Smell

One element of interstellar life that I had been underexposed to was scents.

For months, I’d been breathing through an air mask every waking moment, and most of the moments I hadn’t been wearing it were when I was sleeping or undergoing medical procedure.

But Lakandt had no atmosphere to speak of aside from the one the aliens decided it would. And the average oxygen concentration inside High Harbor’s air domes was marginally higher than Yawhere’s.

So in the last month or two I’d been keeping it on me, strapped to my suspenders or around my neck, but not actually wearing it that often.

Food was a massive upside to that.

The meals alone were gratifying enough, but getting a whiff of what I was eating had been a real treat, even when the smell seemed like it might be awful.

Outside the military, I learned that Casti were rather fond of perfumes, something that the Vorak had actually picked up too. A lot of them were very odd to my human nose, being acrid or even bitter sometimes.

Nora had bothered Nai and Nerin a few times now on sensory qualia that we hadn’t covered experimenting with psionic telepathy. ‘Did food both species can eat taste the same to both species?’ No, no it didn’t. ‘Are the flavors similar at all?’ Sometimes, not always.

Between those questions and how much she talked with Tiv about his clones, I had a sneaking suspicion I knew what Nora’s Adept skillset might look like after some development.

Even Adept creations had odd smells sometimes. Vorpal fire understandably filled any room with an ozone smell. My flashbangs on the other hand didn’t leave any burnt scent, but Nora swore she got a whiff of lemon one time.

But more than food or Adeptry, today I was getting a reminder about how aliens smelled.

Vorak took personal grooming pretty seriously, and I understood that hygiene was a rather consistent factor in underpinning theory, so when the space otters didn’t really smell like otters, I hadn’t realized until someone pointed it out.

“[I mean, it’s the oils that make marsupials smell that bad on Earth, right?]” I said.

“[Mustelids,]” Nora corrected me.

“[What?]”

“[Marsupials are different. Opossums, kangaroos, koalas, wombats—you know, pouch animals,]” she explained like it was the most normal thing in the world. “[Otters are mustelids. Badgers, weasels, ferrets, and…wolverines too? I don’t remember them all.]”

“[How do you know that?]” I asked. “[I thought you said you were an English major.]”

“[Bio minor,]” she shrugged. “[I was halfway through a taxonomy class when we got abducted. Gimme the binoculars. I want to see.]”

“[You could make your own,]” I pointed out.

“[I tried,]” she frowned. “[I couldn’t get the magnification to work right for two lenses at once.]”

“[Gotta do the math,]” I said. “[Make sure the lens focal points converge.]”

“[Now how do you know that?]” she prickled.

“[AP physics. Lenses and refraction,]” I said, materializing a second pair of binoculars and handing them to her.

“Thank you,” she said in Starspeak, peering at the fish factory with me.

“[Take any other college credits?]” she asked curiously.

“[As many as I could,]” I said.

“[Bah, you would be a straight A student.]”

“[…Who said I got ‘A’s in them?]” I chuckled. “[My GPA didn’t go north of 3.0 before junior year.]”

She smirked.

It was fun idle conversation, but the real meat of the discussion was psionic. Pun intended.

I warned.

Deg complained.

I said simply.

Weith said.

I assured him.

<…Come too far already?> Deg asked.

I agreed.

Weith sighed.

I told him.

she said simply.

I agreed.

Nora asked.

I said sifting through psionic documents.

Weith sent me.

four voices added. The Century himself was too busy for our little visit to the fish factory, but he was always ready to spare some clones for our little conspiracy probe.

Having four Tivs along for this wasn’t just great insurance though. They were each a force to be reckoned with on their own, even without the original Tiv’s Adeptry. They all benefitted from his experience and their new psionics. Each was more valuable than the average soldier, not less.

In a way, it was touching that Serral and Laranta were being so paranoid about my safety. It almost made me entertain the idea of actually leaving the legwork to the Coalition.

Almost.

And maybe I would keep my head down for the more intense stuff, but it was hard to believe this qualified.

I couldn’t even drown in Berro Jo’s fish factory, even if it did smell every bit like a fishery. Casti biotechnology was at least a century ahead of Earth, maybe more depending on which portion of the field you looked at. But cloning and cellular manipulation were well trod paths for them, to the point where they had industrialized lab grown meat.

Back home a culture of beef cells being grown into an actual raw steak would have been on the cutting edge of biology, but it was something this Vorak dropout did daily by the thousands.

