The Wreck of the *Untranslatable* - Chapter 18

          Returning to their normal antagonism was a painful relief for Katy Olu and NuRikPo.  The process was excruciating and exhausting.  While the hastily fabricated micro-robot destroyers quickly disrupted the functional effectiveness of their alien counterparts, their campaign to hunt down and execute every single foreigner took time and caused pain.

Unlike the original invaders, their predators were not designed to work slowly and carefully.  In order to stay ahead of their prey, these constructs were permitted some collateral cellular damage.  They moved directly to the sites of worst concentration, ripped apart as many foreign constructs as they could catch, then raced after any fleeing survivors seeking refuge in distant bodily interstices.  This hasty travel tore apart any interposing organic cells, creating small ruptures in various tissues.  The microscopic soldiers also wielded weapons less selective than the tools used by the more subtle alien infiltrators.  They had been given license to incinerate the occasional innocent cell if a fugitive robot attempted to use it for cover.  

 The first effect of this internal holocaust was agony, from a nervous system suddenly thrown out of balance.  The interfering microtech had been rewiring Katy and NuRikPo's emotional reflexes, using individual artificial ‘bodies’ as bridges and blockages between nerve cells.  As the counter-agents crushed and zapped those neural stand-ins, they triggered protesting aches and twitches all throughout their hosts' bodies.  The absence of former connective links also produced odd numbness, tingling, and surges of emotion and sensation of various types.  Katy could somewhat trace the progress of the war within her by the location and character of side effects experienced.  She was relieved to be quietly stretched out on a folding cot, under a thin blanket, during the battles for her amygdala and hypothalamus… the alternating explosions of discomfort and pleasure were stimulating some very personal areas. 

            NuRikPo had apparently been more extensively remodeled.  He barely had enough time to finish fabrication of Katy’s inoculation before he began wincing and twitching.  As she had feared, he experienced a series of minor seizures as the first engagements began within his major nerve structures.  As these attacks faded, they were followed by severe weakness and emotional swings. 

            At this rate, they would need at least a day to sleep off the initial sickness caused by overloads in their nervous system.  Regaining their natural hormonal and neurotransmitter balances would take longer, perhaps one or more weeks.  Katy would need to requisition herself and ‘Po some psychoactive meds from the ship's stores.  As it was, she was already traumatized by the narrowly averted romantic interlude between herself and the temporarily receptive Zig.  Her preferred form of therapy, sexual intercourse, would not be helpful in relieving that particular mental hobgoblin.  Hell, she might have flashbacks of that while in bed.  The culture responsible for this ship and its microtech had a lot to answer for.

            Before they could move on from exterminating the little robots to murdering their creators, the two sapients had to recover.  After that, they needed to set up internal protections against a second wave of intruders.  The invasive constructs had not so far shown an ability to adapt to changing conditions, but that was no reassurance that they could not learn.  The ship might itself be able to produce a variety of micro-robots for different purposes.  The next attack might be more intentionally fatal, particularly now that its prisoners had figured out how to disable the first wave of mind-control bugs.

            Katy suffered less drastic torment than NuRikPo, but still felt like she had contracted a full-body infection.  Every joint ached.  Even after the major fusillades had died down, the outrage of their disrupted bodies manifested as inflammation.  They would need anti-carcinomic treatments to avoid tumor development from all that cellular damage. 

Still, the process was less drastic than one alternative they had considered: full-body electrocution.  Sure, that would have disabled the attackers, but also might have given the host cardiac arrhythmia, major seizures, and possibly nerve damage or memory loss.  Whoever received the treatment first might be left incapable of administering it safely to the other patient.  Now that they understood the effects of the micro-robots better, any such drastic method might have been an entirely ineffective strategy.  They needed to both be treated, closely together in time, or else the untreated victim would be incurable.  After enough time, a victim would refuse to be treated, even going so far as to flee or fight back.  At worst, they might overpower the other, purged partner and reinfect them intentionally.  The afflicted would consider their condition a blessing to be spread.

Even NuRikPo now understood the insidious nature of this technology.  The victim would not entirely lose their volition, only their resistance to the commands of the microtech… and the ship it originated from… and the creators of that ship.  Otherwise, they might still retain their original memories, skills, and a portion of their original personality.  They would be less obvious automatons than a fully rewritten organism or a facsimile android.  They would also be much more useful.  Was the ship trying to replace its original crew with biddable new sapients?  Or were its aims more grandiose: luring in sapients to become carriers for the spread of its influence? 

