Chapter 3: Field Work

The Courser emerged from superlight like a whale breaching the surface of the ocean, a spray of colorful gases expanding in its wake like a miniature nebula as it tore a hole back into reality. The long, slim ship drifted for a moment, inertia carrying it along as it tumbled slowly. After a brief delay its engines flared to life, thrusters spaced along its sleek hull righting it with bursts of blue flame as the flight computer took control.

Lena opened her eyes and blinked away stinging tears, struggling back to awareness and straining against her safety harness. She felt like she had been worked over with baseball bats, every muscle in her body ached. She spat the plastic bit out of her mouth, intended to prevent her from biting off her tongue during the jump, and unclasped the catch that bound her to her crash couch.

The pilots told her that superlight got easier every time you did it, some of the more experienced captains could even stand unaided during the dimensional transition, so she had heard. It hadn’t gotten any easier for Lena however, and she doubled over, a wave of nausea overwhelming her.

She was a linguist, and so she didn’t claim to understand the intricacies of the process, she would leave that to the theoretical physicists. What she did know was that faster than light travel was impossible, at least in our three dimensions of reality. The laws of physics did not allow it. The jump drive drew energy from an onboard power plant, charging up and creating a quantum mechanical black hole, better known as a microhole by the pilots and engineers. It manifested in front of the ship, tearing a breach in the fabric of spacetime, which sucked in the ship and everything in its immediate vicinity.

In doing so the vessel was granted access to a higher dimension of space, or perhaps an entirely distinct universe, where the laws of time and physics operated very differently. You couldn’t exceed ninety nine percent light speed in conventional space, but in this strange void it was possible to be massless, for time to run in peculiar and illogical streams. A ship could travel at impossible speeds and follow the swells and currents of time in order to reach a destination far sooner than would otherwise be feasible.

The big downside was that the wracking energies played havoc with nervous systems, the symptoms ranging from seizures and uncontrollable muscle spasms, to hallucinations and temporary insanity. Something about the jump dimension didn’t agree with organic life, almost as if some higher power didn’t want them to be there.

At the end of the process the vessel was spewed out dozens of light years closer to its destination, the range of the jump dependent on the power capacity of the ship in question. Coursers were small vessels compared to the massive jump carriers and freighters, but they were designed to be as fast as possible. The vessel was shaped like a knitting needle, the engines and nuclear reactors housed far away at the rear of the hull. It was the most optimal ratio between mass, carrying capacity and power consumption that the Navy could build. One of the vessels had been docked at the station, and the security chief had requisitioned it for her, a short hop from the Pinwheel to the 61 Cygni system wouldn’t even take a day.

Lena walked across the cramped cabin on shaky legs, making her way over to where Sleethe was strapped down. There were no chairs on the Courser that could accommodate him, and so he had to be tightly strapped to a cargo pallet for his own safety. The giant reptile risked killing both himself and everyone in the immediate vicinity with his inhuman strength and weight if he was not properly secured.

She knelt and began to untie him, loosening the belt that was holding his jaws shut first, then moving down to his limbs. Once free, he stood and shook himself like a wet dog, having to stoop lower than usual in the confining space. Krell did not commonly travel this way, Coursers were not built with their kind in mind.

“Beginning approach,” the pilot said, his voice coming through on the intercom along with a burst of static. The Courser was too small to carry a landing craft, and so the plan was to rendezvous with a Broker vessel that would ferry them down to the surface of the planet.

Lena wasn’t sure how she felt about how closely the mysterious aliens were becoming involved with the expedition. They obviously wanted to keep a close eye on her, but why? What damage could one unarmed academic possibly do?

She walked over to the one of the small portholes, scarcely larger than her own face, and she peered out at the blackness of space beyond. She could make out the twin suns of 61 Cygni, two red dwarf stars that looked like a pair of evil eyes hanging in the sky. They were smaller and darker than the sun, but Krell orbited closer to its parents than the Earth did to Sol. She couldn’t make out their destination, it was directly in front of the ship, but she could feel the acceleration as they burned towards it.

