Symbiosis Chapter 16

Jackson stepped onto the bridge in blue flannel pants and a white T-shirt, refusing to put on duty garb. The captain dropped in his chair and waited for someone to justify his presence.

“Tom, sorry to get you out of bed,” Dr. Gregory said, glancing at him and then back at the console. Lieutenant May kept his head down and his eyes on the console.

“Pegasi?”

“Take a look,” his friend said, and a moving image appeared on the large monitor to his left. They both swiveled to take a hard look at it; Gregory put the loop into slow motion. Tom leaned closer to help his weary eyes focus, pushing his fingers through his hair.

It was a fair sized vehicle, not as large as Maria Mitchell but neither was it as small as an interplanetary vessel.

“Did you get a scan?”

“You’re not gonna want to hear this,” Scott said. Tom summoned his curiosity but only had energy to raise his brows at his college friend. “It’s Dukvita.”

Scott was right. Tom didn’t want to hear that. Jackson and Dukvita were not on friendly terms and had managed to avoid each other for almost a decade.

“Are you certain?”

“No, but I intercepted a transmission with his name in it. I don’t know Pegasi-speak so the only thing I recognized was “Dukvita”.

Jackson took a deep breath and let it out slowly. His frustrations took front and center stage at the moment. Dukvita had attacked his first command in an attempt to hijack some Earth technology they carried to a space station, Novissimus. The quantum microscopes had been cutting edge at the time, assisting in the search for alternatives to chemo therapies, but as soon as the Pegasi heard about his mission the goods were stolen right out from under them.

“What is that pirate doing here?” Tom asked more or less to Scott but also to himself.

“It’s a short message.”

“No other communications?”

“Just the initial hail that got my attention.”

“I wonder what they’re doing in Eta Cass’ system.”

“I didn’t want to call you but I thought you would want to know about Dukvita.”

“Yes, you did the right thing. Maybe I, uh, should get some coffee.”

“Tom, you don’t look up to it. I never knew you were such a heavy sleeper. Go back to bed, I’ll stay on course to Eta Cass Cinco, Archid Cinco, whatever it’s called it this decade, and monitor any additional transmissions, record them all.”

“Sounds good to me, thanks buddy.”

“You okay, Tom? You look kind of, I don’t know, ill.” The captain looked at his long-time friend. The two of them went back thirty years to their days as young Caltech students, Scott in astrophysics, himself in aerospace, crossing from time to time in calculus, physics, and stellar cartography.

 “Do you remember that last ROTC party, it was early in your senior year, before you met Melinda?”

 “Whatever made you think of that?” Tom hesitated, wiped some sleep off his face and then took a few steps towards his friend. Tom tilted his head a little side to side and didn’t look at his Scott but instead around the bridge somewhat peevishly. “Oh… oh, I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know you were, um, awake.” Scott chuckled a little, glancing at the Lieutenant next to him. “I guess we’re even now.”