Berro Jo’s factory looked…exactly like one would expect a factory to: a dingy corrugated metal structure with a few windows with some steam stacks poking out the top of one end.

Nora and I were perched atop one of the adjacent rooftops looking over one of the streets, with a pair of Tiv clones on either side of the building. Weith and Deg were the ones actually entering the factory.

This was strictly a visit for appearances.

The bug had certainly heard us discuss the Vorak running the fish factory. So, as much as it would have been nice to take our time and prepare more, it would have been more suspicious to not approach Berro now.

“[Yeah…you’re right, this ‘we know they know we know’ crap is getting old fast,]” I admitted to Nora.

“[Tough,]” she quoted back to me. Yeah, I earned that.

Deg sent us.

Weith added.

the Tiv clones yammered. Each one held a rifle aimed at the various entrances of the factory.

I asked.

Deg asked.

I sent, grabbing Nora and I’s radio.

“[Want translation help?]” I asked Nora.

She shook her head, but a little slowly, like she hadn’t heard me for a second. She seemed distracted.

“Greetings,” I heard Weith say through the radio. “I’m Mu-Rahi Weith and this is Mu-Rahi Deg. We’re here to talk with citizen Berro.”

A Casti voice—maybe some kind of receptionist—sounded back.

“There’s not an appointment on our schedule,” the receptionist said. “I can arrange something for another day though. Would you share what you’re inquiring about?”

“No,” Weith said plainly.

I asked Deg while Weith continued talking.

Deg said.

<…You’re going to give Weith a hard time if he gets blocked by a clerk, aren’t you?> I asked.

Weith interrupted.

Deg asked,

a few clones replied.

“Is citizen Berro on the premises?” Weith asked the clerk.

“…Yes, but they’re very busy. They can’t be interrupted right now.”

“Interrupt anyway,” Deg said. “Or we will.”

The clerk was silent for several pregnant seconds, but conceded.

“…Through the door, past the catwalk, and up the stairs.”

“Thank you,” Weith said cheerfully.

I said.

Through one of the windows looking into the factory, I caught a glimpse of a hunched tan Vorak figure descending a ladder. It would be out of sight of Weith and Deg.

I asked.

Nora said.

Weith said.

The Vorak in question slipped out of a door on the south side of the factory, coming back up to the street level from a basement stairwell.

the Tiv clone said.

I said, feeling a rush of inspiration come.

Tiv said.

They were not already gone. I could still see the otter! They weren’t even a hundred feet away.

I moved without asking more.

“[Where are you going?]” Nora asked.

“[Nowhere,]” I said honestly, jogging toward the adjacent corner of our rooftop. “[Just need a better angle.]”

I recognized the feeling this time, experiences that weren’t mine. Time on a range, keeping arms steady, lining up a target.

It took most of the mass I could muster, but I materialized a simple rifle in my arms. Basically identical to my revolver but with more barrel and an easier way to steady it.

The past few weeks had given me plenty of experience materializing paint rounds for practice, and that was what I needed now.

Only I was adding some psionic skullduggery to the formula this time.

Psionics could be embedded within real matter. Solids worked best, but it wasn’t impossible for liquids either, as long as the volume of liquid stayed in one piece. Once you mixed in new stuff or divided it, the psionics got lost.

But if I had this right…

I took my spatial mapping construct and connected it to the piece of psionics I loaded into paint bullet.

Tiv shouted at me.

I said.

Tiv hissed.

Every fiber of my body wanted to go through with the plan. I was a millisecond away from leaning into Nai’s muscle memory, aiming, and firing.

…But I didn’t.

I watched the rak disappear around a corner before dematerializing my gun and shuffling back to Nora.

I said, toward the public tram.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Tiv said, voice letting out some tension.

It had been a good idea. And with more warning, I would have gone through with it.

But I didn’t want to butt heads with the Coalition. I’d already built up trust, and it wasn’t smart to push like that.

“I don’t appreciate the Coalition pestering my business,” our radio crackled. Weith and Deg had found Berro Jo.

“The Coalition doesn’t appreciate your business pestering us,” Deg said simply.

“Not every rak is cozy with Assembly fleets, you know?” Berro snarled.

“Hmm,” Weith said slowly. “See, I thought he was talking about the fish smell. But that’s an interesting idea too. I wonder why your mind went there…”

“I have no contact with the fleets, I’m a dira citizen!”

