Lawrence Schoen: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard

In the end, the batons failed to elicit the desired answers. The Fant simply accepted the attacks as one more kind of pain, not so different than the aching cold or the smell of plastic that they all had complained of from their first days. After she had crumpled to the floor, either exhausted or unconscious, the Badgers had delivered a few more jabs before giving up and retreating from the room.

Some among the Fant referred to themselves as the Dying. Perhaps the harsh physical interrogation and torture dispensed by the Taxi counted as something the living suffered, making it just one more thing that the Dying could endure.

Was this Fant an isolated case or a representative one? Were the females more resistant than the males, the Lox more than the Eleph? Or did the interrogation fail because she simply didn’t have the answers to the questions Krasnoi had been charged to pursue?

The Badgers had a yard full of prisoners upon which to test these questions. The Urs knew that none among the squad would be at all troubled that their tasks marked yet another violation of Barsk’s Compact, the execution of another unlawful command.

A pair of Ailuros guards borrowed from the orbital station entered the room and dragged the Fant to her feet. Krasnoi shut off the vid. He put the details out of his mind but could not shake the brutal inefficiency of what he’d seen.

SOONafter he became a Speaker, the quality of Jorl’s dreams changed. The skills he developed in crafting a venue for his conversations were what his unconscious used every night to create the images of sight and sound and touch in his dreams, same as everyone. It was obvious, in hindsight, that as he became a better Speaker his dreams would become more vivid. So, too, his recurring nightmare.

He was back in the Patrol. Jorl knew he was dreaming because he remembered being sent home to Barsk soon to stand Second at Arlo’s planting. He had to be dreaming because his friend hadn’t yet died. He and his crewmates had arrived in a system beyond the edge of known space to perform a routine mission of cataloging and mapping. The Alliance wouldn’t be seeding any colonies there. It wasn’t a place where anyone could live comfortably; the only planets were gravitationally challenged gas giants, all too far away from their star. But a couple of these had moons, and one of these satellites looked like it might do. An outpost could survive, albeit only with regular supply drops. Unlikely ever to happen, but making that decision wasn’t the purview of the mission, just data collection.

Missions change.

As Jorl’s ship approached the moon for a closer look they heard the voice. A message originating where no one from the Alliance had ever traveled.

Kengi, the Myrm communications officer, looked up from her screens, her tongue tasting the air as she announced, “That was a targeted scan, Captain. Telemetry suggests the signal originates beneath the ice sheath.” Jorl had wanted to like Kengi; her long and narrow snout bore the closest resemblance to a trunk of any of the races in the Alliance. That, more than anything, was probably the reason she’d distanced herself from him when he joined the crew.

From his duty station, he glanced at the Anteater and counted off the seconds before the captain replied. On a typical day, a full minute could pass. One learned to live with the delays when one’s captain was a Sloth. Brady-Captain Hrum’s quick response just confirmed he was dreaming.

“An automated signal? Something we’ve tripped? Seems far-fetched. That ice must be thousands of years old. Morth, do you concur?”

Brady-Lieutenant Morth was the cousin of Hrum’s sister-in-law, but a fine science officer despite the obvious nepotism that garnered him the best work shifts. “More like tens of thousands,” he said, “I mark the origin point as a small hollow about half a kilometer down that might once have been a cave, back before the moon’s magnetic pole last moved and everything got buried.”

“Ah, the rigors of cataloging. Well, never let it be said that a little bit of frozen water deterred the Patrol from exploring a mystery.” Hrum waved a long arm in a languid command. “Bring the beamers online. Drill me a hole wide enough to drop a shuttle through, even with that cave. Let’s go see what’s buried out there where nothing should be.”

Jorl stood back from his station. Hrum always picked him for shuttle missions. Maybe it was just the tradition of scut work for the newest crew, and maybe not. The captain gave him a nod, and then to his surprise said, “I’ll lead this one. Kengi, you come, too. Maybe we’ll find some frozen bugs for you.”

The Anteater rolled her eyes at Hrum’s back, but rose from her station as well.

When all of this had really happened, Jorl had had to wait nearly an hour for the meticulous Morth to finish drilling a passage for them. In the dream, though, Jorl walked from the ship’s bridge to the shuttle and then instantly exited the hovering craft out onto the edge of a cave mouth.

The icy floor of the cave gave way to irregular stone and then a level ceramic tile. The three crew all wore environment suits fitted to their differing physiques, though Jorl’s helmet was easily twice the size of the others. Before putting it on, he’d had to fold his ears in on themselves three times. His suit lacked a sleeve for his trunk, requiring him to keep it wrapped around his neck like a muffler. All the suits included headlamps. The floor continued on into the cave beyond the range of their lights.

“Remind me to have a conversation with Morth about using relativistic terms like small, ” said Brady-Captain Hrum. Her short legs set a slow marching pace as they traveled deeper into the cave.

Only the tile floor was artificial. The regular shape of the cave suggested it had been created with an energy beam not unlike what they’d used to drill. The walls were native rock.

“By my uncle’s tongue, what the heck is that ?” said Kengi. A massive box blocked further passage.

Jorl stopped. “Could that be some form of life-support unit built to sustain whoever sent the signal?”

“If it is, they’re doubtless long dead,” said Hrum.

He couldn’t squeeze past it on either side, but Jorl could see the depth of the thing. It stood nearly twice his height, a cube rather than a box. Boxes had lids. If this thing had an opening it had to be on the back end where they couldn’t see. It was all gray metal and plastic and cloudy glass. In the beams from their headlamps Jorl could see something on the other side of the glass, slow swirls that danced with hidden meaning.

Kengi consulted her gear. “This is the source of the signal, but I can’t tell you where the power is coming from or what’s driving it. It just … is.”

The captain waved Jorl over. “Lox-Ensign, stand in front of the thing and touch it.”

“Sir?”

“Do I have to repeat myself?”

Jorl shook his head and followed orders. He pressed a palm flat against the glass surface of the cube. Another set of swirls began dancing. Before the captain could tell him not to he began following after them with the tips of his fingers, tracing their movement on the glass. Hrum grabbed him by the shoulder, yanking him backwards. Too late.

Lights came on, deep inside, shining through the smoky glass in more complicated patterns.

“I’m measuring an increase in power,” said Kengi.

“Dangerous?”

“No, Captain, not at these levels. More like a system coming online. Whatever it is, we’ve woken it up.”

The swirls rushed together behind the glass, forming a rough, humanoid shape, losing color until they were a dull black, like the shadow of someone of indeterminate race leaned against the glass on the inside regarding them.