Suppose We Page 9

  He received a reply after a few moments.

  ‘CAN responds as follows: 1) no, it is interred, out of sight, in Kep / flitter hands, I will investigate. 2) I need access to Suppose We. 3) enjoy your vacation because I am.’

  “What?” Penn’s face erupted into red hot lava.

  Gaston spread his arms as if he’d told them so, but spotted movement back towards the cliff. “Those Keps are returning. Should we hide? Bah, what’s the point? They do not recognise our existence, but I suggest we keep out of their way.”

  They jogged to a building much like the pink one that swallowed Delta, but didn’t enter. They leant against the wall as if teenagers casually whittling away time on a hot evening outside a downtown café.

  The Keps drifted by at just over human walking speed and continued along Main Street, as Penn called it. He was the first to walk to the road and stare at the spiral tower at the end of the road. “We’ll follow them, ask them what the hell they’re doing with our ship.”

  “Let’s not be aggressive about it, though,” Em said, “It’s us who are the alien intruders even if you saved them from the spheres.”

  “Damn right.”

  The settlement mapped similar to the higgledy-piggledy random street patterns in ancient African villages, except the buildings were pastel-colours like a British seaside town. The road surface was as if made from compacted tiny gravel, so perhaps more than floating Keps used it. The humans had to step around soft spots and Gaston pointed at rotting dark patches on some walls. An eerie silence too, as if the large bacteria had driven out the occupants. At least the static electrical unease had dissipated.

  No street furniture whatsoever. He’d hoped for signposts, or street names to give them clues on written language. Nothing. They headed towards the tower. Perhaps two-hundred metres tall, twice the height of any local building and higher than the trees in the forest they’d hiked through. From a distance it had looked white and made of two spirals like a giant vertical fusilli, a double helix.

  Gaston couldn’t resist running his hands over what appeared to be marble. He saw Penn shake his head.

  “It might have been booby-trapped and at least you should’ve worn gloves. Anyhow, they entered it here, didn’t they? Where’s the fucking door?”

  Gaston laughed to himself to see Penn do what he’d just done: put his hands on the stone, feeling for the slightest crack, indentation or nodule. Penn muttered and set off around the building.

  A couple of minutes later he returned. “There’s no door.”

  “Of course,” Gaston said, “they float. Perhaps they can reach an entrance higher up.” He, Em and Penn gazed upwards. Strangely, the perspective seemed to change. Gaston found he had to tilt his head so much it hurt and yet the top of the tower leaned all the more over him… out of sight. He became dizzy, but whether it was from an inverted form of vertigo, or something exotic emitted from the tower he couldn’t be sure. The spirals spiralled. He fell onto his back.

  Em blurted a short laugh when she did the same. Bon, thought Gaston. She is recovering.

  She offered a suggestion. “You know how the Kep walked through Delta?”

  Penn pointed at the curved stone wall. “It’s fucking hard.”

  She put out her hand. “It’s cooler than ambient temperature.” She turned to Gaston. “Isn’t it?”

  He walked up to it again and ran the palms of his hand over the marble while walking around. “Non. Probably not. Stone is remarquable at conducting heat from our skin, although I have noticed that this area is colder.”

  Em gave a small leap. “Gentle isn’t going to do it, guys.”

  Gaston had spiders crawling up his spine. “You are not going to run at it?”

  Penn frowned. “Yep, makes sense. Kinda.”

  Em took ten paces back and readied herself, but Gaston stood in front. He picked up a stone and threw it hard at the tower. It bounced off.

  “Regardez!”

  “Needs to be organic,” Em said.

  Penn added, “Throw a Kep monkey at it, Gas.”

  Gaston whirled around as if Penn had seen one. No one had. He was heating up too much now with worry.

  Penn laughed then held Em’s hand. “You know it’s mad, but I’ll run with you. Gas can get the first aid kit ready.”

  Gaston watched, open-mouthed as the other two ran, hard, at the tower.