I said.

Nora corrected.

I gave her an odd look.

“[Halax didn’t teach you any Vorak stuff?]” I asked her.

“[What?]”

“[You said ‘he’,]” I said. “[Gendered pronouns imply you know the Vorak personally, amicably or not.]”

“[…The only Vorak I know, I do know personally,]” she frowned.

That was a fair point.

She was older than me, and I kept forgetting Nora didn’t have my alien background knowledge. It was throwing me off.

Weith wasn’t waiting for us though.

“Yes, you are,” Weith said. “Berro Jo, emigrated from…Ordslau, by the sound of it? You’ve been living here for the last fifty-thousand hours, so you certainly qualify as a citizen. What made you move to Paris?”

“Quit trying to handle me, jacket,” Berro said. “Just tell me what you want. I haven’t got the time to humor you.”

Jacket? Hadn’t heard that one before.

“…Alright,” Weith said. “We’re investigating some abductions, and we know you smuggle cargo to Harrogate and Archo.”

“…What? Then why would you ask me about abductions?” Berro snapped. “Why isn’t this coming from Tolar?”

“Tolar?” Deg asked.

“Asu Tolar—” Berro began, only to snap his mouth shut.

I asked.

Nora did too, just not to anyone here.

she sent.

Serral replied, dropping into our comm loop.

I added.

he swore.

I asked Weith and Deg.

“Why do you know Tolar?” Weith asked the Vorak. “He’s a Coalition…spy…”

I could only imagine the look on Berro Jo’s face as the pieces slid into place for all parties.

“You’re not just a smuggler,” Deg realized. “You’re smuggling for the Coalition.”

“Keep your voice down!” hissed Berro. “I was promised anonymity! You can’t just barge in here. People ask questions. You’re already holding this over me! I’m no good to you if everyone knows I’m—”

“Hush,” Deg told him. “Nobody told us we were on the same team.”

“What kind of idiocy is this?” Berro hissed. “Our arrangement is very clear! So, why am I talking to you and not Tolar?”

“Because we weren’t lying,” Weith said. “We really are here about some abductions. Your name came up on potential connections to the Red Sails. We want to find out where the Red Sails could store several dozen people without anyone knowing.”

“I don’t have any Red Sails contacts,” Berro sighed, “and I’m not about to spill details to any stranger who walks in here. I talk to Tolar, and Tolar alone. You’ll have to talk to him.”

Weith asked.

Tiv replied.

“What can you tell us then?” Deg asked. “We’re not looking at ordinary abductions. They aren’t being held for ransom, and we have good evidence the Sails have violated First Contact protocols.”

“First Contact?” Berro said, aghast. “What am I going to know about First Contact?”

“You know criminals on Archo,” Weith said. “Ask around, quiet like. We’re more than prepared to pay for whatever you might find out.”

“…How much?” Berro said. “Assurances?”

“Possibly,” Deg said vaguely. “…Among other things. Depends on what you can dig up, and how quietly.”

“…If… I poked into this…just what might be valuable?”

I smiled.

It wasn’t exactly the back and forth negotiating I’d expected, but they had Berro on the hook.

“Ninety kilometers east and thirty six kilometers north of Cirinsko there is a Red Sails facility. It’s comprised of four small buildings, a water supply, a launch pad, and a hangar the large enough to hold a small fleet,” Weith said. “Fourteen-hundred hours ago, more than—write this down.”

Weith continued while the radio shared sounds of Berro Jo scrambling to find a pen.

“ Fourteen-hundred hours ago, more than sixty First Contacts were moved out of that facility to somewhere else. We’re going to find those aliens. And if we do because you helped? You can name your prize. If you can point us in the right directions? We name the prize, but you still get it.”

“First Contact…ninety by thirty-six…fourteen-hundred hours…” Berro mumbled. “…That’s out in the middle of nowhere. It’s literally barren moon wasteland. Why so far away from anything?”

“Quarantine,” Deg said mysteriously.

That probably put a fun look on the Vorak’s face.

I said.

“What kind of broadcasting equipment do you have?” Weith asked.

“What?”

“Radios, or wired-phones too I guess.”

“This is a factory…” Berro huffed. “We have a municipal phone line like everyone else.”

I asked.

“Nothing else?” Weith repeated.

“No! Just the wired connections.”

Weith said.

one Tiv said.

another clone said.

the other clones said.