 “I’ll see you in the morning.”

~~~

“So what have our friends been up to all night?” Jackson greeted to the day crew when he arrived on the bridge the next morning, five minutes after oh seven hundred.

“Captain, I have some additional recordings for you. I think you’ll find them useful in solving your puzzle.”

“Route them to the doyen’s office, Dr. Gregory. Our status, Mr. Lee?”

“On course to reach Cinco in six hours, Captain. All systems normal.”

“Very good. I’ll be studying the transmissions.” Dr. Gregory followed Jackson to the doyen’s office. “Aren’t you off shift now?”

“There’s something I want to be sure you know about that I wasn’t certain the boys should know, at least not yet.”

“I appreciate your concern for my privacy. Is this ship business? Coffee?” Tom poured himself a cup from the morning carafe, and one for the astrophysicist.

“Dukvita’s ship is armed.” Tom focused hard on his friend’s face: grey eyes, crow’s feet, and a marginally crooked nose from the point where he’d broken it as a teen.

“How armed?” Tom took a sip of coffee, looked at the foreign tasting liquid in the cup, and realized he forgot the sugar. “The Maria Mitchell is fitted with laser cannons and bow torpedoes,” Tom reminded him.

“You know those aren’t for battle, just for taking care of things from orbit or deflecting rogue asteroids. The Pegasi ship has advanced weaponry Captain, including thermonuclear uranium cascade bombs and plasma cannons.”

“Plasma cannons? Uranium bombs? You’re putting me on. Who would carry nuclear bombs into space?”

“Pegasi.” Tom nodded, conceding.

Jackson sat behind his desk; Gregory joined him on the opposite side. Reaching for the monitor controls Jackson pulled up the recordings and images Gregory had recorded during the wee morning hours.

“This is a new ship for Dukvita. You think it’s government or private?” the captain asked.

“No way to tell for certain. It’s a good size, but you know, their governments are not well organized. Hard to imagine it would be private with plasma cannons, though.”

The image of the spacecraft appeared to float in front of their eyes above the projection apparatus on the table. Slightly smaller than the Maria Mitchell, the ship probably needed a crew of fifteen.

“Pegasi in space are all about commerce, not science,” Tom mused. “I never visited their planet, and I have no interest in going there, either.”

“Maybe you ought to discuss this with Sergeant York. I just wanted to be sure you didn’t miss that little gem.” Tom huffed and raised the coffee cup to his mouth.

“One thing for sure, they aren’t delivering cookies.”

Jackson pondered the quandary for a few minutes but couldn’t figure out why the Pegasi would be in the system unless it was for the same reason as the Kiians or Humans. Or perhaps it was something else entirely.

“Captain to Dr. Adams,” Jackson called into the intercom. “Please report to the doyen’s office at your first opportunity.” While he waited, he refilled his coffee.

“Hey, Jack, what’s on your mind?” Dr. Adams said, stepping into the office. “It’s a little early in the day for my expertise, isn’t it?”

“Come in, have a seat,” Jackson said, then sighed and propped his head up with his chin in his hand. “Why would Pegasi be here in the Eta Cass system? Could it be the mummy, or the plague? Something totally unrelated?”

“You’re asking me?” Dr. Adams poured himself a cup of coffee. He lifted the carafe in an offer to top off the captain’s cup but Tom shook his head.

“This doesn’t seem unusual to you?”

“It could be for anything, Jack. Have you asked anyone else? What does Dr. Gregory think?”

“Doc,” Jackson said, “he’s a cosmos fanatic. I need some medical info.” He hesitated. “We know there’s a plague on Cinco. Kiians found a mummy on Cuatro dated near the extinction event. There’s Pegasi in the system, Kiians, and the Cinconians, plus Humans. What the hell is going on?”

“How is this is a medical question?”

“I need to bounce this off of someone.” He rubbed his chin then found affection with his coffee. “I can’t seem to put the pieces together.”

“Have they contacted us?” Jackson shook his head slowly. “So maybe they’re just passing through?”

“The Pegasi are all about profit and control. They don’t do anything without a financial reason. They’re on the same course as we are in the opposite direction so they must be going to Cuatro to see the Kiians, or, do they have any bases there?”

“I don’t think I’m the person with your answers. Maybe we’ll have something to go on after we visit Cinco,” Adams said.

 “I simply don’t know enough to work this problem. Doc, do you have a clear agenda for the landing party assignment?”

“Yes, I’ll have Dr. Ferris work with me. I was reconsidering having Rianya go with us--”

“Rianya’s not going down there.”

 “But I could use her. Her skills in microbiology are--”

“I say who leaves Maria Mitchell. She’s not going, at least until I know if she is susceptible to the plague.” Jackson looked away from Adams’ face and picked at the cuticles on one hand.

“It finally happened. Jack, we’ve known each other a long time and I’ve never seen you put a personal agenda above the mission before.” Doctor Adams placed his cup on the table harshly.

“It’s not personal. She’s not human, Quixote isn’t human either, this is about medical risk.”

“What do you know about medical risk?”

“I’ve been thinking about it, Doc, a lot. If I thought she would be critical to the mission she’d go but she’s not needed on the planet. She can help when you and Dr. Ferris get back.” Jackson had power to enforce his decision. His eyes hardened against the twinkling blue, daring the doctor to challenge him.

“Aye, Captain,” Adams said with a measure of reluctance in his voice. He stood up. “What’s our ETA, sir?”

“Five hours give or take. Be ready in six. Thank you, Doctor, dismissed.”

That evening Lieutenant Lee set the ship’s shuttle down gently on the surface of the planet Eta Cassiopeia Cinco. Instructed by their United Medical Assembly to land half a kilometer from their headquarters on the southern hemisphere, Captain Jackson was impressed with the pilot’s increase in skill level at the console over the last several months.

“Chen, have you been practicing?” The young officer turned around to face the captain.

“While you were on Enceladus, sir, I did a lot of shuttle runs to Luna, Colony Three. More than 60 round trips.” He shut off the engines and began to secure the vehicle.

“It shows. Environmental status?”

“As expected sir, 0.92 of Earth, Alpine conditions at sea level, and 12 degrees. A summer day in San Francisco.” The captain grinned and gathered his supplies. Everyone pulled on a field jacket and hung assorted packs and instruments on their belts.

“Alright everyone, let’s go,” Jackson commanded.

Mr. Lee opted to stay with the craft, but Dr. Adams, Dr. Ferris, Sergeant York, and Captain Jackson formed a knot and headed for the building a few hundred meters ahead. In the fading daylight of Eta Cassiopeia the windows reflected the pale greenish sky making the building appear green as well.