  CAPTAIN CAN’S RAMBLINGS

  I am under the surface. Underground as in a mole, but one that flies. Tricky thing manoeuvring my flying crooked self down here. Not because much of it is dark: I installed ultrasonic and other sensors. I see not only here and there in the tunnel air but into the soil and rock too. Even so being down here is awkward. Not because my energy cells are not being solar-charged down here. Not because if I’m caught I’ll have limited defence or escape options. It’s because… I hesitate to say… because I fear the night monsters, the bogeyman, Demogorgon, Cerberus, and more. I don’t tell the crew. They wouldn’t believe. Too obsessed with themselves and—I stop recording here because a Kep trio of flitters hover before me.

  I engage in communication:

  .++++\~~~>>> ^^o|= **) ~~~

  .--_><<>>>…`` Ox// ..<, ~~++ ..

  And so on, on and on for 0.67 seconds.

  Hilarious. They don’t understand our systems on Suppose We. Our antediluvian (perhaps Kepler-20h had its own flood) electronics is so below their intellect. They ask me to translate, update, assure their safety in its presence.

  They’ve not found the package. It’s elsewhere. The part of my AI core that is quasi-organic trembles in its fear of discovery. Not of my internal secrets, but of the real mission.

  Signed CAN (as in cannister)

  Date: Earth January 19th 3645 Kepler New 10 days

  Penn and Em laughed at Gaston, who was lying on the floor feeling himself for broken bones and blood leakage. They were bathed in peach colours though it varied from near red on the floor to yellow in the spiralling upwards wall.

  He allowed the murmuring conversation to waft over him while he recovered still in disbelief that his vulnerable flesh could pass through solid stone. Of course it couldn’t. Must be an illusory effect.

  As he looked back at the curved wall, his butterfly came through it.

  Em shook out a short scream. Penn laughed a “Well, look at that!”

  “Papillon! You are still with me.”

  Penn’s laugh mutated to a sneer. “You’ve named it?”

  “Of course.” The creature landed on Gaston’s backpack. He offered it a drop of water from his canteen and the insect stuck a curved proboscis into it. Gaston was so enthralled he let Em and Penn talk strategies.

  Em had acknowledged that perhaps one such butterfly offered no risk. “Do you think it could be a guide?”

  Penn laughed. “Look there’s no way down, only one way to go.”

  Em pointed upwards as if no one noticed. “That way but no stairs.”

  “They don’t need them.”

  “At least the slope is gentle.”

  “The floor’s spongy… you don’t think?”

  “No. It’s a kind of rubber. Not at all like the gloop I was stuck in.”

  “Smells fresh in here, Em.”

  “A breeze too. Maybe the tower’s a vent.”

  “Or doubles as one. Bet there’s an awesome view from the top.”

  “And you’ll want to spot the enemy, right?”

  “Don’t be like that, Em.”

  “Don’t you be like that then, Sir.”

  The escalation from genial to grunt provoked Gaston to get to his feet.

  “Shall we venture upwards?”

  Like a fairground helter-skelter, the floor sloped up around a central column of translucent white. Not a perfectly straight one but like another pasta piece inside, undulating as if alive. While they cautiously walked up, Em slid her right arm into the crook of Gaston’s good one and kissed his cheek.

  “Quite an adventure, thi
s planet, my monsieur, isn’t it?”

  “Oui.” He pressed his elbow in to give Em’s arm a squeeze. “Can you hear something?”

  Penn continued up, but Em and Gaston stopped to listen.

  “Em, there is still throbbing in my ears. Perhaps the wind outside is getting in higher up?”

  “Or the fluting of the spirals is generating sound.”

  Gaston laughed. “It has a beat. More, it sounds like that ancient McCartney ballad, Mull of Kintyre.”

  They both nodded then hummed the tune.

  “What is a mull?” Em asked.

  “I think it’s something to do with wine. As for a Kintyre.”

  “I know that one,” she said. “Kin is an old word for relatives. Hey, isn’t that Penn through the interior wall?”

  She banged on the thin curved wall through which Penn could be seen. He had stopped walking up and faced the wall then turned to jog downhill.

  “Penn!” Gaston yelled, something he never does happily. “Stop where you are!” He also knocked on the intervening wall, but it wobbled and he feared it would break.

  “Gas, we need to chase after him. Let’s go.”