Before long they began to decelerate, Lena feeling the inertial change in her inner ear.

“You excited to be back home, big guy?”

Sleethe huffed affirmatively, but he didn’t seem very enthusiastic. She wondered if he even cared where they were going as long there would be a heat source to bask under. As they drew closer, she started to notice Broker drone ships coming and going, buzzing around the orbital defense platforms that encircled the planet like clouds of flies. It was hard to judge distance in space, but there were small ones that were vaguely spherical, and larger ones that were bulky and no doubt built to carry cargo. They had entered orbit, she could just make out the green haze of the planet below.

“We’re about to dock with the Broker lander,” the pilot said, “stand by. You’ll hear a loud clunk, don’t panic, it’s just the docking clamps.”

There was a rumble that reverberated through the metal deck, and the porthole was filled with a silver hull as the two vessels mated. Lena felt a sudden wave of apprehension. In a few moments she would be passed from the care of the UNN into the hands of the Brokers. She didn’t even know what they looked like, and despite working extensively on Borealan and Krell languages, she had never heard so much as an audio clip or seen a single character from the Broker language. While all of the other races of the Coalition mingled and shared their culture and technology, the enigmatic Brokers seemed to go out of their way to keep themselves separate.

At least she had Sleethe with her, but she would soon be dozens of light years from any other humans. She might be the loneliest and most isolated mammal in the entire galactic arm.

There was a pneumatic hiss as a door in the Courser’s hull slid open, its small cabin now linked to the Broker vessel via a short umbilical walkway. Lena hefted a large rucksack that contained a wide variety of scientific gear and instruments, her reptilian companion lifting a duffel bag that was larger and heavier than she was with ease. She had packed enough gear and supplies to last her for weeks. The pilot’s voice came in over the intercom again, hissing and popping with interference.

“Good luck Doctor Webber, watch your step now. Have a safe journey, and don’t let the Brokers try to sell you anything.”

She swallowed hard, steeling herself, and began to walk towards the open door. The Broker ship was better lit than the dingy UNN vessel, the industrial interior of the Courser giving way to bright, clean metal. Lena peeked nervously inside the umbilical, bathed in pale light from the alien ship, and she urged Sleethe to follow behind her. While he seemed unconcerned by the strange design of the Broker vessel, he was sniffing the air intently, perhaps picking up on something that Lena’s human nose could not detect.

As Sleethe stepped into the metal tunnel, there was a worrying creaking sound, as if it was about to give way. Instead, Lena’s eyes widened as she watched the umbilical grow to accommodate his exaggerated stature. The metal was flexing like a sheet of silver flesh, expanding and shifting, until it looked as if it had been built to spec.

Lena was amazed, awestruck, but Sleethe simply plodded along the tunnel as if it was all routine for him. Of course, he had no doubt been on Broker vessels at some point in the past. He must have been brought from his home planet to the Pinwheel on one such ship.

She hurried along behind him as he began to outpace her, his long tail dragging across the smooth floor. There were no windows to space, and no visible light fixtures, the glow somehow seeming to emanate from the very walls themselves.

It was a short walk to the alien vessel, and after a moment she found herself standing in an empty room. It was made from featureless, silver metal, much the same as the umbilical. There wasn’t so much as a chair in sight, no readouts or consoles to be seen anywhere. The passage behind them closed up rapidly, like footage of a wound healing that was being played back in a time lapse. She reached out a tentative hand and prodded the metal, feeling it give a little under the pressure. It was flexible, more like hard rubber than the gleaming steel that it so resembled.

The room gave her the willies, it was too empty, so unnaturally featureless that it was making her snowblind. She found herself clinging to Sleethe’s powerful arm, the Krell warbling sympathetically as he coiled his long tail around her, like a knee-high wall of scales to keep her safe. She realized that there was no noise, that was part of what was making the chamber so unnerving. All that she could hear was her own blood rushing in her ears, and Sleethe’s heavy breathing, the usual creaks and hums of a spaceship were completely absent. Somehow she got the impression that this was a holding cell, rather than accommodation for guests.

