With Other Eyes Page 4

  I couldn’t believe it, but I was suddenly wishing for the presence of the very same bureaucrats I had been endlessly cursing before.

  Restraining a morbid laugh, I typed: “Take us to your leaders.”

  The Travelers quickly passed us and headed towards the solid wall we had been studying, unflinching as a large triangular section retreated a few centimeters and silently slid aside just as it looked as our guides were about to run into the wall.

  Lazz waved a hand, the signal flash from his teeth clear even through two helmets as he grinned silently, bidding me to go first.

  I did, and we hunched down to follow the Travelers up a claustrophobic hallway, their twin figures swaying back and forth like unsteady bowling pins.

  It wasn’t long before we came into a large room with six other Travelers perched in pairs on odd, low stools around the edges of the room. In the middle there was a raised platform with two slightly more elaborate stools occupied by another pair of Travelers who reflected differently: they were denser. As Lazz and I entered, they stood up and the one on the right let out a rapid run of speech as it faced the others.

  Whatever was said wasn’t translated, but all the other Travelers immediately got up and filed out, leaving the four of us alone in the room. As the door slid shut, the Traveler on the left spoke.

  “I guide this vessel. This unit is…” An untranslated squeal I tagged as ‘One’. “And—”

  “—and this unit is…” the one of the right finished with a different squeal I tagged as ‘Two’. The numerical designations would be spoken now, whenever the Traveler names were used.

  I thought quickly and reached down to type: “This unit is Mitch and the other unit is Lazz. We combine to see, to learn.”

  “You are the witness,” One and Two said simultaneously.

  “Witness to what?” I asked.

  “To my journey,” the chorus responded and I was reminded again that there was no difference between any of the personal pronouns; the singular or plural you, ‘me’ and ‘us’, or ‘our’ and ‘my’. But they had individual names. I wondered if the collectivization was due to the increasing focus on species survival rather than individual survival towards the end.

  Lazz must have been thinking along the same lines, because he leaned over to whisper: “I just thought of something. They only have one arm and hand. Maybe that’s why they’re always in pairs?”

  “That’s a chicken and egg issue,” I decided. “They were always in pairs in the pictures. I just wonder if they are breeding units also, or if they are working pairs that breed differently. They never answered any of the questions about their biology.”

  I also wanted to know more about their “journey”, but my question about that was ignored.

  “You are here to see and learn about us,” was the only response I got. “An environmental chamber has been prepared from your directions. It has been sterilized and filled with gases compositionally equivalent to your sea level atmosphere. Follow.” They turned and headed for the right wall, part of which also slid aside obligingly for them, and remained open for us.

  “I think I’ve got it,” Lazz whispered as we entered another tight corridor. “They found us, and they can obviously see we don’t have any place for them, so before they go on, they want us to learn as much about them as possible. They want to open the door to later contact when they do find a new home. Look at how intent they were on finding other life. And it would explain the eye bit, too. They want us to see them, and their ship, with their eyes so we can understand them better.”

  “Could be…” But something didn’t feel quite right. “I wonder if there isn’t more to it. This pod alone could hold a lot more than the few Travelers we’ve seen. Even if this is a sleeper ship, don’t you think there would be more up and around for something like this? All their lives they’ve been searching for alien life, and now that they’ve found it, they don’t seem too terribly excited.”

  “You think these might be the only ones left?” Lazz fell silent for a moment, but I could almost hear his mental circuits firing.

  “Depends on how long they’ve been traveling. We don’t know if they have any kind of ‘hyper’ drive, or if they’ve been traveling sub-light—”

  “In which case this almost has to be a sleeper ship,” Lazz interrupted.

  “Exactly. Maybe they’ve had problems?”

  I was feeling totally morbid. Death had been circulating in my mind a lot for the past few months. My fears about having my eyes removed had sparked a desperate and failed attempt to reach out to Janice, and then misplaced guilt over that had brought back all the horror of losing Ellen, and now I was confronted by a species having fled a dying star.

  But Lazz felt it too. “You think they’re close to the end, and they want to pass this on to us before they die.”

  I nodded. “It would fit, and it would explain why there aren’t more of them around.”

  I turned to the Travelers and reached down to type: “What is in the other rotating pods?”

  “Those who lived,” was the immediate answer from ahead of us.

  “Bingo,” Lazz offered. “You were right.”

  “Yea, whoopie,” I grumbled. “I wish I wasn’t.” But as we approached an intersection of hallways to stop in front of an obviously jury-rigged airlock, I wondered which of us really was right. I had to be careful not to assume they would behave the way we would. Maybe what we were seeing was their version of jumping up and down with joy. And “those who lived” didn’t have to mean “those who died”.

  “Enter,” one of the Travelers commanded as the outer airlock door opened.

  “’Come into my parlor’, said the spider to the fly,” Lazz mumbled. “Maybe instead of worrying about whether or not they look like something edible, we should be worrying about how edible we look. Maybe they’re out of food and this is the fridge… just kidding,” he added in a hurry as I punched his arm and pulled him into the airlock.

