CHAPTER TWELVE
In the airbase, the technicians were working twelve- and eighteen- hour shifts to try and get to the bottom of the strange storm-like mass that was hovering in Novacadia's upper atmosphere.
Not only was it growing, but apparently it was acting like a vaccuum, sucking up pockets of hydrogen by the galleon.
General Garrison, who preferred to stay in the luxurious, albeit artificial setting of the base, was particularly concerned about it.
"If this baby touches ground, there's no telling what it can do," he said, talking over the shoulder of a technician who was tracking the temperature changes around the strange anomaly. They couldn't get inside the thing, they soon learned, but they could get as close as possible.
"It's puzzling," the technician said, steadily eying his console. "It's acting like it's a black hole, the way it's sucking in gases without spitting anything back out, but I've never seen anything like it before."
The assumption was, of course, that it was a storm. But truth be told, everyone knew that that wasn't true. By eyeball, it looked like a storm and it moved like a storm, but nothing else about it indicated that that was what it was. Unfortunately, they couldn't even get close enough to it to see anything more than a dark, swirling mass moving slowly across the sky. Was it solid? Was it gaseous? Was it living? Long, steady periods of no answers only led to more questions, and more concern from General Garrison.
"Send another probe in," he ordered. "But this time, I want you to bring it back before it gets too close."
"Right away, sir."
General Garrison reflected that the biggest concern was the possibility of touchdown. If it had been an electrical storm, even, then provisions could be made in defense. But the way things looked, that wasn't likely. If this was some inner-atmosphere black hole, then the planet and the people below would be defenseless against the result.
He went to his quarters, lit a pipe, and stared out the window at the myriad of twinkling stars. To an untrained eye, he mused, one might mistake it for the skyline of Earth.
The project to commune with and observe the behavior up-close of the Novacadians began the following morning. Anthony could barely get out of bed when his commanding officer yelled out his name and told him to get showered. His eyes were crusty with night-sand and he'd been tossing and turning with strange dreams that had no endings. Like the one about piloting a space shuttle and getting lost in outer space, and suddenly Eve appearing out of nowhere, directing him to safety. Or like the one about the meteor falling to the planet, only before hitting, breaking into a million tiny pieces and showering the ground with dust.
He sat up on his cot, opened his arms and yawned. The light outside was amber-yellow, one of those dawns you could only find here under the alternating lights of Jemiah, Arista, and Focal. He shuffled to the bathroom to get washed up, and on his way there he noticed through the window something small and dark that looked like a thundercloud in the sky. He shaded his eyes and looked up at it. It was the one aberration in the otherwise perfect sky. The amber-yellow was streaked with pink and lavender clouds, and Focal was just beginning to rise from the rocky horizon in the East. He shrugged, guessing it was probably just some rain cloud, after all, and continued towards the bathroom.
On his way out he ran into Tony Peterson. "Ready for the big day?" he asked.
Anthony shrugged. "If it will bring us closer to more peaceful relations with the Novacadians, then I'm willing to do anything."
"They seem to trust you, even more so than anyone else. I'm anxious to observe how they'll react to you when we spend time with them today." He put his fingers to his lips thoughtfully. "I find it interesting that when you discovered them in the caves, they were dancing. That's worlds more than observed from them in Communion."
"Is it any wonder?" Anthony said. "They're prisoners. Dancing is a means to rejoice. What reason have they to rejoice right now?"
Anthony recalled the meeting that had taken place the previous night in regards to their mission. When Anthony had brought up mention of the Novacadians' dancing, and what that might mean to their research, his superiors had met him with agreement. What he'd proposed was that they should concentrate their efforts on body movements, because the dancing in the caves was the closest anyone had ever gotten to communicating with them.
Of course, Anthony knew that wasn't true; he could hear their voices. But he didn't mention it for two reasons: one, he knew that Eve was right; he would only be heaping a load of trouble upon himself. But two, he now had a feeling that it would only harm, not help, the Novacadians. Directing the astronauts' research to body language, he felt, might help distract them. Not only that, but he could also spend some time with Eve and get more information out of her.
After he was in a fresh set of fatigues and had shaven for the day, Anthony hopped onto the back of a land vehicle to be driven back into Communion.
He was not taken immediately to Eve's hut. Instead, he was brought to a tiny one with a roof that was caving in and walls that looked like they were collapsing. It was covered by a green fungus so thick it could easily have been mistaken for ivy.
"This way, boys. Those of you who have weapons, leave them at the door."
They opened the moldy, half-rotted door and it almost fell off the hinges in so doing. The smell greeted them almost immediately. Sulphur.
Whoever lives here must have been found in the caves, Anthony thought.
The floor was muddy from where the rain had come through the holes in the roof. No doubt this hut had been neglected for years until the inhabitants were brought back from the caves by the astronauts.
"Two sisters live here. Apparently they are very old. We thought this might be a good starting place for you, since they are virtually bed-ridden and are unlikely to become hostile."
Anthony peeked his head around the door to the bedroom. Two gangly, decrepit heaps of pale flesh were sleeping on either side of the room. Standing there, looking down on them, he was suddenly overwhelmed with such a sense of pure love and familiarity that he almost doubled over.
He knew these women! And yet he had never met them...maybe briefly, in the caves, but in no other, more personal way.
A hand rested on his shoulder. Johnson spoke into his ear. "Let's set up our mattresses and move in, shall we?"
Anthony tore himself away from the doorway. They proceeded to clear out a section of the front room, lay down their beds, and bring in their belongings and equipment.
After they had finished, they got a call from General Garrison. Flipping up the portable, they saw his stern face through the radio waves. "Andrews and Peterson," he barked, "You've been debriefed about this expedition many times. You're the most qualified members of the team to assess the Novacadians psychologically. We have Harding along with you because of their apparent affinity for him. Take advantage and take that into account as you make your observations and take notes. Johnson and Smyth," he said, referring to the two medical doctors, "Do your magic and keep your eyes peeled. I expect that, as a group, you'll have something of interest by the end of the week."