“Who wants to go first?” Strem said.
“Who was the first man to step on the moon?” Eric asked.
“Armstrong.”
“You see, you remember, I’m going first.” Eric knelt by the hole, found a ladder in his light, turned around and gingerly stuck his right foot inside, letting his heel come to rest on a firm flat rung. That wasn’t so bad. He put his left foot on the next rung, counting ten steps as he carefully descended. From the spacing of the rungs and the height of the closed door at one end of the cramped air lock, he estimated that the Kaulikans must be about as tall as themselves; another one of a dozen particulars he had been worried about.
Eric waved for Strem to come down and peered through a circular window in the door, glimpsing a lit corridor at the end of a brief dark hallway. He watched for a couple of minutes; no one walked by.
“Want me to kick them?” Strem asked a moment later as the two bent over the row of three differently shaded green lights adjacent to the door. Checking to be sure Strem had closed the hatch behind him, Eric put his hand over the top light. Nothing happened. He tried the second one and got the same result. With the third time, though, the walls began to glow as atmosphere rushed into the cubicle. They turned off their head lamps, and Strem went to remove his helmet. Eric stopped him.
“Organism check,” Eric said, reaching into his suit pouch and removing a white spongy cube sealed in clear plastic. He tore off the wrapper. If the sponge turned black within a minute, there was probably something fatal in the air.
“I hope we don’t catch anything from them,” Strem said, watching.
“I hope we don’t give them anything.”
“There you go again. We’ve had the Union Shot Series. We can’t infect anybody on any planet.”
“We can’t infect anybody that’s human. We may not be doing these people a favor by dropping in this way.”
The cube remained white. Eric put it back in his pouch and they pulled off their helmets.
The air was warm, slightly humid, and smelled like honey. Eric had half expected stale recycled odors. He took a long deep breath, tasting a high oxygen content.
A light now shone in the center of the door. They pressed it and the door opened. The short hallway outside the air lock was a locker room, and they were able to stow their pressure suits in two empty cabinets. Eric scowled as Strem removed his gun from a clasp on his oxygen tank and hid it inside his opant jacket. Strem just shook his head, muttering under his breath about moralistic obsessions.
“Sammy, how’s your reception?” Eric asked. He was scarcely aware of the implant inside his ear. The remote eye was a pinpoint dot at the centre of their belts.
(“Audio and video are both excellent. Now get away from the air lock as quickly as you can.”)
The corridor outside the second door was empty, stretching beyond its upside-down horizon to the left, but dead-ending in what appeared to be an elevator on the right. The featureless ceiling was low, another foot and it would have touched Strem’s fluffy white head, and the floor was an undistinguished carpet. The walls, on the other hand, were decorated with abstract mosaics – at least they looked abstract to Eric – made up of countless tiny rock tiles. He was sorely tempted to slip out his contacts and see if the artwork didn’t take on definition with the help of a color besides green. Nevertheless, despite the limitations of his vision, the designs appealed to him. They seemed somehow optimistic.
They entered the elevator at the end of the corridor. The single door closed behind them. This time there were six lights to choose from, each underlined with an imprinted symbol.
“Sammy, what are these markings?” Eric asked.
(“The numerals one through six, counting from the top.”)
“There has to be more floors in this wheel than six,” Eric said thoughtfully. “We’ll probably have to find another elevator. Sammy, I’m heading for the axis. How does that sound?”
(“I was thinking the same thing. That’s where their power supply will be. I can track you in case you start going in circles.”)
Eric looked at Strem, who was fidgeting noticeably. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Are you scared?”
“No!”
“Don’t be afraid to admit it. Just because I’m not doesn’t mean you don’t have to be.”
Strem touched the bottom light. They jerked upward. “I’m fine, I just have to go to the bathroom.”
A line of light shone through the translucent panels of the sides of the elevator door, then a second line, as they passed through the levels. Eric detected no noticeable lessening of gravity. “Why didn’t you go to the bathroom before we left?” he asked.
“I forgot.”
“You didn’t forget your gun.” Eric added, “We can’t go back.”
“I didn’t say we should.”
“You’ll just have to hold it.”
Strem swallowed. “Maybe we can find a bathroom while we’re looking around. They’ve got to have bathrooms.”
“Strem, we’re in an alien ship full of aliens. We have only so many hours to find coolant and get us out of here before our own ship explodes. We can’t go looking for bathrooms.”
“If it were you, Eric, you’d feel a lot differently.”
“I doubt you could even figure out how to use their toilets.”
“But if they...” Strem didn’t get a chance to finish. As they went to pass through the third level, the elevator halted, and the door swished open. Standing outside were two Kaulikan men.
They were shorter than Eric and Strem, and thinner, dressed in the plain long-sleeve shirts and double-front-pocketed pants Eric had noted on the TV programs. Even through the hazy contacts, their faces looked smooth and their eyes bright. Eric caught himself staring, but it was not so much at their difference from himself as at their similarity. Why, these were people, real people. They smiled faintly, stepping into the elevator. “Boo,” they said softly.
“Boo,” Eric said automatically, tugging on Strem’s elbow, pulling him forward.