“I haven’t been here before,” Jackson mentioned. “I didn’t realize they were at this level of technology.”

“My study defines their focus as economic and industrial, Sir,” Dr. Ferris said. “Medicine didn’t seem to be a concern for them until the last few hundred years.”

“Why would that be?” Jackson asked.

“Increase in population, congestion in new cities, issues of sanitation, all begin to multiply exponentially.”

“They couldn’t keep up, Jack. They grew too fast and didn’t put infrastructure into their medical system. They even aren’t equipped to start researching on this plague of theirs.”

“Captain, I’d say it’s like they haven’t matured,” Dr. Ferris added. “It’s like they want the fun technologies but not the responsible technologies. Like a child that wants desert before dinner.”

“I hear you there,” Jackson said, thinking of Zalara and her five year old ego. They walked in silence up the steps. Glass doors slid open as they approached and inside they stopped to look around.

At least a dozen Cinconians dressed in plain black belts traversed the lobby and hallways seemingly with purpose, tools in hands, whether washing windows, sweeping floors, or carrying packages and papers to and from. None spoke to each other, nor to the person sitting behind a sleek reception counter, a gunmetal blue, steel frame with a white stone top surface.

Jackson noticed one other thing about the black belted people. They all looked alike, as if designed to match, all about the same height as himself, all with a luxurious pelt of spotted taupe, like wild mushrooms; it seemed atypically uniform.

One polished the counter top without speaking to them. Adams and Ferris exchanged curious glances with each other, Jackson, and Ms. York. You’d have thought they saw humans walking in every day.

The vestibule was two stories high, flooded with light from the windows, and filled with live trees and other plant life. It flourished like a sub-tropical indoor forest with gentle humidity and a rich, oxygen ambiance. The outdoor landscaping appeared simple and informal, but this hall was lush, inviting and serene. Two more of the black belts attended the flora with singular purpose.

“Můžeme vám pomoci?”

“Kiian ossat?” Ms. York asked the person, seemingly male, who had spoken to the group.

“Yes, I speak some Kiian words.” Ms. York could work with that. She looked at the captain.

“We’re here from Earth. We’ve come to work with you on a cure for your disease.” York repeated the message and then translated the reply.

“Doctor Lam is waiting for you. This way.”

The party stepped lively behind the lumbering Cinconian in a singular pack. A short, brightly lit passageway led to a door a  near the atrium. Although bipedal, the similarity to humans, at least on the outside, stopped there. More hairy than the Kiians, even, the fellow might have been nearing two hundred twenty centimeters tall but his legs were no longer than a human’s. His face was not flat like a primate, but he had an oval skull and a undersized canine snout with striking blue eyes placed binocularly like primates. A bear came to mind, or a gigantic brown lemur, without the tail.

They stopped at a door with markings on it, the door slid open as they’d approached, and the Cinconian stepped aside to allow the visitors to enter.

“We greet happy you,” a smaller, lighter colored bear, er, Cinconian said in the English language. “Sorry if words. We teach English, hard.”

“Our pleasure,” Jackson said, and introduced his team. Despite the awkward syntax, the words were close enough to English that he could discern the meaning.

Dr. Lam seemed happy to meet up with the party, although Jackson wasn’t sure since he couldn’t really read his face. He had to rely only on the voice. Although Lam’s body and face were bearish, his two hands had long dexterous fingers and hairless, smooth, dark skin up to his wrists.

The party of four joined two Cinconian doctors and a couple of scientists around a sleek, aluminum table in what looked more like an office than a research laboratory. The room was clean, bare even, as if no one had bothered to think of aesthetics.

“We thanks humans help come,” Dr. Lam said. Jackson wished he’d taken some time to learn Cinconian, but it was too late now.

“We’re happy to help.” Given the language difficulties, Jackson looked at Dr. Adams to take lead on the conversation.

“We need samples and records so we can define the actual organism. When did the first cases occur?”

“We own papers 300 years go back.” The humans in the group all looked around the room at each other. “It big problem not in past. Now we not stoppable.”

“That’s, uh, amazing, Dr. Lam,” Adams said. He looked at some of the papers with clear diagrams in front of him and spoke again. “It’s bacterial, Captain. We should be able to deal with this.”

“Have you had help fighting this before we arrived?” Jackson asked.

“Help? Yes, help. Kiians help. Pegasi help. People feel better sickness stays, return.”

“I’d like to see your lab, the treatment protocols,” Adams said. Dr. Lam stood and waved for the party to follow. The Cinconians started off but Jackson held Adams back for a moment, taking his arm.

“Can we get this bacteria?” he asked quietly.

“Until I can say one way or the other for sure, I’d consider it a threat to humans. We should be cautious.” When they arrived Dr. Lam passed out some protective gear, but of course it was shaped to fit themselves, not humans. Jackson held up a mask and demonstrated a way for his humans to wear it that took some considerable improvising but most likely worked well enough.

Inside the lab the two scientists that had accompanied the meeting party took the lead, reaching for a variety of containers and bottles, turning down small electrical burners and closing some cabinet doors. Jackson and York stood back while the two doctors dove into the facility. Adams was the first at the microscope.

“Gram negative, rods. Do you have test results on the chemicals used to kill it?”

“All it papers have you.”

“How does it manifest?” he asked. The Cinconians looked at each other. “What do sick people look like?”

“Yes, hair drops, blood, pop. I words not have. Am I sorry. Take days ten begin a end.” Tom suppressed a shudder and noticed, again, a couple of black belted people toiling at their assignments, cleaning mostly. One of the unnamed scientists said something to one of them and she hurried off to carry out some kind of request.

“Current patients? Sick right now?”

“Much much people. One gin two ov five. Come,” Dr. Lam said, waving again.

“Doc, you two can handle it from here?” Jackson asked, not wanting to visit a hospital ward full of sick patients.

“Yes, Jack, we’ll meet you at the shuttle.”

Symbiosis Chapter 15

“How long to Eta Cass Cinco at ISS speed, Mr. Rougeau?” The Maria Mitchell still orbited above Cuatro; Jackson stood in the fishbowl and watched as they passed between the planet and one of its larger moons.

“Thirty six point two hours, sir, from our current location.”

