“Their home world does not have a savannah.” Aki moved more quickly, trying to catch up with the large furry snakes.
“If they were as intelligent as people, they would know enough to wear clothes,” Raul said.
“Curiosity goes hand in hand with intelligence,” Joseph said, keeping pace with Aki. “It looks like their apathy is a fact we’re going to have to accept. I had originally thought that if they had no interest, it was because they were completely different from us. Those creatures may have looked odd, maybe even grotesque, but they aren’t all that different.”
Aki agreed. They were obviously organic beings. There was no part of their physiology that could not be likened to some part of an organism from Earth. It was also clear from the atmosphere in their ship that their metabolic system was also similar.
“Are we going to assume those fuzzy worms are the Builders?” Raul asked.
“We should for now,” Aki answered, trying not to look at the clock ticking down on the screen inside her helmet.
ACT III: JULY 31, 2041
AKI, RAUL, AND Joseph continued lowering themselves through the jungle of branches until it ended abruptly against the curved interior surface of the Torus. On the inside of the Torus’s outer wall, small sandy beaches were surrounded by dark pools, small dunes with pools of black liquid undulating beneath them. The jungle was ten meters overhead, hanging inverted arches forming a hollow tunnel that curved along the circumference of the Torus in both directions.
“This looks like the bottom,” Aki said, peering down at the beach. “Do you think they will attack us here now that we are out in the open?”
“The giant slugs? Hardly, but it would look cool on video,” Raul said, though the question had been directed at Joseph.
Aki found a branch that dipped close to the surface and climbed toward the beach. She was turned around enough that she had no idea if she was going ecliptic north, ecliptic south, or some other direction. The sandy substance coating the interior of the Torus hull was lightly packed, like diatomaceous earth. Dust like silica scraped away with her steps, soft enough that she left footprints where she walked. The ponds were anywhere from about two to ten meters wide and no more than a meter deep.
Lying in groups of two and three along the shorelines of the two ponds closest to them were about two dozen Builders, each partially submerged in the dark liquid. The Builders were stretched out on their stomachs, resting their upper bodies on their forearms as if they were sphinxes. They made no noises, no movements. The highly sensitive microphones in the team’s helmets were able to pick up intermittent noises that sounded like rasping, labored breaths. Aki could not tell if those faint noises were being made by the Builders.
“The pool deck on a luxury liner. Bet they used a photo of this beach on the brochure when they recruited for the six hundred–year cruise,” Raul said.
Aki looked closely at the builders, trying to discern differences between individuals that might suggest sexual dimorphism or age-related physical development. She could distinguish nothing beyond slight variations in size. The shortest ones were about three meters long. She wondered if they were the youngest, even though she had a hard time imagining the youth of any species being so lethargic. One of the Builders stirred from what Aki thought was sleep, turning around to fully submerse itself into the oily pond. It reappeared on the opposite side, crawled from the liquid—then, stretching toward the branches, slowly pulled itself into the canopy before disappearing into the jungle.
Aki, Raul, and Joseph began walking along the direction of rotation.
“Should we walk the full length and see what we find?” Aki asked. “I wonder if this beach stretches the entire circumference of the Torus.”
“I’m guessing it’s nearly a kilometer loop,” Joseph said.
Facing Joseph, Raul said, “If you can get me home, I’ll bet a plate of roast beef that it’s all ponds and beached Builders the whole way around.”
“I’ll take your bet. Because they are noncommunicative, understanding their space may be the only opportunity to understand them,” Aki said.
“So, how many Builders have we passed so far?” Raul asked his sensor array.
<TOTAL 131>
“Assume, just for kicks, an even distribution of Builders in the liveable areas of the ship. What’s the crew complement?”
<APPROXIMATELY 940 ENTITIES>
After about forty minutes, they noticed their own footprints ahead of them and the fiberoptic cable running down from the branches. Their mapping system also indicated they had returned to their starting point.
Joseph had counted a total of 847 Builders.
“What do we do now? Is there anything more to this ship than a cattle ranch?” Raul asked.
Aki would have reminded him to keep his cool again, but a message arrived from UNSDF Fleet Headquarters.
<PROCEED WITH PHYSICAL CONTACT.
PERFORM ULTRASOUND SCAN.>
The three looked at each other, wondering what would happen when they actually touched a Builder.
ACT IV: JULY 31, 2041
“HEY, ALICE, GOOD kitty or snake. Why doesn’t she purr or hiss or something?” Raul asked, reaching out to the closest of four Builders. He had named them Alice, Betty, Catherine, and Diane, even though they had not yet determined whether or not the Builders had genders.
Alice was of average size and was selected because a light brown patch on its back made Alice easy to differentiate from the other Builders. Aki and Joseph guarded Raul as he placed his handheld scanner on Alice’s back. He slid the scanner down the upper part of Alice’s body, and the results were displayed on the helmet monitors. Other than minor twitches, the creature lay still with its eyes closed during the entire process.
“They have spines. That looks like a heart with two ventricles. Three sacks behind the mouth cavity. Stomachs? Pair of lungs. Do you notice anything that might be vocal cords? Wait a minute, is that metal?” Aki spotted a rod about five centimeters long in the spinal cord behind the chest. A muscle fiber extended from one end of the rod. The other end of the rod connected directly to the spinal cord.
“There’s one here, too, in the lower body,” Joseph said. “Another in the head.”
The skull was spherical with two holes for eye sockets. It had a brain similar to a human’s but the structure was not hemispherical. The rod in the head went to the top of the skull, ending just below the skin.
“The two upper ones are connected to the spine and the brain. It must be some kind of bio-integrated neural implant. My guess is that they’re being monitored or controlled—maybe both. Maybe that’s why they’re ignoring us,” Raul said.
“For what purpose?” Joseph asked.
“Probably because they’re being transported. What if they’re just cargo, no more intelligent than a herd of cattle? The rod implants keep them sedated during the journey to ensure that they survive. The ship’s programmed to take care of their environment.”
“Possible, but if the ship’s environmental control system is that advanced, it does not make sense that the ship would allow us to enter and interact with these creatures without intervening to protect them,” Aki said.