She stood up straight and brushed herself off, feeling a little embarrassed. She was a professional woman damn it, and there were no doubt cameras scrutinizing her. She wasn’t about to give the Brokers a bad impression of humanity.

“H-Hello?” She asked, her voice echoing in the room.

“Doctor Lena Webber, please remain calm during transit, you will be reaching the surface of the planet shortly.”

The reply came from everywhere at once, in perfect clarity and unbroken English, as if a native speaker was talking not an inch from her ear. It was a little disarming.

“Are you ... a Broker?” Lena asked.

“Yes I am a Broker,” it stated, as if that should have been obvious.

“Where are you? Are you piloting the ship?”

“The ship is a drone vessel,” the disembodied voice replied. “It is being flow by an auto-pilot system. I am presently in high orbit on the master control station.”

That must be what controlled all of the drones and the orbital defenses that she had seen on the way in. How much of it was automated? Somehow she got the impression that she might be talking to the only Broker in the system.

This was a big deal for her. She had never so much as seen a Broker, not even on the Pinwheel, and to be able to talk with one directly was a rare opportunity. She opened her mouth to ask it a question, but was interrupted as the alien continued.

“During your visit, please refrain from disrupting the day to day activities of the native Krell. You may observe, and participate if you should wish it, but we ask that you do not disturb them unduly.”

“Of course,” Lena said, a little confused by the request. “I’m here in an academic capacity, to observe the Krell culture and learn more about their language and customs. To do otherwise would completely invalidate all of my findings.”

It was a little patronizing in fact, as if the alien didn’t expect her to know any better.

“You may stay for as long as your supplies last, and you may venture as far as you can travel on foot. Please be aware that we do not consider you to be under our protection, and we accept no liability if something should happen to you once you have left the confines of the ship. You must acknowledge that you are visiting the planet at your own risk, and of your own volition, and we would ask you to state for the record that you understand and accept our terms.”

What was with all the legalese? She was visiting a planet, not taking out a home insurance policy. The Broker acted more like a lawyer than anything that she had expected. So much for mysterious and all-knowing aliens imparting secret knowledge, this one sounded like he was trying to sell her a used car.

“Yeah, I get it,” she replied tersely. “I’m not here for you, I’m here for the Krell.”

The Broker did not reply. Perhaps her comment had offended the creature, implying that for all their mystery and posturing, the simple Krell were of far more interest to her than the advanced aliens. At least that was how she had intended it to come across.

Emboldened by the alien’s lack of a rebuttal, she spoke up again.

“When will we be arriving on the planet?”

Almost before she could finish her sentence, the door behind her opened, the stench of rotting vegetation wafting into the ship.

“You have already arrived.”

Impossible, she couldn’t have been in the vessel for more than a few minutes, and she hadn’t felt any turbulence during reentry. She turned and walked slowly towards the hole that had opened up in the hull, feeling warm wind on her face and smelling the familiar scents of the planet. Sleethe slung the duffel bag over his broad shoulder and followed behind her, stepping out into the mud as she hovered by the door. Despite his bulk, his many splayed toes distributed the weight evenly across the surface like a camel walking on sand, and so he didn’t sink. She poked her head out of the Broker ship, alarmed by how quickly and quietly they had set down.

On a UNN ship, she would have been asked to strap into a crash couch for her own safety, then the vessel would have been shaken and buffeted by the stresses of entering the atmosphere and decelerating. There would have been a slew of noises and vibrations as the landing gear had hit the dirt and the engines had powered down.

There had been nothing in the Broker ship, not so much as a whisper, not a hint of turbulence. They had traveled thousands of miles at alarming speed and she hadn’t even noticed.