“Very good.” Jackson returned to his center chair. “Plot the course to Cinco, Mr. Rougeau, and Mr. Lee, engage at the first opportunity. It seems we have no more business here, so let’s break orbit.” He picked up a reader but couldn’t help hearing his officers disagreeing over the plotted course.

“Why would you take us against the rotation, not with it?”

“It’s shorter.”

“But we’ll use more fuel and put a greater strain on the propulsion systems.”

“But we will be using it less time, so it balances out and gets us there faster.”

“Have you ever piloted anything outside of the solar system?”

“Yes, this ship when you’re not here. Besides, we’re in a solar system. The same laws don’t apply here as interstellar.”

“Precisely, here we have planets’ gravity to consider.”

“Will you two gentlemen be coming to a decision any time soon?” Jackson interrupted with no amusement in his voice. He leaned forward as if perhaps his energy might help deflate their little argument. He couldn’t see their faces, only the backs of their heads, but he was sure they looked something like his daughter’s when she was told to stop what she was doing.

“Yes, Captain,” Lee said obediently.

“Because I can ask Honey and Zalara to come up here and relieve you if necessary.”

“Understood, sir,” Rougeau said and he tapped a few icons and numbers, changing the course to suit the superior officer’s recommendation of a counter clockwise course around Eta Cassiopeia, which ran between stars A and B, and also flowed with the natural rotation of the system rather than fighting against it. “New estimate for arrival is thirty eight point nine hours.”

“Let’s go then. Break orbit.” Jackson glanced at Mr. Watson whose gaze was fixed on his instruments and nothing else. “Mr. Watson, please dispatch our mission log and statistics.”

“Aye, Captain, right away.”

“I’ll be in the doyen’s office. If you two up front want a glass of warm milk or a nap just let me know.” Jackson settled into his official desk behind a closed door and tapped the intercom.

“Sick bay,” Dr. Adams answered.

“Doc, is Rianya there with you?”

“I’m here.”

“Can you come up to the doyen’s office when you have a minute?”

“On my way.”

Jackson had noticed increasing friction between his two front men over the last several months, but that was the first time it had become overt at the command dashboards. Perhaps they needed shore leave, separately. Everyone needed shore leave. He looked up at the knocking on the door.

“Come.” Rianya came in and the door slid shut behind her. “You don’t have to knock, Love.”

“Everyone has to knock at this door.” Tom smiled and frowned at the same time. He motioned for her to take a chair.

“Not you.” They looked at each other for a moment.

“You called me,” she said.

“Oh, as long as you’re not too busy; I wanted some adult conversation.”

“What?”

“Never mind. What did you find out about the body?”

“Yes, the body. We didn’t do too much. We CAT scanned it, radiographed it, and Dr. Ferris cut the head open and took out some of the brain--”

“No, don’t tell me that kind of ugly doctor talk. You know I hate bodies and blood and death and all that.”

“You asked. What did you want to know?”

“How old is it? Is it human?”

“Dr. Adams has to run the tests yet. Dr. Ferris is still playing with it. But it is at least half human according to the skeletal structure and organ placement. But we did find something so odd! He has air sacs, like a bird.”

“It’s male?” She nodded. “A bird?”

“Dr. Ferris thinks they are an evolutionary adaption of a species that evolved on a planet with a low oxygen atmosphere.”

“How curious. Well, I did have a question for you biology people: when we get to Cinco what’s the protocol for protecting us from the same plague they have?”

“I’m not certain. Dr. Ferris said something that we should bring a sample aboard and examine it before we go down, but that’s all I know. I wasn’t going to be on this team, at least not on the planet.”

“Who told you that? I decide who disembarks and who stays aboard.”

“Dr. Adams.”

“I’m leading this landing party. I’ll talk to him.”

“I don’t want the other crew members thinking I’m getting special treatment from you. That will make life harder for me.”

“It works both ways. Taking you off the team is special treatment. You should be going down. Besides,” he said, coming to where she sat and taking her hand. “You do get special treatment from me.” He pushed some locks of her thick hair out of her face and kissed her, with affection but holding back on the passion. He was tempted to lock his door and get intimate with carnal intentions. If he let the passion surface, however, he’d be in big trouble mostly with himself.

They sat in silence, pressed close and face to face, the emotional telepathy deepening the longer they stayed that way. Her heart seemed unusually strong to him, like a little current of electricity reaching out from a plasma ball toy.

“York to Jackson,” the intercom chirped. The interruption was uncomfortably startling; he tapped the button.

“Jackson.”

“Oh, good afternoon Captain. I was looking for Rianya Jackson. Dr. Adams said she was there?”

“I’m here Cat, I’m sorry I’m late, I’ll be right there.” Rianya tried to back away from Tom but he had clasped his arms around her and wasn’t letting go. “Tom…”

“I’ll go babysit. I’m not going back on the bridge today. Go take a nap. I know you never seem to have enough sleep.”

“If I sleep this late in the day I won’t be able to sleep at night time,” she said, reaching behind in an attempt to unlock his hands behind her waist. He smiled off to one side.

“That’s kind of the idea,” he said. Someone knocked at the office door. “Come,” Tom said. Anne Wallace stood on the other side.

“Excuse me, Captain, Ms. Jackson, I can come back later,” she said quickly. “I, uh, I thought you were off duty at 15:00.”

“I’m off duty, Anne. Come in, do what you came to do,” Tom told her, unapologetic for embracing his wife in private. Her discomfort wasn’t his concern. “I’ll go be the sitter for a while, and see you at dinner,” he told her.

“A hundred thank yous, Tom,” and she scurried out; he followed her to the bridge then stopped, leaving Ann with her robotic vacuum and dust cloths.

“Captain on the bridge,” Mr. Watson announced and the three young officers stood promptly.

“As you were, boys.” Tom felt a twinge of guilt at making his men uncomfortable but on the other hand, they had deserved a rebuke. “Anything going on?”

“Actually, yes, Captain,” Mr. Watson said. “I was about to contact you. There’s an alien ship several thousand kilometers ahead. It’s heading will intersect with ours in approximately twelve hours at our present speed.”

“Kiians?”

“I’m unable to define it at this distance.”

“Keep sensors on it and let me know as soon as you can confirm its identity.”

“Aye, Captain,” Mr. Watson said quickly.

“Chen, Jean, everything copacetic here?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Very good. Be sure to brief Lieutenant May on that alien ship before you leave tonight.” Tom left the bridge and headed down to the gym where two young ladies were waiting.