I said. Babysitting.

I rolled my eyes. Nora looked pensive though.

·····

That evening back at our apartment, we were waiting on Nai.

“[If that factory had the radio equipment to control the drone, and we somehow missed it…no way right]” Nora said. “[Was it just a coincidence?]”

We’d checked thoroughly, and there weren’t any listening devices in the apartment, so it seemed decently safe to talk out loud. Besides, English was better than a cipher.

“[I…I don’t know,]” I said. “[The factory is right there inside the signal radius…but…it’s not impossible. Sometimes coincidence does happen.]”

“[We need something dispositive,]” she sighed. “[Not cowboy shit.]”

“[Maybe we can work with Shinshay,]” I said. “[Between psionics and Adeptry, surely we can put our heads together and come up with some way to figure it out for sure. Maybe something like a signal sweeper.]”

“[You made that up,]” she accused.

“[And I’m saying we can make one up for real!]” I agreed. “[Can’t be that hard, an antennae, a psionic processor to analyze what we pick up…and some of that psionic sensitive material you made to connect the two!]”

“[You’re crazy. Shut up and eat your noodles,]” she said. “[That’s like saying ‘oh let’s just Adept ourselves a power supply, a processor, a graphics card, and then we can just use psionics for the monitor, look gaming PC out in space’. You’re way oversimplifying it.]”

“[That’s a brilliant idea,]” I said between slurps of noodles. “[I hadn’t even thought about psionic games!]”

“[Hey, focus,]” she snapped her fingers in front of me. “[You’d know better than me; how hard would it be to actually make your signal sweeper?]”

“[…Pretty hard,]” I admitted. “[Getting it to work, I mean. It would be pretty easy to sweep for a signal we could practice with, but we don’t know how the drone was broadcasting, so it would be really hard to create our antennae to be sensitive to the same… kind of signals…I think.]”

“[And it’s the signals, not the encryption?]” Nora asked.

“[Probably,]” I said. “[Aliens haven’t gotten into the same depth of cybersecurity and codebreaking that Humans have. Nai could tell you more.]”

“[How’d you learn about that?]” she asked.

“[I wanted to stress test a psionic brain compared to one of their computers,]” I said. “[The graphing calculator I used in Algebra is as strong as a Coalition server rack.]”

“[And you recreated the graphing calculator in your head psionically, right?]”

“[Yeah, took me a few months, but I got fed up converting between base eight and ten. So, I had to build all the math functions from scratch. It’s kinda like programming, but I was never good at programming. This is kinda like…]”

“[You don’t know how code is supposed to work, but you know how math is supposed to work,]” Nora described. “[Building a real calculator takes coding and logic gates, but building a psionic one takes math.]”

“[…Yeah, yeah, that’s about it…I think.]”

“[And so then you tried using your psionic calculator to crack your alien friends’ radio encryption? Where would you even start?]”

“[No…I just wanted to see if I could decrypt a message faster than their computers, and what do you know? I could.]”

“[Shame you didn’t crack psionic-interactive materials sooner,]” she said. “[If this signal sweeper works out, you could listen in on any Coalition broadcast you wanted.]”

“[I mean, psionics are spreading like wildfire,]” I said. “[I sensed some nearby while we were off base today. It’s going to start as a fad, and when people realize they need upkeep, it’ll slow down a bit. But more Adepts are going to figure out how to make them, and soon there’s going to be widespread telepathy out here. I don’t know how people are going to react. I’m even a little worried about how the Coalition might.]”

“[Oh good,]” Nora said. “[I’ve been worried about how they might be exploiting you. Or I guess us, now. I’m glad you’re scrutinizing them at least a little.]”

“[You don’t trust them?]” I asked.

“[No,]” she said plainly. “[I don’t think any group powerful enough to wage a war gets there without having some skeletons in the closet.]”

“[…They saved my life,]” I said.

“[Mine too,]” she agreed. “[I’m not ungrateful, but I also know they had their own reasons.]”

“[…I know that too,]” I said. “[The first time I talked with Admiral Laranta, she was honest with me. She didn’t try to sugarcoat anything, and she was willing to tell me to my face that the Coalition benefitted from helping me.]”

“[That doesn’t necessarily make her trustworthy,]” she pointed out. “[Serral either. They’re in charge of a military, Caleb, and even if we find our abductor, what if they make the Coalition an offer too good to refuse?]”