Lena readjusted the heavy rucksack on her back, then stepped out onto the surface of Krell. She had come prepared for the hostile environment this time, and she was wearing most of a UNN hazmat suit to protect her from the pervasive mud, the hood removed and a wide brimmed hat perched upon her head. It was cumbersome, but the last time that she had visited she had been completely drenched in grime, and she still wasn’t sure what kind of insects and poisonous plants might inhabit the unexplored swamps. There was little difference in gravity, it was close enough to Earth norm that she didn’t feel any real change.

Her yellow boots sank into the mud up to the heel as she struggled forward, the wet dirt sucking at her as she went, the white plastic of the suit already splashed with dark blotches of stagnant water. The planet was made up mostly of swamps and marshes, with twisted trees that resembled mangroves visible beyond the clearing that they had set down in. ‘Set down’ wasn’t entirely accurate, as when she turned to get a look at the Broker ship, she noticed that it was hovering an inch off the mud. There was no landing gear at all, it was like the cylindrical ship was resting on a cushion of air. The outside was just as featureless as the inside, with no cockpit and no engines visible. It looked to her like a cigar wrapped in cooking foil.

Without so much as a fare ye well, the shining vessel rose into the sky, as if the hand of God had reached down and plucked it from the ground. There was no buffeting wind, no roar from its thrusters, it disappeared into the green haze as silently as it had come.

Lena found herself standing alone in the mud, Sleethe already making his way towards the mangrove forest at the edge of the clearing.

“Hey, wait up Sleethe!”

She struggled with her pack, wading through the deep mud as he turned his head to watch her. The bog made the going harder, she was sinking up to her knees in some places, the holes that she made rapidly filling with dark water. The sky above her was tinted green, the twin suns barely visible through the mist, and there was an unhealthy fog that seemed to cling to the ground which made seeing beyond maybe a hundred feet impossible.

Krell was no tourist destination. The smell alone would put off most explorers, it reminded her of fresh compost, and Lena had always thought that the planet looked sickly.

Sleethe waited for her to catch up, and then began to lead her towards the trees. Did he know where he was going? Lena had no idea where the Brokers had set down, and they had been quite explicit that the exact location of her visit was to be decided by them. They wouldn’t have dropped her into the middle of nowhere, there must be a Krell village nearby.

The pair crossed the mud flat, reaching the trees, their gnarled trunks perched on spindly roots that stuck out of the wet soil like pale fingers. Each one was suspended in the air, as if the tide had recently gone out, no doubt evolved to survive frequent flooding. There were great masses of vines and creepers winding around their trunks and dangling from their skeletal branches, the forest canopy above them blocking what little light from the suns made it through the clouds to give everything a very gloomy and dingy feel. There were islands of ferns and small bushes that seemed to cluster around the roots, taking hold wherever they could. Perhaps the trees provided some measure of security against the ever shifting and uneven ground.

Unfortunately the twisted roots made the going even harder, and Lena had to struggle to climb over the obstacles, the humidity making strands of her blonde hair stick to her face. She had forgotten just how uncomfortable this damned planet could be. Her boots were already filling with sweat, and she could taste the muggy air in the back of her throat. If she pursed her lips and sucked, she could probably take a drink of water from the very atmosphere.

Sleethe was patient, hanging back to help her over some of the larger roots, but the going was slow. The hazmat suit might protect her from the dirt, but it wasn’t designed for hiking, and she had completely misjudged how much she could carry under these conditions. The straps of her pack were digging into her shoulders, and she was already hopelessly out of breath. She was used to office work after all, she wasn’t built to trek through difficult terrain where her sweat couldn’t even evaporate properly in order to cool her.

Her Krell companion noticed her discomfort, reaching down to pluck her rucksack from her back as if it didn’t weigh any more than a lunch box. It was a relief, but she was a little embarrassed all the same. It wasn’t as if Barnes had given her any time to exercise in preparation for the expedition.

Sleethe seemed right at home. The humidity was keeping him wet and giving his spinach-colored scales an attractive shine that made him look glossy. His wide feet were designed to walk on mud, and despite weighing several times what Lena did, he was able to travel much easier. He cleared a path for her, breaking through some of the smaller and more brittle roots with his exaggerated strength and weight, an unstoppable force as he lumbered long.