  He ran up the spiralling floor wondering how this could happen. Yes, a double spiral would fit the exterior view and perhaps this was a kind of Möbius strip. They ran. He might be the least fit astronaut on the planet, but he was not overweight and kept up his exercise regime on Suppose We. Even so, after what seemed like an hour of running leaning to the left, he developed cramp. At least they should soon reap the benefit of a rooftop view of the Kep settlement.

  “Gas,” breathed Em, coming up behind him. “Stop a minute before I rupture my lungs.”

  They both sat with their backs against the curved wall. It was refreshingly cool, a remedial experience opposing the perspiration now jetting out of his skin. Mull of Kintyre continued and his breathing and pulse slowed to meet its rhythm.

  “Gas, we’re lost. Crazy as that seems in a one-way system, but I can’t tell one bit of this helter-skelter from another.”

  Gaston looked behind him. She had a point. How would they find where they’d entered? A sudden urge to make a hole in the outside wall washed over him. He needed a drill, but the most effective hole-maker was his laser pistol. No. He didn’t want to turn into arsonist Penn. Speaking of whom… from below, Penn turned the corner and stumbled into the sitting Gaston.

  “Ah, caught up with you two at last. You’re fitter than you look.”

  Em recovered her consternation first. “Hang on. You were in front of us making us chase hard to catch you. How did you arrive behind… ah, this really is a tower of smoke and mirrors, isn’t it?”

  Penn leaned on the wall and looked down at his companions. “Just wait till you see what is in front of you. Come on.”

  Gaston helped Em to her feet then turned to Penn. “Are you sure we shouldn’t just go back the way we came, you came?”

  “You’ll see. Go on.”

  Gaston’s thigh and calf muscles protested. He bent to rub them and noted Em doing the same until Penn put his hand on the small of her back.

  “It’s not far, Em, and I’ll give you a massage later,” Penn said.

  Em turned to Gaston and grimaced, while the Frenchman seethed. He pressed on, determined not to fall back.

  Ten minutes later the peach coloured walls darkened to red though with a glow as if it were trying to be translucent. Onwards and upwards until they burst into a wide chamber. Far too wide to fit into the tower. More incredibly, tunnels led away their gaping entrances inviting exploration.

  They stood before it, their mouths open.

  Em spoke first. “Penn, was this here when you came up before?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t know how to believe it… not on my own.”

  Gaston’s heart approached a dangerous speed, but more so from encountering this conundrum than from the uphill running. “Formidable. This top is down below.”

  Gaston, in shock from finding himself underground when all his senses told him he had mounted a two-hundred metres tall tower, turned to face where they’d come from. “We should mark this exit.”

  They’d stepped into the large chamber—all silvery curves.

  “Don’t look at me as if I’d pack lipstick,” Em said, her eyebrows dancing.

  “Lipstick? Non, I would be grateful if you extricate the Band-Aids from my backpack.”

  As Gaston stuck a blue plaster on the tower entrance arch, Penn stomped around muttering, “I don’t like this. It’s the antithesis of where a marine, or in our case, explorer, should be. We’ve no obvious escape route.”

  Gaston stood, looking back at the tower exit with his blue plaster showing. “I would like to think that if we went in there and climbed up for say, five minutes we would be able to make a hole in the wall and if at ground level, widen it to extricate ourselves.”

  Penn slapped him on his backpack. The butterfly escaped just in time. “Well said. You toughening up, Gas? And you know we have the tools to make our own door.” He reached for his belt.

  “No! Not your laser,” Em called out, but Penn pulled out his knife.

  “Hey,” Penn said, “did you hear an echo when you yelled ‘No’?”

  Papillon keeping pace, Gaston paced around the chamber the size of a tennis court and illuminated through the peach-coloured stone. The walls and ceiling had no flat surfaces although the floor came close. He sniffed at a honeydew melon aroma coming from one of the three tunnels.

  He teased Penn. “I vote we explore this one. Perhaps the fragrance will lead to a fruit market.”

  Penn looked back. “I still can’t believe that we trudged all the damned way up the tower to end up below ground. Assuming we are subterranean and this isn’t some giant room on the top, invisible from below.”