~~~

“Mr. Harchett, please ask Chef Campbell to drop in when she has a moment.” Tom enjoyed having a private mess on Maria Mitchell as opposed to a having a secluded table in the mess hall as the former science ships. He enjoyed time with his crew but from time to time dining alone, not in his quarters, was like going out somehow.

“Indeed, Captain,” the young man said, setting a carafe of coffee and two cups on the table. Tom poured a cup of coffee for himself and Rianya.

“Can I try coffee?” Zalara piped up.

“You won’t like it,” Rianya told her.

“I wanna try.”

“Here Pet,” Tom said, unable to resist her pleading eyes. He poured his customary quantity of sugar in, stirred it, and pushed it to her. “It’s quite hot, wait until it cools off a minute,” he told her.

“You’re hopeless, Tom. You have me addicted to this awful drink. Are you trying to hook her too?”

“I don’t like this,” Zalara said, frowning. “Papa, how you drink it?”

“By the time you’re old like me you’ll like it.”

“No,” she said. Rianya smiled at Tom out of Zalara’s line of sight.

“Good evening, Captain, Rianya, and Zalara, look at you!” Bailey Campbell said when she came in from the kitchen. “You wanted to see me, Sir?”

“I only wanted to tell you that you have outdone yourself tonight. Everything was perfect, from start to finish.”

“Well, thank you, Captain, I’m glad you all enjoyed it. I don’t often hear that.”

“You should hear it more often, I think we’ve just been lax in speaking up,” Rianya said.