The significance of the ‘greeter’ construct outside their shuttle door became more clear as Katy shuddered and drowsed.  If it did indeed mimic the Ningyo, then it might have met them in person.  If the Ningyo had come aboard, they could very well be infested.  Judging from NuRikPo’s lower immunity, the Ningyo might or might not have been more susceptible to attack… but their suits were definitely easy targets.  The organisms inside could have been easily disabled and held captive for as long as it took for the micro-robots to puzzle out an interface for their biological components. 

That would explain why the Ningyo were stopping and recruiting ships – particularly pirate ships – for the unnamed vessel.  They were snaring it new prey, to be transformed into new carriers.  Katy suddenly had a horrible vision of the Scape Grace being gradually transformed into an obedient, orderly assembly of brainwashed drones.  Not that she cared much about the fate of the individual crew, but that ship was her home, the repository of all her belongings, and her ride between galaxies.  She needed those reeking apes – Human and Mauraug both – to keep working on her behalf. 

They had to leave this ship.  They had to bring the cure back to Scape Grace and reverse whatever damage had already been done.  There was no way that the morons back there would be capable of developing their own counter-agent.  Katy even had to admit that without NuRikPo, she would never have managed it.  Alone, he probably would have failed as well.  Only the fusion of their specialties had produced a workable model, capable of navigating a living body, identifying its targets, and selectively destroying just those undesirables (mostly). 

It was nice to have understudies capable of filling in in their absence – Luuboh bash’Gaulig in her case, the Georges for NuRikPo – but those pale shadows would never have identified the threat in time, much less known what to do against it.  No, Scape Grace was doomed unless they could get back.

The major problem with escaping was the obvious one: where was the exit?  The ship had sealed up their point of entry, not only closing but also removing the portal entirely.  If the material of its hull was sufficient to maintain pressure and temperature against vacuum, not to mention reflect interstellar radiation and debris, then it would be difficult to breach.  The weaponry built into their shuttle might burn or blast a hole, but either method had its problems.  An explosion of sufficient force could damage them also in this enclosed space; there was nowhere to move the shuttle far enough away from the walls to avoid that risk.  An energy weapon of high magnitude carried the same blast-back hazard.  A lower-powered beam could possibly be used to carve their way out more slowly… but then they had to be concerned about the self-repair properties of this unique ship.  Could they cut fast enough to outrace the hull material sealing itself back up?  Could they get enough of a lead to actually open a hole large enough for the shuttle?  Could they manage that, plus deal with sudden depressurization, suction, waste heat… and any unexpected defenses the ship might muster?

There were too many unknowns to act immediately.  Or rather, to act as soon as they felt capable of such action.  Katy and NuRikPo slept for most of the day following their inoculation.  They hardly had the strength to curse at one another, much less overcome their embarrassment enough to hold a conversation.  Three meals and thirty hours passed before they conferred to evaluate their situation.

Katy shared her thoughts and was relieved to find NuRikPo in agreement.  He added that, like the micro-robot antibody system, the other systems of the ship had to have their weaknesses.  Rather than worry about a brute force solution to break their way out, they would be better served by resuming their study of the ship’s ‘anatomy’.  Ideally, they would learn something about the methods used to power the various construct cell types and to maintain coordination between them. 

“For example, do they communicate through a central controller?  Between themselves?  Or do they have a truly decentralized structure and act only based on local interactions with adjacent cells?  I suspect that some combination of these possibilities is at work,” NuRikPo theorized. 

One of his first projects upon regaining his faculties had been to search for signals.  Not external signals from the Scape Grace – an automated program had already been working on that problem over the last four days – but signals internal to the ship itself.  He had identified some type of very short wave radio communication emanating from just outside the shuttle, but the signals were fragmentary and encoded in an unfamiliar manner.  The latter property was unsurprising; there was no reason a truly foreign intelligence would employ the same coding structures used by Zig or any other Collective culture.  Even after decoding, the underlying messages would be unintelligible without reference to a numerical or linguistic system or both.  What was odd was that the signals were individually short and weak and originated from multiple points simultaneously, in ‘choruses’ of signals with varying intensity, frequency, duration, and ranges of each property for each signal individually.  Rather than modulating one strong carrier wave, this system seemed to modulate the entire composite of multiple waves.  Possibly, the component cells of the ship talked in an all-to-all manner, receptive to only one or a small range of signal types.  Or, groups of cells talked to groups of cells.  The possibilities could permutate over a wide solution space. 

“Much as I hate to say it, we could really use that wirehead right now,” Katy groused. She was referring to Gleamer.  “More specifically, we could use one of his programs to work on analysis.”