  Twenty metres into the aromatic corridor that twisted like an intestine, the colour lighting inside the walls changed to primrose. Gaston couldn’t resist touching it. “Em, you’ll like this. It’s like velvet. Ah, je comprends, you are allowing Penn and myself to go before. After your quicksand experience.”

  “Yeah, well, I was kinda hoping not to spend too much time in tunnels after that. The bug is in here, isn’t it?”

  Gaston had seen dark patches in the wall and where it curves into the floor. When sufficiently close he smelt a yeasty aroma from those areas. He’d steered the trio away from what might have been the bacteria although it might just be damp patches. “My apologies, Em, I was hoping not to worry you. Ah, something must be around the corner. Do you hear clicking noises?”

  Penn raised his laser pistol. “I fucking do and no one’s walking through me!”

  “Put your gun away, Penn, Sir. Remember we are here as visitors. We are the intruders and we need to be friendly.”

  “Besides which,” Em added, “they have our ship. Be nice. Let’s flatten ourselves against the wall. There’s a clean bit here.”

  Gaston bravely opted to be the first in line followed by Em. The corridor was only three normal-people-wide on this curve. Gaston tried to squash into the wall thinking that they could have outpaced the Keps back to the wider chamber, but they had to engage at some point, surely. His nerves jangled making him aware of his heart accelerating by its throbbing. If he’d worn a woollen jumper it would have unravelled by now. A moment later he laughed.

  “Regardez, one of our little birds.”

  The one was followed by two more. In this light, they looked like blue tits, flitting a kind of English Regency dance around each other until they met the humans. In a row, they hovered at head height two metres from the astronauts.

  “Now what?” grumbled Penn.

  “I still hear clicking approaching,” Em said. She surprised Gaston by taking a small step forward. “Hi there. Can you tell your masters we mean no harm?”

  Gaston reached out to tug her back, but his right arm still lacked strength. He whispered, “It could be that these robots are the masters of the organic Kep
s.”

  “Seriously?” Penn and Em chorused.

  Gaston had been examining his scanner. “Je ne sais pas. Just a challenge to our assumptions. Did you two feel a shiver?”

  “X-ray?” Penn said, frowning at the birds as if they’d assaulted him invisibly.”

  Gaston looked up. “No, my sensors picked up ultrasound and possibly something else.” He brought his screen up closer as if that was his zoom feature.

  The birds flew away to the right completely noiselessly, although the clicks approached. Gaston wondered if the Keps were always preceded by those mechanical flitters. Perhaps they were bodyguards, or more likely carried sensors to detect Prokaryote-infected areas so as to guide the Keps away. As the birds left the background colour of the tunnel wall changed from primrose to pea-soup green.

  “We’re in a fucking disco,” Penn muttered.

  Gaston turned to the wall to see if the colours were cellular. “I think these colours mean something.”

  “Like an environmental tag to an event?” Em said. “Or maybe a kind of greeting or preparation for the main party coming—erm, any minute?”

  “You’re both overthinking it,” Penn said, then stepped out into the corridor, and hurried back. “They’re here. Taking up the whole corridor!”

  Em whispered, “I don’t want someone to walk through me.”

  “There was a bit of an alcove along the way we came,” Gaston said, “Let us rush back.”

  He and Em dashed into the corridor, followed by Penn, but he tripped over the backpack he was carrying in his hand. “Go on. Save yourselves.”

  Gaston laughed as he glanced back. “Mon ami, do not be so dramatic!”

  Penn was on his hands and knees in the process of getting up, but three Keps drifted towards him only moments away. He rolled onto his back holding his backpack up as if the spectres would rise up and over rather than through it, or him. He must have changed his mind at the last moment and scrabbled upright giving Gaston the bizarre view of a Kep emerging through him.

  Just in time, Gaston and Em backed into the niche just as the three locals passed by emitting clicks then with a lower Doppler frequency echoing down the tunnel. As the Keps left, the walls became arty: luminous patches with fuzzy internal darker reds and purples like a pomegranate. Whiffs of ozone reminded Gaston again, of electrical sparking.