“I have something for you two,” Bailey said suddenly, heading back to the galley. She returned promptly with a bottle of desert wine. “I’ve been keeping this cool since we left Earth. We’re almost at our destination, so you should enjoy it soon.”

“Thoughtful as ever. Thank you,” Tom said. “Goodnight.”

“I’m ready to go to bed. What a long day. Are you tired ‘Lara?”

“No.”

“You’re never tired. Come on,” Tom said and stood, picking her up from her chair and carried her face to face. The trio left and headed back to their quarters. By the time they arrived the small girl was nearly asleep, too tired for a bath or a story. Tom tucked her in and retreated to the great room where Rianya had collected two wine glasses and a cork puller. It wasn’t long before the walls came down.

Tom breathed deep and closed his eyes while the wine released the anxiety of the mummy. Finally, after many long weeks of puzzling about it, they’d picked it up. The wondering and speculating about its age, or how it got there, or why it died wasn’t important now. Their mission hummed along and would soon take the stage again, taking time away from Rianya and Zalara, his new life that had taken a back seat for too long.

Modern melodies from the early 22^nd century hummed quietly, something his mother would have liked that she called Mod. Notes from electronic instruments that duplicated classics blended like a live orchestra with meandering riffs and subtle percussion, crescendos and piano softs. Although their conversation had ceased verbally, their communication hadn’t. He took the empty wine glass from Rianya and set it on the table next to his.

Her eyes were an astonishing indigo in the subtle lighting. He’d not mistaken her invitations for the last couple of days. In fact, she welcomed him into her personal, physical space. He suddenly couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d made love to her. That alone revealed it had been too long.

He pushed his face into her heavy mane, tasting her neck and her skin, finding the small ridge buried in her hair where he no longer expected to find ears, but knew his kisses there would make her smile, curl her shoulders, and stretch away to encourage him more. He kissed the other side to be sure he didn’t miss any delicious bite of her, breathing in the lemon flavor of her cashmere-soft tresses.

She breathed soft sighs of luxury as he made his way down her neck, stopping to pull on the laces of her red dress and free her body that he could lay his affection on. He slid off the divan and slipped his arms under her knees and waist, picked her up like a big pillow then carried her to the bedroom. The freedom of the big bed, the smooth sheets and intimate privacy drove him into a primitive scheme that he didn’t want to rush.

They didn’t need words. He pulled on the skirt of her dress and slid it off her graceful body. Although she’d  adopted many human customs she still never wore any undergarments. Rianya appeared as Venus, his savory virgin, the brightest object in his universe. He had to shut his eyes if he wanted to treasure this reward. The little shots of serotonin and adrenaline battled fiercely with his desire to slow down. How he’d missed the mornings on her home world when they lingered in bed for as long as they wanted, with barely a reason to rise at all.

He stripped, fast, ignoring the conspicuous sounds of buckles, zippers and snaps, and the air of the room cooled the sweat on his skin. A glint in her eyes reflected the faint glow of the ceiling lamp, her feathery lashes calling him closer. Her skin’s natural blush blended with the muted rose sheets in the dim light. Where should he start? She was his, completely, to love, possess, and adore.

Chirp, chirp. “Bridge to captain!” 

Rianya groaned. Tom froze before dropping his forehead to her pillow.

“Are you kidding me! It’s zero thirty in the damn morning,” he shouted into the pillow. Rianya gently pushed Tom over and slid aside. He rolled away and threw his legs over the side of the bed, feet on the floor, dropping his face in his hands.

“Bridge to Captain Jackson, please respond.” He banged the button with his fist.

“What is it? This better be important, Mister,” he groused, almost shouting. His loins writhed in agony.

“So sorry to disturb you, Captain, but we’ve identified the alien ship.” The voice paused. “It’s Pegasi.”

Symbiosis Chapter 14

“Captain, I don’t think it would be wise for me to just start in on this corpse,” Dr. Adams said. “Not that Dr. Ferris and I wouldn’t have a field day.”

“No need to do an entire autopsy; why don’t you just get some DNA and see if you can figure out what killed him?”

“I have every intention of doing that, Jack. But anything more might ruin the specimen.”

Jackson and Adams spoke while Ferris worked in the isolation room unwrapping the body. Rianya joined them a few moments into their on board adventure.

“I hope I can join in, I’ve never seen anything like this!”

“It’s up to the doctors, Love. My interest is in its age and origins. Rumors are flying about it being from both the past and the future.” All eyes turned to him. “Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”

“Time travel, Jack?”

“You have another explanation for the Kiian research? Humans have only been out of the solar system for a few decades, not a few centuries. How can it be hundreds of years old and have human DNA?”

“It may not be hundreds of years old, and it may not have human DNA,” Adams reminded the captain. “Don’t get too excited.”

