B. Larson - Swarm

My eyes ran downward. I couldn’t help it. Everything below the waist was just as shapely as the rest-and naked. There was a tiny tattoo down there, a butterfly I think, done in the traditional green. She wore nothing but a torn, white cotton blouse. The nights are often hot in California’s Central Valley. It was obvious she’d been plucked out her bed in the night, just as my family had.

“Do you know anything?” I asked, forcing my eyes upward to meet hers. The fast question was an old trick I’d picked up while professoring. Lots of young women came to talk to their professor, and sometimes my eyes wandered. Asking a quick question usually got me out of an embarrassing moment when I was caught.

“About what?” she asked.

I noticed the barrel of her gun, which looked like a. 38 revolver from here, had not wavered an inch. I swallowed. I hoped I wasn’t her test-what if she was supposed to blow me away to get to square seven?

“About the tests.”

She blinked. The barrel lowered, but only a fraction. I did a little amateur triangulating and I didn’t like where it was aiming now. I thought about telling her to put that thing away, but given the circumstances, she had every right to aim her pistol at my privates and we both knew it. Trust would have to be earned in this environment.

“Tests? You mean this bullshit of doing whatever the ship wants to get to the next room alive?”

I nodded. “Exactly.”

The gun lowered a fraction more. She could still knee-cap me with a twitch of one finger. I hoped the. 38 would eventually prove too heavy for her arms, but she looked like she worked out. She held it correctly too, bracing her right wrist with her left hand. Someone had given her shooting lessons.

She shook her head. “All I know is that if I hadn’t slept with this gun on my nightstand I’d be dead right now like my roommate.”

“Roommate? Are you a college student?”

“Yeah.”

I nodded. “I teach at U. C. Merced.”

Her eyes narrowed. The pistol came up again, squarely on my chest now. “This is taking too long. By this time, I should have seen a door open or something. You’re full of crap, aren’t you? You are like some kind of delay, some kind of distraction. If I kill you, I get to go to the next room, don’t I?”

I lifted my hands a fraction, palms up. “Hold on, I’ve been through plenty of crap myself tonight. This ship killed both my kids. My shotgun is out of ammo, or we may have shot each other, that’s true. Maybe that’s what the ship wants, but I’m not killing any humans today. I’m only killing aliens.”

She stared at me for a long second. Then she sighed and tilted her gun up so it pointed at the ceiling. She still gripped it in both hands, but we both relaxed. “What’s your name, Professor?” she asked.

Two doors opened up then, as if on cue. We both tensed and whirled, but the rooms were empty. On the far side of the left room was a single point of light. A bright spot showed there, as if someone had drilled a hole in the side of the ship and it was brilliant daylight outside. Unless we had circumnavigated the globe, it couldn’t be light out yet, so I was suspicious.

“Another test,” I said.

“Ya think?”

I glanced at her. “I’m Kyle Riggs, since you asked.”

“Professor Kyle Riggs?”

I nodded.

“I’m Alessandra. Just call me Sandra. What do you teach?” she asked. She seemed honestly interested.

“Computer science.”

Sandra rocked back her head and laughed. It was a strange sound here. It seemed very out of place.

“What?” I asked.

“I think I signed up for your class next fall.”

“Oh. Let’s hope we both make it to school next year, Sandra.”

She nodded. “Which way, professor?”

“I’d say we go away from that light. It seems like a trick. It can’t be daylight outside. I don’t get this test, but we have to go somewhere.”

“Yeah,” she said. “They are already heating the floor.”

I could feel it, now that she mentioned it. The floor was at least ten degrees warmer than it had been when I’d entered. We had to choose a room.

I took a step forward into the room on the right, the dark one. Sandra was right behind me, but not close enough.

The floor vanished in the room where we had met, beneath Sandra’s feet. I reached back my hand and caught her as she began to fall. It wasn’t a good hold, just her fingers. She dropped her gun. It went twirling down into the night.

We were over the ocean, I realized. It seemed colder, too. The smell of the sea hit me, very strong and sudden. Had we moved north? The sea was dark, but not too far down. Maybe a hundred yards below, it was hard to tell. But it was far enough to kill anyone who took the fall. Water felt like concrete if you fell from high enough.

I saw her face, looking up at me. Her mouth was open, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t even scream. She was working her other hand and both her feet to get a grip on the smooth metal of the ship.

Cold salt breezes washed up into our faces. I thought we could do it. I was on my knees, bracing myself. It wouldn’t do either of us any good if I let her pull me down too, and we both fell into the sea. The problem was there wasn’t any lip to hold onto, no rim or door panel, not even a carpet to provide some friction. Just smooth metal that could change shape at will, like liquid.

“Hold on, Sandra,” I shouted. “We can do this.”

I had a plan. Really, I did. I would lie flat and hold onto her arms, letting her pull herself up over me. I thought she looked strong enough to manage it, with my help. I adjusted myself according to the plan, and then The door vanished. The metal flowed together, very rapidly, as it had done many times before. One second it was there, the next it wasn’t.

That wasn’t the bad part. The bad part came when I looked into my hand, where I still held four of her fingers. There was a ring on one of them, with an emerald in it. They were oozing blood, where they had been very neatly severed by the closing metal door.

I sat up and rubbed Sandra’s fingers for a second before putting them down gently, making a little stack on the floor. I could hardly see. My eyes stung. I made a weird, howling sound.

“Leadership demonstrated,” said the cold voice, speaking up for the first time in a while.

“Leadership?” I shouted at the walls. “So that’s what the test was about? You call that leadership? ”

The walls said nothing.

“What happened to the interrogation, huh? You never even asked me any questions.”

I felt like a crazy guy in a movie, shouting at the walls, shouting at God or the Devil or the voices his own mind. I think I truly was mad, in that moment of despair.

Sadly, my mind worked on the puzzle. I couldn’t help it. I’m a computer guy, and a farmer, and both my occupations require a passion for problem-solving. I had completed a test for leadership. Meaning what? I had led Sandra out of the room. I had made the choice concerning which direction to take. She had followed me.

So, she was a follower and had failed the test. If she had gone the other way, would they have let her live? Would they have put her through some other test or would we have both been failures, tossed down into the dark sea because neither of us could lead the other?

“What the hell do you want? ” I asked the quiet walls. I didn’t expect an answer. I was nearly broken now. Somehow, killing my kids had filled me with resolve, but getting me to make a decision which inadvertently had led to Sandra’s death, that was different. I supposed it was a matter of guilt. There wasn’t any logical reason to feel guilty about the fate of my kids. I’d done the best I could for them, given the circumstances.