  The door closed behind us, and our suits started billowing wildly after a moment as the air pressure dropped. We were briefly blasted with heat and a strange intense light, and then the suits settled down and the far door opened to reveal a large room with a wide wall panel that reflected in a strange way. An uncomfortable-looking bed had been added over against one wall.

  “Sanitary facilities are in the next room as specified,” a disembodied voice announced as we entered the room and the airlock door closed behind us. “Your suits and this chamber have been sterilized since you fear contamination.”

  “Uh, Kimosabe, we’re not working on the seniority system here, are we?” Lazz sounded a little nervous. “I’m worried enough about the air, but I really don’t want some alien Montezuma’s revenge hitting my system when I don’t even know what a bathroom looks like here.”

  “Relax,” I offered. “Even if Traveler germs could survive in our systems, the waste systems in the suits can handle even that. But you heard them—”

  “Yes: we’ve been sterilized,” Lazz grumbled.

  “I’ll go first.” I reached up for the release catches on my helmet and cracked the seal. Pulling my head free, I wrinkled my nose as the neck seal got caught on it, ripe with the sweaty smell of damp rubber. Lazz hissed expectantly and I realized I was holding my breath. Feeling my pulse race a bit, I breathed out and then drew in the room air tentatively to find myself inhaling scentlessly clean and cool air.

  “Come on in, the air is fine.” I slapped Lazz on the shoulder as I turned off the now needless air regulator for my suit and took some cleansing breaths to clean out the taste of canned air.

  A panel slid open on the wall, revealing a spare set of air canisters.

  “These are from your Transport,” the anonymous voice explained. “Exchange them and place the used ones here. They will be recharged for use.”

  “Why are we here?” I felt silly looking up as I switched my tank as instructed, but it was as good a direction as any. And at least thi
s room had a higher ceiling.

  “To learn where your eyes can see better,” came the immediate answer. The strange wall panel I had noted before was alive all at once with images of incredible depth and clarity. Traveler display technology obviously took full advantage of their sense of vision.

  “Will your recording system work at higher than real time speeds?” our guiding voice asked. “The capacity was stated in the data you sent.”

  I looked over at Lazz. That was his specialty, and he nodded.

  “As if they don’t know,” he grumbled. “We sent them the specs.” But he looked up to speak as I transcribed on the keyboard.

  “Up to about thirty times normal speed given a high resolution image… well, you’ve been using this type of vision a lot longer than we have, so I guess I can assume you’ll give us a good image…” He broke off in embarrassment. “There will be no problem,” he amended.

  I debated getting out of my suit to get comfortable, but before I could suggest it, our hosts spoke up again.

  “Focus on the display,” came our next order. “Use the seats.”

  I noticed the stools that seemed to be built into the floor in front of the screen. There were six of them arranged in pairs in a semi-circle, and we squatted awkwardly on two.

  “I have a feeling we’re going to be sitting here a while,” Lazz whispered. “I could sure use a beer right about now.”

  I was more worried about something else as I thought about hours of watching a video record passing too quickly to keep track of. “Is there a way to make sure the eye-sets don’t turn off if my eyes close?” I had a sudden panic image of dozing off in the middle of a prime period of Traveler history and my eye-set recorder shutting off because my eyes closed.

  Lazz chuckled. “Open up,” he ordered as he reached for his belt to pull out a small tool from a kit as I undid the front of my suit to give him access to my computer. He bent down for a moment and opened a small panel, and then made some invisible adjustments before straightening.

  “There. If you do happen to disgrace mankind by nodding off there will be no witnesses… except me,” he concluded ominously. “And I locked the focus on the distance of the screen, just in case.”

  “How about your eyes?” I whispered needlessly.

  “I’ll be okay. I’m used to this, from one of my data processing instructors.” His voice suddenly took on a droning, monotone voice as he slowly said: “He… had… this… incredible… monotone… way… of… lecturing.” He shook his head. “But God help you if you nodded off. In his classes you had to pay attention! And he loved to give pop quizzes” Lazz laughed. “No, don’t worry about me.”

  As we turned to face the display, the screen shimmered and apparently reset, because we were looking in on a vivid image of the ocean in the frames on the wall outside, shifting as we watched, and alternating with teasingly brief images of close-ups within the water. I restrained a smile as I realized we were watching the Traveler equivalent of a PBS documentary. Accompanying the fluid flow of images was a rapid, high-pitched squeal which when slowed down would probably prove to be a narrator’s voice.

  After a while, as I had expected, my attention drifted and the swirling images on the screen blurred, even if it stayed in focus. It was a weird feeling. I was locked at attention—I mustn’t shame humanity!—but I wasn’t really seeing the hypnotically blurred screen. Instead, I saw sheeting rain on the windshield of Ellen’s car as we drove home after a late dinner at Fleur de Lies. It had been our twelfth wedding anniversary, May 20th, 2017… the last one we had shared…

  I had gone all out to reserve one of the dining rooms just for the two of us, and hired a classical trio from a nearby college to play. I wanted this to be an extra special anniversary because Ellen had just sold her first fiction novel. While I had astronomy for a hobby, hers had been writing mysteries. She had been writing and selling short stories for years and had finally—after much urging on my part—decided to try a full-length novel. And she had sold it to a mid-sized publisher, with a fair advance for simultaneous CD-Text, Electronic and Print rights.