“While speaking the native language might be useful, I’m afraid we’ll need to wage war before we can consider diplomacy.”  The two of them sat across the shuttle cabin from one another, NuRikPo slumped askew in the control chair and Katy hunched over the side of the folding cot.

Katy fixed the Zig with a condescending look, brows raised as her chin tilted down.  “If we could figure out their ‘language’ we might be able to interfere with their control structure.  We might get access to their programming.  I love the irony of the thought that we might override this system the way it tried to override ours.  I suppose we don’t have the time or resources right now, but when we get back, we might want Gleamer to look over our recordings and see if this ship’s AI can be hacked.”

“Ah, you want to manipulate it.  My apologies, I should have anticipated that thought from you.”

“Stick it between your spicules, you selenium-sucking stickbug.”

“A pity your linguistic ability ground to a halt before you reached maturity.  Fortunately, your victims respond well enough to suggestive grunts and gestures.”

“Victims?  Even if you are referring to my targets, I’d like to see you try to manage the same.  You’d be dead in seconds, even if your mark was a blind Zig widow.”

“I admit I lack your advantages.  Still, as our unwanted guests have demonstrated, there are means of persuasion that do not involve prostitution.”

“Hey, penetrate or be penetrated, you still have to know what you’re doing.  They’re effective, I’m effective, you’re effective.  I don’t tell you how to tighten a bolt, you can do me the same courtesy.”

“If it will get us off the current topic, then yes, I will agree to avoid insulting your abilities.”

“Even your tone of voice carries insults.  You could read technical instructions and sound condescending.”

“Well, then pardon me my tone and I will pardon your behavior.”

“My behavior?  I don’t need your KetkeRakeh pardon, TimoTi-RikPoNu!”

Katy was gratified to see her response hit home.  If she had hit the inflections right, she had basically informed NuRikPo that he had acted out of character for his caste, assuming the privileges reserved for a Gold Caste spiritual leader.  It was a devastating criticism if delivered by another Zig, a censure with no exact Human counterpart.  The closest was something like the cliché: “Who died and made you God?”

NuRikPo certainly looked shocked, his reflective eyes opened wide and his fingers splayed as if to catch himself from falling forward.  Then they shut tight and his mouth drew taut, while his hands wrapped around his shoulders.  He shuddered and rocked forward.  Katy became briefly concerned that she might have overloaded his overburdened emotional balance somehow.  The last thing she wanted – or needed – was for the engineer to have a mental breakdown.

When she saw drops of glittering moisture at the corner of his eyes, she was terrified that the Zig was going to start crying.  Then she finally reached across cultural differences and recognized the behavior she was seeing.  NuRikPo was laughing.  He finally opened his mouth and a clicking, twittering noise poured from his throat as he continued to shake.

“What?  I meant it, asshole.  You have no right…”

“No,” NuRikPo gasped, “You were close...”  He struggled to stop shaking and draw breath to respond.  “...but I think you meant to say KettiRakeh, ‘inappropriate for one’s caste’, not ‘inappropriate for one’s family’.  It sounded like you were telling me to stop acting like your father.  Otherwise, I’m impressed by your grasp of KetiNepaTi.”  He was gradually managing to regain his composure, relaxing his mouth but still blinking furiously.

Katy rolled her eyes, “Close enough.  I’m sure my father would sound like you if he were here.  What I do is none of his business, either.  Maybe we can act like professionals here and save the personal comments for… actually, never.”

“Fair enough,” NuRikPo agreed, nodding in intentional imitation of Human gesture.  “I’m gratified that you even learned enough to attempt that phrase.  Sometimes I wonder if Humans understand anything about Zig culture beyond our technology.”  He attempted to stand, but was forced to brace himself on the chair and console to stay upright.

“Huh, I thought you made it intentionally complicated so that outsiders would stay confused.  I learned enough to push buttons… you know, like I do.”

“It’s actually simplified from several centuries ago, into more workable forms.  I’d say Human culture is equally confusing.  I have difficulty seeing you, captain Lerner, my assistants, and that appropriately-named Iron person as members of the same species.  You personally look like Gold Caste and work like Copper; the captain leads like Gold Caste but looks like Iron.  The other three at least match their appearance to their duties.  Then compare you to that Macauley Human…”  NuRikPo made an obvious flinch of revulsion.

“I don’t know what you non-Humans have against him.  I like his style,” Katy teased, stretching now herself and preparing to test her own legs. 

“No surprise.  He seems your intellectual type, if not physical.  But surely you can recognize why he disturbs more sane sapients.”

“I can like whoever I like, Dad.”

