“They must prefer to live in the water,” Jill said, as they were pushed inside. The hatch closed firmly behind them. “Do you think their starships are full of water?”
Henry considered the possibility. It was true that post-battle assessment teams had found a considerable amount of water vapour in the ruins of alien starships, but cold logic suggested the aliens couldn’t use water throughout their ships. They’d run the risk of shorting out entire compartments if their innards were exposed, even minutely. He tried to imagine the response of the Royal Navy’s engineers to deliberately flooding the fleet’s starships and decided they’d probably want to strangle the idiot who suggested it with their bare hands.
But the aliens might not have a choice, any more than the Royal Navy had a choice about supplying its crewmen with oxygen.
“It’s a possibility,” Henry said. The shuttle seemed to quiver, then launched itself into the air. “But it would be dangerous.”
He shook his head. He’d been told, more than once, that dolphins were smarter than they seemed, but dolphins had never attempted to grow hands and leave their marine environment for dry land. It didn’t seem possible for them to even make a start on developing their own technology. Their environmental niche was a prison as much as anything else, with the added disadvantage they’d never know what they were missing. Unless the Uplift Project actually received the go-ahead…
But then we wouldn’t be able to deploy cybernetic dolphins, he told himself. There would be objections from vested interests.
The gravity faded away to nothingness, leaving them drifting up into the air. Henry blinked in surprise — the aliens definitely had the technology to produce artificial gravity — and then resolved to ignore it. Jill looked green, though, just like some of the early starfighter trainees who had never developed their space legs. Eventually, they’d been sent back to Earth and told to apply somewhere that didn’t involve regular space travel. The aliens might have been trying to use it to disconcert them.
“They probably don’t have any problems with zero-gravity,” he said, trying to distract Jill from her feelings. “If they’re born under the water, they probably take to it like…”
“A fish to water?” Jill asked, weakly. She swallowed, hard. “I was asleep for the trip to Heinlein, Henry. I never went into zero-gee properly.”
“It’s not quite what it’s made out to be,” Henry said. There had been one zero-G parlour in Sin City where visitors were encouraged to enjoy making love in reduced or no gravity, but it wasn’t as popular as he’d thought. “It can be fun, but…”
“You’d get sick at a delicate moment,” Jill guessed. She floated up to the ceiling, then pushed herself back to the ground. “It would probably be rather unromantic.”
“It was,” Henry said. The whole experience had been a lesson in orbital mechanics, rather than something sexual. “But there are plenty of ways to have fun in zero-gravity.”
The shuttle shuddered, then quivered gently. Henry felt the bulkhead carefully, remembering how Ark Royal had quivered against his fingertips when the main drive had been active. Unless he was very wrong, they’d just docked with a much larger starship. But it was clear the starship didn’t have a gravity field of its own. They’d have fallen down towards the floor if the bigger ship had one.
If there is a bigger ship, he thought. Running two gravity fields together was asking for trouble, unless there was enough power to manipulate both fields to prevent problems. The Royal Navy tended to forbid it unless there was no alternative. I could be wrong…
The hatch clicked open. A wave of moist air, smelling of something fishy, rolled into the shuttle. Outside, he saw a pair of aliens, floating in the air as if they belonged there. Henry sighed, then pulled himself through the hatch, carefully only to use tiny motions. Jill, less practiced in zero-gravity, accidentally pushed herself right out of the shuttle and headed for the far bulkhead. Henry winced, remembering the first few days of his own zero-gravity training, as she hit the bulkhead and bounced off. One of the aliens caught her and half-carried her towards the hatch, using tiny handles built into the bulkheads to propel itself forward. Henry followed, realising that he’d been right. The aliens definitely preferred low-gravity environments.
He frowned as the first hatch led to a second hatch, which opened up into a larger compartment. A bed was pressed against the wall, while two computers — civilian teaching machines, he realised — had been left against the spare bulkhead. They’d probably still be working, despite the moisture in the air. Teaching machines were designed to survive small and resentful children. Henry had heard that one of them had been dropped from a helicopter and survived the fall.
“You will rest,” the alien said. “We will leave now.”
Henry turned, fighting to control his movements. “Where are we going?”
“Your people,” the alien said. It pointed one leathery hand towards the bed. “We will talk. You will prepare to speak to them.”
Henry nodded. After Target One, the human race would be suspicious of any alien ship attempting to make open contact. But they’d find it a great deal harder to ignore a human voice, broadcasting openly. And then… Henry smiled at the thought of the aliens meeting a proper set of human researchers, complete with computers and the ability to consider how best to speak at leisure. The communications barrier would be broken soon enough.
“We’ll sleep,” he promised.
“I’m not sure how,” Jill muttered. She still looked green. “How do we stay on the bed?”
“…Bugger,” Henry said. The aliens had dragged a bed into the chamber, but it was largely useless without a gravity field. He looked around for something they could use to tie themselves down, only to discover there was nothing. “I’m not sure.”
Jill laughed, weakly. “Do we just sleep floating in the air?”
“It looks that way,” Henry said. There was a second problem. As far as he could tell, there were no streams of air moving through the compartment. Carbon dioxide, exhaled from their mouths, would gather around them, eventually making it impossible to breath. Or so he thought. It had been a very long time since he’d studied survival in zero-gravity environments. “I think one of us will have to sleep while the other fans them.”
“See if there are any atmospheric controls first,” Jill said, once he’d explained. “They gave me some controls back when I…”
She broke off, shuddering. Henry wanted to put his arms around her and give her what reassurance he could. He could go back to Earth and be reunited with his family, his friends and his lover. But Jill would never see her friends and family again. The aliens, either through a mistake or cold-blooded malice, had slaughtered almost all of the Heinlein settlers.
“You have a nap,” he said. He hated himself for saying something so useless, but what else could he do? “I’ll look for controls and then fan you.”
“Thanks,” Jill said, weakly. She paused. “Do you think we’re being watched here?”
“Probably,” Henry said. “We’re aliens, remember. They’ll want to keep an eye on us.”
But that was normal for him. He’d been watched almost his entire life, with his family and the media ready to pounce on any form of misbehaviour… even if it was something that would pass without comment for anyone born outside the Royal Family. Regular beatings would have been kinder, he’d often thought. At least he could have told someone about an abusive parent and been understood. But what did one do when the entire system was abusive?