I grew quiet at that.

I knew Serralinitus…decently. He’d been fair. Not only to me, but Tasser too. He’d looked out for my interests, when it would have made his goals easier to achieve. The Vorak had been hounding him when I was staying on his base.

But would he have handed me back to them? If the deal had been good enough?

‘Give us Caleb Hane, and we’ll cede three provinces to you.’

Would he have taken a deal like that?

Would Laranta have?

“[I don’t know,]” I admitted. “[But I think, if they did, they wouldn’t lie about it. They’d own it.]”

“[…If it makes you feel any better,]” she said. “[I don’t trust the Vorak in charge either. The only alien I’ve known well enough to trust is Halax. The people we know aren’t the people in charge. I can trust people I know.]”

“[That’s Tasser for me. And Nai,]” I nodded. “[Getting to know more though. You?]”

“[Nerin’s picking up English fast,]” she nodded. “[She’s good company. Nai too. I think they’d both be pissed if the Coalition hung us out. But I also don’t think they could stop it from happening.]”

I actually smiled at that.

“[Shows what you know,]” I snorted. “[You only say that because you’ve never seen Nai really in action.]”

“[What could she do?]”

“[She could fight our entire Adept workshop, including me and you, and come out way ahead,]” I said. “[She can make enough vorpal fire to bring down a skyscraper. Most Adepts are tactical threats, individually. But Adepts like Tiv? Like Nai? They’re so overwhelming in some way, that they’re no longer a tactical threat, but a strategic one. Her being alive forces the Red Sails to change how they plan engagements. Just her existence is enough to singlehandedly bend how the enemy fights. She doesn’t even have to be there.]”

“[…What’s the difference between a tactical threat and a strategic one?]” she asked.

“[Tactics win battles, strategy wins wars,]” I said. “[It’s a matter of scope.]”

“[You really think she’d fight for us? Fight her own allies?]” Nora asked.

“[I think Halax did,]” I said. “[So, yeah. And no offense, but there’s no way you know Halax better than I know Nai.]”

“[You really like her,]” Nora recognized.

“[Yeah,]” I said, not minding saying it. “[It’s hard not to. I’ve know what it’s like in her head. If I died? She wouldn’t just hang it up, Nora. She’d keep helping you. She’d keep going to help your campers even if you died too. It won’t matter if ninety-five of us are dead. If even one more abductee is left to help, she’d do it.]”

“[Just because of you?]”

“[She doesn’t do things half-way,]” I said.

Nor nodded thoughtfully.

“Twenty-four times four,” she said. “Ares, Artemis, Athena, and Apollo…ninety-six of us total. Twenty-three dead on your ship, two dead from my three. Seventy-one of us left…what a weird number.]”

“[It’s prime, but…]” I began, trying to follow her logic.

“[Not seventy-one,]” she said. “[Ninety-six. That’s how many of us there are. Four ships, twenty-four each.]”

“[What’s odd about ninety-six?]” I asked.

“[Just seems like a weird figure,]” she said. “[Who wakes up and decides to abduct ninety-six people? Why that many? And if that many why not—]”

She went pale.

“[If…if that many…why not more?]”

It was like she’d just come face to face with a monster—something so awful your whole body just froze on instinct.

“[What if the Vorak didn’t find all our ships?]” she asked. “[What if there’s more out there? We assumed there was a fourth ship because of symmetry. Two girls ships, but one guys. It made sense. But if there’s four ships, why not eight?]”

“[Why not sixteen then?]” I asked. “[You’re overthinking it right now. The abductor had to draw a line somewhere. And you’re right, we have no reason to think that line was at ninety-six kids. But we’ve got no reason to think they didn’t either.]”

She nodded, trying to shake the dark thought away. “[You’re right…they can’t have just abducted an infinite number. Someone on Earth would have noticed, right?]”

“[Yeah,]” I agreed.

But…the idea didn’t sit well with me.

Vorak used base ten. Casti and Farnata used base eight.

It was weirdly odd number to abduct in a Vorak count. But even in octal counting it was odd. Four groups of four groups of six?

It wasn’t inconceivable…six was four plus a half of itself.

How much psychology went into Casti and Farnata numbers? How much could be extrapolated?

“[No…no, Caleb…]” I muttered. “[Follow your own advice. Don’t overthink it.]”

I refocused on my noodles, now grown cold.

But the thought nagged at me.