“Boe,” Strem coughed out, stumbling from the elevator. The door closed at their backs and they were alone in another empty corridor. They stood for a moment with their breath held, then burst out laughing. Nothing was really funny; all the tension they’d accumulated since leaving Earth just seemed to pour out in that moment.
“Boe,” Eric chuckled, leaning against a wall.
“Boo, boe, what the hell,” Strem said, catching his breath. “What now?”
Eric touched the light at the side of the elevator. “Let’s wait for it to come back.”
The cubicle, thankfully empty, did so a moment later. They got in and went up to level six. This time Eric noticed a slight decrease in his weight, perhaps three pounds. If they were to reach weightlessness by the time they got to the axis, the wheel would have to have about fifty levels.
The elevator opened onto a wide hallway overflowing with curly-haired Kaulikans all heading in one direction. Chimes sang through the air. Eric smelled food.
“Well?” Strem said.
“This elevator can’t take us any further,” Eric whispered. “Let’s join the flow.”
The crowd was not as intimidating as he would have imagined; the numbers made it easier to blend in. The Kaulikans kept a brisk pace. Maybe they only ate once a day and were hungry. Eric and Strem hugged the wall as the hallway curved toward what was unmistakably the cafeteria.
They were the tallest ones there, but not exceptionally so. The background chatter was much less than it would have been on Earth in a similar setting. The quiet blend of the melodious voices, male and female, was pleasant to the ear. Eric tugged on his right earlobe, activating his translator. As the high-gain mike automatically picked up the loudest word being spoken at any instant, he was bombarded with pieces of conversations.
“Rak knew what was best...She wept a short while...Yeast pods need enrichment...Nova’s eye.
..Core might rupture...We danced by the waterfall in the twilight...Busy the next twenty cycles...First Councillor’s broadcast was inspiring...I am forgetting already...I never will...”
Strem was poking his side. Eric turned off his translator. “We’re going to lunch!” Strem hissed.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“No! Let’s turn around!”
“Not against this crowd. There may be a bathroom in the cafeteria. Sammy, what is it called?”
(“Toto. Just make sure the stalls are separate. We don’t want Strem taking his pants down in front of anybody.”)
“Very funny,” Strem said, fuming.
Some things would probably be the same in another dimension. Kaulikan custom dictated that they first pick up a food tray. The material felt like plastic and probably was. There were bowls and spoons, but no knives or forks. Eric quickly saw why the latter was unnecessary. The crowd split into two lines in front of two rows of automatic food dispensers. One put the bowl in, and the machine gave out a serving. None of the food looked as though it needed to be cut: mushes of grains and tiny pieces of fruits or vegetables or something that appeared to have been grown. No one was taking seconds and, glancing around, he realized none of the aliens were overweight. Strangely enough, he began to feel hungry. He stuck in one of his bowls and got back something that resembled rice. A pity it had to be green. Strem followed his example, collecting a serving of what could have been Jell-O. They started down the line. Eric reactivated his translator.
Halfway through the dispensers, his four bowls almost full, Eric made his first genuine alien contact. She was approximately his age – assuming the Kaulikans had a similar life span – and had a sling around her right arm. Balancing her tray in her good hand, she was unknowingly bumped by another Kaulikan and lost one of her bowls over her uniform. Eric set down his tray and stooped to help her. The gesture was spontaneous, begun before he realized the risk he was running. He picked up her bowl and helped her re-steady her tray. Only when he was through with his good deed did he look her straight in the face. She was beautiful.
She smiled. “Kanee.”
“Thank you, brother,” The translator whispered in its neutral voice. Eric waited for Sammy and Excalibur’s computers to provide him with a reasonable response. And he waited. Finally, “Schelle.”
“Schelle,” he said, turning away, but not before he saw her expression change to something he assumed indicated puzzlement: a slight pinch of her lips and a sudden backward tilt of her head. He pressed forward, not looking back.
The cafeteria sitting area was an arena. Hundreds of tables and thousands of chairs fanned out from a tall central fountain embedded with a crystalline sculpture resembling a huge snowflake. The sculpture was slowly spinning beneath a cascade of waters and the glitter of dozens of narrow beams of light projected from the intricate mosaic ceiling. People were gathering around the fountain, and for that reason Eric steered away from it, choosing a spot somewhere in between the furthest corner and the thickest part of the crowd.
“I’d like to know what we are doing here?” Strem demanded, sitting across from him. “You didn’t have time to search for a bathroom, and now you’re having lunch!”
Eric tried his ‘rice’. The sensitivity of the cube he had employed in the air lock – to even stray food odors – was such that it was unlikely there was anything harmful in the dish. The rice tasted like marshmallows. “The elevator couldn’t lead us any closer to the central shaft. We couldn’t just stand there. And you weren’t exactly bursting over with ideas.”
“Well, I have a fantastic idea now. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“But, I’m hungry.”
“Eric, damnit, what was all that about being aboard an alien ship full of aliens?”
“Sammy, how’s the Preeze Cap keeping?”
(“I wouldn’t go back for dessert, but we’re not going to explode this minute.”)