  That deserved a celebration.

  The candle-lit dinner was perfect: a falling-apart tender trout aux amandes, broccoli with Hollandaise sauce, new potatoes simmered with an incredible fresh herb seasoning, fresh warm rolls on the side, an incredible Chenin Blanc—only a single glass apiece because we wanted fully clear heads for the rest of the night—and a sinfully rich chocolate cake for dessert. Gentle music of Mozart, Dvorak and Bach eased our digestion, and we left the restaurant walking on air. A sudden rain shower did nothing to dampen our spirits.

  Since my car was in the shop, we were using Ellen’s and naturally she was driving. Her convertible was her baby. The rain was light but we took it easy as we headed home, anxious to get more intimate. I was trying not to look too anxious as I pictured her finding her present on her pillow: I had found a first edition of an early Agatha Christie novel that I knew she had been dying to get to add to her collection. It had cost me an arm and a leg, but after our last anniversary when she had bought me an antique telescope I had been eyeing, I had been determined to find her something equally appropriate.

  With the fogging up of the inside rear window, neither of us had seen the dark blue van that had been behind us until it was right on our rear bumper. It was running without headlights in the early evening gloom, the driver obviously impatient over Ellen’s careful driving at the speed limit. The driver of the van didn’t seem to care about the fact that the small manual-control road we were on was a two-lane one with no-passing markings laid down, because as soon as a gap opened in the oncoming traffic, he floored it to pass us, ignoring the blaring alarm that was certainly coming from his dashboard as he crossed over the electronic road-markers; an alarm already logged in his violations-box, unless it had been disconnected.

  Ellen had seen it, and she calmly moved over as much as possible and slowed down to give him room, but we were approaching a curve and unseen to the van, a large truck was just coming around it, lights flashing angrily on high as the truck driver slammed on the brakes. The van driver panicked and swerved right into us, the shock throwing me against side window hard enough to stun me.

  The next few moments passed in a blurred haze as our car ran up on a stone wall to our right and flipped, spinning and sliding to slam into the oncoming truck with a numbing crash that blacked me out.

  I had awakened in the hospital almost ten hours later. I had had three broken ribs, a broken leg and a concussion, but all that had been forgotten in the agony of learning the Ellen was dead. It had been her side of the car that had hit the truck, and while the roll-bar had saved us when the car had flipped, the windshield frame had been ripped loose to plunge into Ellen’s chest, driven by the impact to kill her instantly.

  And the van driver had not even been bruised! And to make it worse, he had not shown the slightest sign of remorse on sobering up. He had laughed at the life-time sentence imposed on him and sworn that he wouldn’t even spend a week in a cell. And he had been right. Three days later, due to jail-crowding, he had been remanded to house arrest at his home with electronic surveillance as his only guardian.

  I had been a basket-case for months, unable to imagine a life without her. For twelve years, our lives had revolved around each other. Sure, we each had had our own interests and we had not spent every moment together, but there had always been the subliminal knowledge that the other was there; within reach with a raised voice or the push of a speed dial button. But suddenly that had been over.

  I was alone.

  The screen in front of me took on a new poignancy as I realized that for all the pain I was feeling, and had felt, the beings in this ship had lived with a far greater horror all of their lives. What was my loneliness to theirs?

  The subliminal squealing stopped and the screen stabilized with a vivid image similar to one of those on the panel in the mural. During early mechanization. Then the panel went bl
ank. I decided that the wall outside was an abridged Traveler history text, and that we had been shown it first so we would appreciate the full class room course we were being exposed to now.

  My muscles and my bladder were all screaming for relief, and I stood up to stretch, grateful for the sanitary functions of the suit. Glancing at my watch, I realized in amazement that we had been sitting motionless for almost five hours!

  Next to me Lazz rose, managing to pop some joint or other with a loud crack that echoed in the small room. “Next time,” he groaned. “Remind me to bring some Relax-Tabs! Nutrient bars and water just don’t do it.” Then he reached over to reset my eye-set computer. “Now what?”

  Our answer came as the same panel that had provided fresh air canisters slid open again, but this time, the compartment behind it was piled high with the supply containers from the Transport.

  “Eat and sleep,” came a new order. “When you are ready for the next viewing, tell me.”

  “Hey,” I heard Lazz call as he sorted through the pressure cases. “This one’s got my name on it.” He opened it and pulled out a uni-suit rolled up next to a deflated air-mattress, a small case, and two other uni-suits. “Bless her heart! She managed to sneak this on…” He looked over at me, wide-eyed. “She knew all along! There wouldn’t have been time for her to slip this along after we left her. He shook his head and then looked up. “I know you can’t hear me, sweetheart, but thanks.” He blew a kiss at the ceiling before turning back to me.

  “Okay, Mitch: C’mon. You heard our hosts. It’s break time. Considering where we stopped, we’ve got a lot of history left to cover.” He grabbed his uni-suit and headed for the doorway to our ‘sanitary facilities’.

  The door opened automatically as he approached it, and he peeked in suspiciously before turning to me with a flash from his teeth.