“Please, can we get back to work now?  Professional, remember?”

“Agreed.”

After a quick meal heavily spiked with electrolytes and nutrients helpful for regrowth of their damaged tissues, Katy and NuRikPo began packing for their expedition outside of the shuttle.  They agreed that they needed to investigate the structure of the unnamed ship more thoroughly.  As a proximate goal, they needed to identify its limitations and weaknesses to find points for exploitation.  They needed to escape.  At worst, they needed to get a message out to the Scape Grace.  Somewhere in between was the idea of expelling a beacon containing a sample of the counter-agent.  Perhaps with a sample for reference, their understudies could manage to bridge the gap between their comprehension and their superiors’.

The distant goal for the two investigators remained from their original assignment: explore the unnamed ship, document its technologies, and collect whatever they could for use or resale to the highest bidder.  It appeared that this was an all-or-none goal.  Either they would comprehend the unique design and structures of this ship as a whole or else its separate parts were worse than useless… they might be actively dangerous to distribute.

The Wreck of the *Untranslatable* - Chapter 17

           The hours were long, the quarters were cramped, the food was terrible, the situation was worsening, and both Katy Olu and NuRikPo were forced to work with someone they loathed.  Why, then, were they growing steadily less uncomfortable as the days wore on? 

            The effect was subtle at first.  Through the first two days, the two cellmates managed to avoid one another by staying at opposite ends of the shuttle, immersing themselves in work, and alternating their sleep schedules.  They interacted only when necessary to share results from their respective tasks.  Katy also had to periodically scan NuRikPo, in addition to herself, to track the spread of the micro-robotic infestation within their bodies. 

            That spread was progressing exactly as she had feared.  The concentrations of metallic ‘cells’ were travelling from the two sapients' extremities, to their spines, and then upward to their central nervous systems.  Small colonies of the little machines also appeared to be forming in their glands: the adrenal glands, ovaries, and thyroid in Katy Olu and their equivalents in NuRikPo, when adjusting for Zig anatomy and gender differences.  The latter discoveries required some particularly unpleasant personal contact and discussions. 

            The micro-robots were hitting all bodily regulatory systems, including autonomous nervous functions, and were probably also setting up shop in the two sapients’ brainstems and limbic structures.  Emotional control was the most likely explanation.  Not much of their cortical areas had been infested yet. 

            That pattern was both reassuring and puzzling.  Direct control of an intelligent organism would be simpler by manipulating memory access, sensory content, motor functions, or overall executive functioning.  If the machines wanted to rewrite their bodies and minds, there were far more overt changes that could be made.  A limited time frame might have restricted gross modifications.  Perhaps the robots would move on to more complex projects eventually.  Or perhaps the overall system being built within their bodies was learning: drawing a map before it remodeled the terrain.  Such a scheme would ensure finer control and a more functional, believable automaton, not to mention yielding data about the original organism.  If nothing else, such data would allow the next generation of micro-robots to more quickly convert new organisms of the same type. 

At least they were not being remolded physically in the image of the ship’s structure… or of its absent creators.  Those had been among Katy’s first paranoid hypotheses.  Being made into a puppet by an internal control system was awful enough, but at least she would still look like herself.  Perhaps she would still think like herself... with a few improvements.  Wait, what?

Such odd thoughts were the first warning signs that her mind was being tampered with.  As the third day passed, Katy found herself increasingly experiencing stray thoughts and feelings at odds with her prior attitudes.  Her fear of the micro-robots was decreasing.  Her explorations continued, but flavored more with fascination than with revulsion.  The ship outside seemed less like a hateful, foreign, hostile environment and more like an interesting new place to explore.  The man-shaped construct outside their shuttle door no longer seemed like a threatening guardian, but possibly a welcoming friend.  Her sense of urgency declined.  Sometimes it took an effort of will to go back to work, researching the systems that were being manipulated and trying to anticipate and counter the influences exerted.

NuRikPo, when asked, admitted to similar emotional changes.  For him, however, the change was less from dislike to neutrality and more from irritation to positive engagement.  He had viewed their entrapment within the unnamed ship, the subsequent jeopardy from the invading nanotechnology, and the necessity of researching counter-measures as unwelcome distractions from their original mission of studying the ship’s overall technologies.  Certainly, they were learning quite a lot by necessity, but they were cut off from the rest of the ship.  They were narrowly focused on one element while missing the wider context of the entire system.  Such limitations grated on both NuRikPo’s sense of duty and scientific curiosity.  He had been annoyed two days ago.  Now he was starting to appreciate the skillful design of a brilliantly integrated system.  The invasion of his own body seemed like a courtesy, a demonstration of the subtle power of miniaturized technology.  While he still yearned to explore the ship as a whole, his feelings were less about exploitation and more about appreciation.  He could tolerate starting his investigations at the smallest scale and working his way outward.