“I rely on facts, Doc, don’t worry about me.”

“I do, Jack. It will be an hour or so, Rianya, why don’t you come back and you can suit up and help Dr. Ferris.”

Tom and Rianya left the sick bay, stopping at their quarters.

“Where’s ‘Lara?”

“She’s with Zoe and Honey in the gym. Tom, why does Dr. Adams call you “Jack” all the time? No one else does.” Tom chuckled softly.

“We go back a long time.” Tom made his way to the lavatory to clean up from the landing mission. Although time spent outside had been in EV suits, when he returned from the Kiian research station he wanted wash off.

“What does that have anything do with it?” she called after him from their bedroom.

“He said I didn’t look like a Thomas, I looked like a Jack, so he’s always called me Jack, or Jackson, or Captain.” Rianya looked down at the floor and then called back.

“You look like a Tom to me.” She could hear water splashing in the shower, so changed into some clothing that would suit her being in the medical bay and then called through the door. The water had stopped. “Have you eaten anything?” The door opened promptly.

“The Kiians fed us, they insisted.” Tom walked past her rubbing a towel on his head, another one around his waist. The familiar fragrance of the soap on board trailed behind him, triggering a fond, vivid memory from years back, before she’d become a seasoned space traveler, before Zalara had been born. The scent teleported her to the first night they’d spent together on the beach of her home world. Forever linked were the curious fragrance of the humans’ soap and Tom’s firm embrace, the heat of his body against hers, and the confident feeling of euphoria.

“I know that look in your eyes,” Tom said while pulling on his trousers and looking at the chronometer on his wrist.

“I know, you have to be on the bridge, or something.”

“I have a few minutes.” He straightened up and stopped what he was doing, raising one brow at her, likely not entirely in jest.

“No, thank you, not interested.” He started to laugh and pulled on a shirt over his shoulders and quickly manipulated half a dozen buttons while he walked out, kissing her ear on the way past.

“Seriously,” he called to her. “Once we’re on our way to Eta Cass Four I don’t need to be on the bridge every minute.” She stepped up to him in the big room.

“I’m going to the sick bay for the afternoon,” she reminded him, reaching up to his collar and pulling the knot of his tie slightly to center it. While they’d lived a year in Enceladus, a human woman who had befriended her did the same for her husband one morning. “Maybe you can take up Zalara and Honey’s play hour. You don’t do that too often.”

“It’s a little difficult to go from captain to babysitter in the blink of an eye.”

“And captain to lover is not?” Tom opened the door to leave but he looked back over his shoulder and smiled.