“Come on Lena, you can do this,” she muttered under her breath. She wrapped her fingers around a raised root that was blocking her path, her hands gloved in yellow rubber like she was wearing a pair of marigolds, and she heaved herself up and over it. She swung one leg over, then the other, and dropped down into the mud on the other side. She sank up to her knees, waving her arms for balance, marching onward once she had gotten her bearings again. Her thighs were already burning due to her odd gait, walking in the damp soil was demanding far more of her body that she had anticipated.

She leaned against a nearby root as she took a short break to rest, planting a hand on top of her wide brimmed hat to keep it from falling from her head as she craned her neck to look around. The forest looked dead to her, the trees pale and ghostly, choked with creepers as the layer of white mist rolled across the ground. They had thick, fleshy leaves however, and there were all kinds of strange plants and vines living on and around them.

There was even a creeper winding its way along this exposed root where it protruded from the mud, tiny flowers blooming here and there in vibrant shades of pink and blue. They had star-shaped petals, with bright purple stamens, designed to attract the attention of pollinating insects no doubt. Around her feet were what almost looked like water lilies, but sitting atop the mud rather than floating on water. The forest was very much alive.

She remembered her encounter with a snake-like creature that lurked below the surface of the mud the last time that she had traversed a mangrove forest like this. The animal had been harmless, but it had frightened her out of her wits, and imagining the loathsome worms milling about in the sludge below her feet sent a shiver down her spine. She longed to get out of this mud, the Krell villages were built on raised platforms for that very reason, and the sooner they found one the better.

Lena steeled herself and pressed onward.

It took them a while, but eventually they emerged on the far side of the mangrove forest. It had been a leisurely stroll for Sleethe, but Lena felt as if she had just run a triathlon. She was more sweat than woman, her muscles burning, and with every breath she tasted the swamp on her tongue. She pulled her sodden hair out of her face with her gloved fingers, overheating inside the hazmat suit, but the alternative was bathing in the mud like a pig on a farm. Everything up to her waist was coated in a layer of sludge such that she could scarcely see the white and yellow material beneath it.

Through the mist Lena noticed what looked like artificial structures, and Sleethe began to make his way towards them. The pair skirted along the muddy shore of a stagnant lake, it was wide and deep, the far shore obscured by the rolling fog that seemed to hang over everything like a blanket. She could make out shapes moving along the surface, perhaps dead logs or floating natives, it was impossible to tell with such low visibility.

As they got closer to the structures in the distance, Lena was able to make them out in greater detail. They were wooden shacks, their circular walls made up of wet, uneven planks and salvaged tree branches. The roofs were layered with what looked like palm fronds and leaves, slanted, obviously to ward off what must be frequent and heavy rainfall. She remembered that the Krell dwellings had no windows, and that they used curtains made from vines and decorated with beads and shells in place of doors. Privacy was not of great concern to the aliens.

The whole affair was suspended a few feet off the ground on stilts that very much resembled the roots of the trees, at least at the lowest tier. The structure looked to be dozens of feet high in places. Many of the supports ‘were’ trees, she realized, their branches cut away and the buildings constructed around the naked trunks like tiered treehouses.

It made sense to repurpose the existing trees, they were strong and sturdy, their roots extending deep beneath the earth to anchor them securely to the soft ground. The raised village was a little haphazard, buildings had clearly been added as they were needed, and there had obviously been little forward planning. The wooden platforms that encircled them were connected by twisted rope bridges made from vines, and rickety walkways that looked very precarious and unsafe. There were no guards or handrails, but at least if she lost her footing and fell, she would land safely in the mud below.

It was almost identical to the village that Lena had stayed in during her first visit to the planet. The Krell could not mine here, they didn’t have access to stone or any building materials besides what they could salvage from the forests. Industry was basically impossible, and that went some way to explaining why they were so primitive, despite their obvious intelligence. They could not mine ores or smelt metal, they couldn’t pour concrete or make a foundation for anything that was too heavy to be supported by wooden stilts or a nearby tree. Who could guess how deep they would have to dig before they reached bedrock.

