display panels shut down.

  “We might lose intercomms,” Aether warned. “Switching to DC.”

  They stepped lightly onto the systems panels, carefully avoiding kicking any switches or applying weight to sensitive surfaces or screens. What the hell were the Threck doing?

  Blue emergency lights activated just as the EV stopped rolling. Aether and Qin stood on instrument panels flanking the hatch and waited, their respective portholes now situated beside their faces. Aether locked eyes with the Threck floating just a half meter outside. Like the mudskippers the Threck partially resembled, its large eyeballs sucked into their sockets and popped back up like an elaborate blink. She glimpsed its siphons moving open and closed like giant nostrils. Minnie had catalogues of Threck facial and body expressions in the language DB, but Aether couldn’t bring herself to pull them up. Her eyes were glued to the thing’s face, and the reverse appeared true of the Threck beyond the porthole. Beside its head, the occasional tentacle whooshed by. Its own or another’s? Too much going on at once.

  The EV lurched again and the hatch slowly sank below gurgling salt water. The water level rose and briefly splashed, but only for a few seconds before stabilizing like a moon pool, the air trapped within.

  Aether watched the submerged hatch slide silently away. Had this been the Threcks’ intention? Had they earlier observed the water spraying in, resealed the hatch, and turned the EV on its side to act as a diving bell, conscious of some beings’ need for air, and aware of the moon pool effect?

  Without warning, two tentacles splashed up, planting themselves on the hatch frame, and a Threck thrust itself up into the cabin. Aether and Qin fell back against their respective sides as the Threck groped about before finding a bar to grasp, then braced its long legs against two sides. It twisted on its appendages, left, right—the equivalent of turning one’s head, and gawked at Qin, then Aether, then back. It reached out and touched the dark fabric of the seats, then the smooth surface of the panels, all the while turning and angling its body in short, rapid movements, like a bird.

  While it appeared more curious than aggressive, its boldness was thoroughly disconcerting. It even reached out and ran a cilia-coated tentacle end down Aether’s helmet and visor. The little hairs waved in sequence like a field of centipede legs. Aether strove to remain still as it fondled her body, squeezing, poking, and swiping. Then it turned to Qin whose expression made it clear he wouldn’t be maintaining such composure during any brief exam.

  Aether activated her mic and listened one more time to Minnie’s synth voice repeat the sounds in her ear module. The Threck’s club patted down Qin’s shoulder and arm. Before Qin could lose it entirely, Aether proceeded. “Ee-shaaay-CK.”

  The Threck stopped and twisted with startling speed, ogling Aether with its two bulbous eyes. It repositioned its legs to match the head as the eyes sucked in, disappearing for a second. This eye-hiding rendered the head top a featureless blue dome, save for two nearly invisible slits. Aether almost expected the eyes to reappear inside the two soda can-sized siphon orifices, but they popped back up as fast as they’d dropped, and the Threck thrust both of its clubs onto Aether’s visor, seeking to probe her cheeks, nose, lips, eyes. Unable to penetrate the transparent material, it slapped its pads onto each side of the helmet and tried to pull it off.

  Awed by its strength, Aether was lifted onto her toes and struggled to keep her footing. She threw up her hands reflexively, shoving the tentacles out and away from her helmet, and slipped, her right glute landing hard against a pointy corner.

  “Ow!” Her mic and PA were still active.

  “Ah!” the Threck echoed. Clubs dropped to its sides and it moved its face right in front of hers.

  She imagined the salty, fishy smell of its skin. It repeated, “Ah!” once more, and she could see the muscles move inside the siphon holes. Threck mouths were hidden under their bodies where the four tentacles converged, much like an octopus, and weren’t involved with vocalizations.

  Sifting through options in the language DB, Aether found and activated the Livetrans app. A little box popped up in the upper left of her view, showing Minnie’s virtual Threck, Howard, standing and ready to demonstrate appropriate body language. Livetrans automatically disabled her mic and took over control of her suit’s PA speaker. Meanwhile, their guest had begun a close inspection of Aether’s neck coupler, its club tips pointed and hovering close, like a doctor moving in for the first incision. Without realizing, Aether had been recoiling from the imposing Threck, and found herself pressed into the wall, feet tripping below her.

  Qin, in her helmet: “Should I shoot it?”

  “No! What? Just stand quiet and don’t move. And put your damned MW away if you have it out!”

  Still fidgety and with an intense, methic energy, the Threck looked down, scooted its “knees” to either side of the open hatch, and faced Aether with its hands held out to its sides. “Ock! Ee-shaaay-CK. Sthaw-ptck tshss-ahh …” It jabbered on like this, cocking its head sideways, popping in one eye or both, arm gestures and body thrusts, bending and stiffening.

  Aether tried to maintain eye contact while also watching the Livetrans app working diligently away. Words appeared and disappeared—correcting based on
context and gesture interpretation—and as Aether watched the Threck’s message come into focus, she felt incredible relief wash over. Less than two seconds after the visitor stopped speaking, with an 8-out-of-10 confidence score, the app presented Aether its first translation.

  LIVETRANS: Peaceful greetings. [Your] bodies and shelter [are] welcome in [my] water. No danger [for you]. [My] water [is] safe from [unknown] and Threck. Where [is your] mountain? [I am] [unknown]. Where [are you] made? How [you] know Threck words?

  Aether input her response as quickly as she could, while the Threck popped its head forward in little fits that Livetrans read as “Now you.” It glanced back at Qin.

  Aether chided herself for never once attempting Threck language on the station. Her response pre-played in her ear (as if she’d be able to verify its accuracy) and she observed this new synth voice was a variation on the generic Sindy synth, though its pitch range had been extended several octaves higher and lower. As Sindy spoke, Howard the Threck’s body moved, demonstrating the associated gestures.

  Ah, she thought. That’s why it pre-plays … so I can see where the gestures fit with the words.

  Aether sucked in a deep breath, as if about to speak the sounds herself, and activated playback through her PA. She mimicked the body language in time with the appropriate syllables. “Ehh-skwaw fwips-scay peeesss-CK …” One fist, two fists, exaggerated blink hopefully understood as an eye hide, hip pop, overlapped hands to chest … “Packesheh Aether.” She pointed her stacked palms past the Threck toward Qin. “Packesheh Chin.”

  The Threck seemed to struggle with most of what she and Livetrans had said. “Peess-CK,” it repeated. “Peess-CK.” A head cock.

  Aether looked over the translation. She’d supposedly told the Threck she was grateful for the welcome, grateful for safety, that she was from a very far away mountain, had gotten lost, and sought to return there. And, of course, their names. The City Threck were known to use names and titles, and the language this one had spoken was 100% City, so it stood to reason that it would contextually receive “Aether” and “Qin” as names, however unfamiliar.