“No.”
~~~

“We should date the carcass before exposing any of it to the air; that might change its molecular structure irreparably.”

“Dr. Jane,” Rianya said, “do you believe a person can go to different times but stay the same? It’s not sensible in any context.”

“I’m a scientist. The idea is to put forth an idea and then test it to prove it wrong.”

“Prove it wrong?”

“That’s what we call The Scientific Method. You have to be able to put a theory through tests, tests that can be duplicated by someone else, and if they can’t disprove your hypothesis, it’s probably solid.”

“It sounds backwards,” Rianya said. She stretched yellow latex gloves over both her hands.

“One day I’ll show you how it works. Earth struggled for decades with cold fusion, and breakthroughs were reported and debunked all the time.” Dr. Jane also pulled gloves on both of her hands, and they fastened hook and loop tape for each other along the backs of their gowns.

“Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but why are we dressed for surgery if this thing is dead?”

“In this case, the idea is to protect the examiner, not the patient,” she chuckled briefly. “Let’s get started.”

The woman from Earth and the woman from Beta Hydri each pulled up a Mayo stand on wheels and opened surgical packs. Rianya tapped a button on the one meter monitor and a radiograph of the skeleton appeared in highly refined detail.

“Those are strong bones,” Jane said. “Look at the density.”

“Is it human?”

"The skeletal structure is similar, but not a hundred percent. It is a mixed species. Look here.” She indicated some faint structures that appeared as collapsed balloons. “I think these are air sacs, like birds have.”

“Why would a person need those?” Rianya was baffled.

“Faster more efficient locomotion I suppose. Different atmosphere. We’ll see when we get in there.” She called up to the ceiling. "Computer, begin recording."

Dr. Jane Ferris picked up the laser and created a precision incision to the exact depth she wanted that for all intents and purposed created a lid out of the skull. She lifted it off with extra caution. Inside they saw a dark lump, not entirely shriveled but nevertheless dry. Rianya wasn’t familiar with malodors ever present in a morgue, and was glad to find that the body before them had an insignificant aroma compared to what she was expecting.

“Are you going to remove it?”

“I don’t want to sever it from the spinal cord. But I had to look. There’s no sign of hemorrhage so I don’t think he had a head injury. Let’s get a sample from the brain. It will have the best preserved cells since its mostly fat.”

Rianya held a small tray near the brain and Jane took the smallest possible bit with her laser and deposited it in the tray.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Rianya said suddenly. “Time travel?”

“Oh, yes. Well, no, it seems to me that if you went forward, you’d not exist yet, so you can’t do that. If you went backward, everything you do would change what exists today, and so maybe you’d not be here to go back and change it. That makes no sense. Hand me that,” she said, pointing. Rianya obliged.

“Aren’t there people who just go along and never make any significant change to the rest of the universe? Not everything a person does comes back to bite us.”

“If you can figure it out, let me know. But I don’t think it’s possible, practical, or even desirable.” The doctor cut a minute bone fragment from the skull and placed that alongside the bit of brain they’d taken a few moments earlier. After some more digging around, they finished for the time being. “Take these to Dr. Adams for carbon dating and a DNA spectrum, will you?”

Rianya dutifully removed her surgery attire to avoid contaminating anything outside of the isolation room, tossed the gloves, and then left with the samples for sick bay. Her mind focused only on getting to sick bay and not on the corpse, Zalara, Tom, or what they were going to find on the next planet.

“Dr. Adams, here’s what you need,” she called upon arrival.

“Wonderful, dear, let’s see what we have.” She handed off the small tray and he took each sample and put them into individual jars of a clear liquid. “These should do nicely. It will be a while before we have the final results. How are you holding up after this long in space?” he said suddenly.

“Me? Oh, it hasn’t been as long as the trip from Beta Hydri. I thought I would be crazy by the time we got to Earth.”

“Captain tells me we’re going to Beta Hydri after we’re done here. You still have family there.”

“Oh, yes, but I’m a bit worried about seeing them. Did he tell you what happened there?”

“No, not really.” His eager eyes begged for whatever she cared to share.

“My family would not accept Zalara. They thought she was a magic shaman that made a flood, and the earth shake.”

“Why would they think that?”

“Because she looks like Tom, not me. Her hair, her hands, her eyes. But not her ears. Those are like me.”

“You and she have so much hair no one would notice anyway,” he said with a laugh and a smile. Rianya had twice as much hair as any other female on board the ship, but only on her head.

“Maybe I shouldn’t ask this,” Rianya said, looking at her feet and sitting in the nearest chair, “but if you can keep a confidence?”

“Certainly,” Adams said with all seriousness. He stepped closer to her but remained standing. Rianya struggled a little but summoned her courage.

“Why does Dr. Jane look part brown and part pink? I’ve just never seen anyone like her before, on my planet, or Earth. I didn’t think I should ask her directly.”

“There’s nothing wrong with her. We call it hetero-chromatic displacement. It’s rare, only a few dozen people out of several billion on earth have it. But there’s a reason.” Rianya waited, raising her feather fine brows in expectation. “I’m not sure it’s a good reason.” The doctor sighed. “Okay, back about a hundred years a few governments started experimenting with chimeras.”

“I don’t know what that is, a chimeras.”

“A chimera is a creature that is part one thing and part another thing.”

“Zalara is a chimera?”

“Oh, heavens no, dear, no! She’s simply biracial, more or less, or technically a hybrid. A chimera is two different things put together, like a bird and a cat.” Rianya sat back, thoroughly confused. She shook her head.

“Humans have been putting similar things together forever, horses and donkeys, lions and tigers, but usually the offspring are infertile. In the mid-21^st century, genetic engineers had gone overboard and were putting all kinds of animal genes together, including the last one they ever did until international laws stopped it.”

“Is Dr. Jane genetically engineered?”

“Not exactly. Her ancestors were. One of her great grandparents was, well, a black and white canine. The canine’s genes were spliced into the human embryo, and so she kind of, well, retained the gene. She’s not half dog or anything; she just has the pigmentation pattern of one.”

“You’re joking with me,” Rianya said suddenly, smiling and laughing at Dr. Adams. He shook his head slowly.

“It’s no joke. Most of the chimera embryos were destroyed,  early on, but a few were, well, adopted, implanted in women, and became delightful people with interesting characteristics.”

“The people didn’t reject her.”

“She had nothing to do with her genome. A child is innocent. Not everyone can come to that level of consciousness, but it’s more widespread now than, say, a hundred years ago when this kind of thing was still frowned upon.”

Rianya sank deeper into the chair, not quite sure what she should do with that kind of information. Zalara was a naturally conceived child, born from a loving bond. Her small differences were just part of who she was, not any kind of intentional scheme or experiment. She swelled with gratitude for her fortune to live with humans, despite the few she’d encountered who were bad of their own devices, thinking of her own people who feared Zalara simply because of her looks, wiping a small tear from the corner of her eye.