She found it odd that despite their close relationship, the Brokers had not elevated the Krell in any way. They had not provided them with the technology necessary to improve their lot, they had not helped them to build factories and they hadn’t supplied them with any advanced materials to make their lives any easier. The Krell likely had nothing to trade that the Brokers valued, but still, their lack of charity irked her. It was always possible that the Krell were just happier this way she supposed, they certainly didn’t seem to take advantage of any of the advanced technology on the station besides the heat lamps. When they weren’t deployed they just lazed around in their pools, basking and sleeping, occasionally playing cards or pool with the Marines.

They seemed to like games, perhaps she could befriend some of the natives that way.

As they neared the forest of stilts and dead trees, cloaked in a layer of mist, Sleethe raised his snout towards the overcast sky and loosed a rumbling call. It echoed across the lake, the sound carrying an impressive distance, and then the village began to stir.

Lena could make out figures emerging from their huts, she could hear the creaking of the damp wood as they took to the walkways and bridges, crocodilian faces peering down at her from above. From the lake too the Krell were rising, the dark water sliding off their scaly backs in sheets as they made their way up the muddy bank, their heavy tails carving furrows behind them as they went.

They came in all shapes and sizes, some larger than Sleethe, some smaller, and the larger ones seemed to have slightly darker scales. They were no doubt older than their spinach-colored counterparts.

None wore clothing, the Krell had internal genitalia that remained out of view until needed, and so they had no modesty to preserve. As they drew closer, Lena noticed that many of the aliens were wearing decorative jewelry, strings of beads and shells that hung about their long necks. She could distinguish the females from the males, they were imperceptibly smaller and their features were softer, with wider hips and thicker thighs. They did not have breasts, they laid eggs and did not nurse their young as mammals did, but there were small fatty deposits on their chests that might give that impression from the right angle.

They were painted too, the aliens were decorated with all manner of patterns and symbols, dyes and pigments staining their scaly hides. She blushed, remembering how a Krell elder had marked her and Sleethe with alien runes during her last visit, likely in some kind of bonding ceremony. The giant alien had drawn a pattern on her forehead in some kind of red ochre, like two joined snakes, and the dye had stained her skin for weeks. For all she knew, she was married to her reptilian companion.

The natives crowded around them, drawn by Sleethe’s call, and Lena began to feel a little boxed in by the gigantic reptiles. She knew that they wouldn’t hurt her, but they were so ... large, and they had little concept of personal space.

One of the largest Krell leaned closer to her, nudging her with his long snout as he sniffed her. He must have been ten feet tall and twice as long, his scales tinted dark green, the remnants of some water weeds clinging to the spines on his back as he had just emerged from the lake. On his pale belly were more Krell runes, almost like hand prints in shades of blue and brown. They hadn’t been washed off by his time in the lake. What were the dyes made from, and how long did they linger after being applied?

While Lena could make out a little of what was being said as Sleethe began to talk, it was a perfect opportunity to make use of her translator. It was protected beneath her sleeve, and so she removed the yellow glove and stowed it in her pocket, rolling up the hazmat suit to expose the wrist mounted computer. It was mil-spec, supposedly water proof, but she wasn’t taking any chances with her baby. She tapped at the touch panel, then realized that the other glove was too thick to register her inputs, so she removed that too.

The holographic display flared to life, the aliens cocking their heads as they examined it, mesmerized by its orange glow and the floating icons. She entered a command, the earbud already in place, and began to listen...

“-where you are from?”

“Me and mine descend on benefactor metal, (unintelligible) of humans. Mine seeks knowledge.”

Sleethe was explaining the purpose of their visit, and the word that he was using to describe Lena seemed to translate as ‘mine’, or at least that was the closest that the software could interpret. She felt a flutter in her belly, it was like he was announcing to the other aliens that they were a couple.