“We need time to orient ourselves,” Eric told Strem. “Learn from what we’ve seen.”
But that was only part of it, at least as far as he was concerned. When he had entered the cafeteria line, the pressure to be about their mission had suddenly and inexplicably lessened for him. Now he felt an eagerness to look around, to go exploring and soak up the culture. He wondered where the girl with the sore arm was sitting.
“How many would you say this cafeteria serves?” Eric asked.
“About ten thousand.”
“I bet they have one of these halls in each wheel. They probably use them in shifts to economize on space. If we take ten thousand times three – for the number of wheels – times three again – for the number of shifts – we’ve got almost a hundred thousand Kaulikans.”
“So?”
“With that many people, they’ve got to have a lot of bathrooms.”
“Would you shut up about that.”
“Don’t you see? No one could get to know that many people in five years. Chances are we won’t be spotted just because we’re a new face in town.”
Strem nodded. “That’s good to know.” He leaned closer, “I liked that girl you bumped into. Great body.”
“Speaking of whom...” He found her, and had to wonder if she weren’t following them, she was sitting only a few tables away, off to the right in the direction of the fountain, eating alone and facing their way. She noticed his attention and smiled. He quickly averted his eyes. “Yours truly is sitting behind you,” Eric muttered. “No, don’t turn around. I think she caught my strange accent.”
“More the reason to get out of here.”
“We just got here. It might look funny if we leave immediately.”
Eric noticed, however, how swiftly everyone was eating. Keeping afloat in this void probably took everyone’s best effort; the Kaulikans wouldn’t have the luxury of wasting time. “Eat your food,” he said.
Strem sampled his salad. “These things taste like candy.” Strem tried something that resembled mashed potatoes. “And this tastes as though it’s melting ice cream. No wonder it’s taking these people so long to get to the stars; they’re all sugar addicts.”
“You know,” Eric said, “we might be going about this all wrong. Here we are stumbling around trying to avoid contact. Maybe we should be doing the opposite. Maybe we should go up to someone, introduce ourselves as visitors from another ship with a language problem, and ask to be shown around.”
Strem snickered. “Does ‘Green Eyes’ have anything to do with this change in strategy?”
“All the girls here have green eyes.”
Strem was not fooled. “Who should we ask to show us around?”
Eric shrugged. “Green Eyes. Look, she appears to be about our age. I doubt she’s into reporting things to the authorities, teenagers usually aren’t. Plus, we’ve already made contact.” He added, “I think she likes me.”
“What makes you think that?”
“My optimistic nature.”
“I don’t know. It’s risky.”
“Our being here is risky.”
Strem lowered his voice. “Could you ask her where the toto is?”
Eric nodded, standing. “Wish me luck. Sammy get ready.”
(“This should be interesting.”)
Eric wanted to introduce himself quickly before he had a chance to chicken out. On Earth, at parties and dances, he’d always had a hard time crossing the room and starting a conversation with a strange girl. But this girl was so strange, it seemed to make it easier – until Eric began to realize in all their preparation, they hadn’t given themselves Kaulikan names. He didn’t even know if the Kaulikans had last names, or numbers. And why did he leave his ship to come to here? Did these people take vacations?
She was concentrating on her food and didn’t notice Eric’s approach. He stood to her left, slightly behind her, thinking that he’d never met a girl on Earth that could rival her, feeling his confidence and doubts swinging up and down.
Her hair was longer than
the majority of her people’s, more wavy than curly, reaching almost to her waist. Her face somehow managed to convey both mystery and innocence: her mouth was wide, full-lipped, alluring, while her cheeks had a youth’s roundness, perfectly complimenting her button nose.
(“Boo.”)
“I know, Sammy,” Eric muttered.
The girl turned. Her eyes were big and round. She set her spoon down and gracefully faced her left palm toward him and then toward herself.
(“She is welcoming you.”)
Eric nodded and sat down. “See mino toe fruz,” he said quickly, pitching his voice high. (I’m from one of the farm worlds.) “Se trex how Kaulikan tau, tire Kutz.” (I understand Kaulikan Basic, but speak it poorly.)
These were two lines he had down pat. Nevertheless, his accent caused her to display the same puzzlement she’d had in the food line. She answered, and he had to strain to block out her words and concentrate on the translation. Her voice seemed to tickle the inside of his brain, silky and penetrating.
“What language do you speak?” The sterile translation asked. Eric waited for Sammy’s response.
(“Mea fie excelr.”)
“Mea fie excelr,” he said. What did that mean? Boy, this was complicated. And now she was answering in sign language!
(“Say: ‘Se Lutz’. Hardly anyone in this fleet seems to know Lutz.”)
“Se Lutz,” Eric said.
She appeared satisfied. Apparently, Lutzers were known for being weird. Her next remark had a lot of spunk in it.
“I’ve never met someone from off world. But I knew you were strangers. I am Vani.”
Eric pointed to himself, hesitated. “See Eric.”
“Eric,” Vani murmured. “Are you enjoying your visit?”
He nodded.
“I am glad. Is your world much different than ours?”