It took longer for the two forcible collaborators to recognize the other changes in their emotional makeup.  When they did, they were more offended than they had been by the changes in their outlook toward the ship.  They were growing less hostile toward one another.  Katy had long before assumed that she no longer minded NuRikPo’s awful chemical odor because her olfactory systems had been overloaded.  His misshapen, eye-bulging, narrow-lipped face had just become too familiar to be properly repulsive.  Even so, why was she no longer cringing at his terrible, dry jokes?  His nervous tics and taps, which before had been grating noises, now seemed like comfortable background rhythms. 

Katy did not voice these observations to NuRikPo.  For one problem, it would be humiliating.  Worse, he might admit to similar changes in feeling.  She could deal with being artificially forced to not hate the obnoxious Zig.  Having him abandon his own complaints about her for the same reasons – and not because he finally understood how bizarrely wrong those complaints were – would be disturbing.  If he actually admitted to enjoying her company she might be forced to put a scalpel through his glittering eyeballs.  That would really slow down his research.  For such reasons, Katy kept her socio-emotional alterations to herself. 

It was bad enough that she could tell that NuRikPo was being affected.  His insults slowed down and stopped.  He was nearly courteous during their scheduled interactions and did not immediately turn away when finished.  He almost lingered to make small talk, which cut off awkwardly when she glared at him (half-heartedly) in response.  When she thought she saw the curmudgeonly engineer almost smile in her direction, Katy decided that the bugs must have finally invaded her visual cortex and were making her hallucinate.  That was a more comforting thought than total personality modification.

Her rational mind vetoed this idea, unfortunately.  For one thing, such cortical modifications, this soon, would have given her other, less subtle and more bizarre hallucinations.  Probably would have given her headaches, too.  No, she was definitely being subjected to lower brain alterations.  Oddly positive ones, it seemed.  Maybe the puppeteer machines would have them fight to the death later.  For now, the changes seemed to be aimed toward pleasant and pacifistic ends. 

Hopefully, remaining calm and avoiding antagonism would keep the rewiring to a minimum.  At least, Katy told herself that as an excuse to avoid deliberately ruffling NuRikPo’s feathers.  She had to stifle a giggle at the thought of the staid copper-skinned sapient plumed like a parrot.  Wow, she was getting deranged, fast.  They could make a fortune selling these crawlers as a psychoactive drug.  People would pay to bend their minds this much. 

That was, assuming that they could figure out the command structures for the system.  There either had to be some overall programming built into the mechanisms themselves – possibly in the DNA-equivalent ‘tape’ NuRikPo had discovered – or else a method of coordination using the radio generator and receiver elements found on some of the units they dissected.  Such structures were part of the reason why ‘nano-’ was the wrong prefix term for this technology.   Only some of the devices were at a scale less than one micrometer.  Most were like bacteria: as large and complex as organic cells, with nanite-scale ‘organelles’, reproductive nuclei, and multiple in-built functions and behaviors.

Both Katy and NuRikPo were impressed with the machines, despite themselves.  Or at least, despite their normal selves.  With the influence of the machines also in play, they could not help being enchanted by their invaders.  Katy saw them as clever mimicry of the structures biology had accomplished through eons of selective winnowing.  NuRikPo saw them as the products of genius engineers; an entire culture of such engineers, like his own.  Those creators certainly possessed a valuable and unique technology.  In one of their conversations, Katy and ‘Po agreed that the sapients responsible for the unnamed ship would have a good chance of acceptance into the Collective.  That was, provided the Collective did not find it necessary to destroy this technology for its own safety. 

The thought upset them both deeply.  As the first distinctly unpleasant feeling either had experienced throughout their third day, that disturbance stood out noticeably.  It was enough to shake the two out of their musings and put them back to work combating the increasingly obvious yet increasingly powerful pressure on their psyches.  Katy had been right; the cells were an immune system.  The ship was protecting itself.  Instead of attacking them physically, the ship had infiltrated their motivational systems.  They were being encouraged to appreciate the ship.  In time, they might begin to love it.  The thought of harm coming to the unnamed ship was already distressing.  How long before they would fight on its behalf?  Kill its enemies?  Sacrifice themselves for its survival?

Katy kept these thoughts stoked using anger.  She struggled to maintain her fury at being entered and changed without permission.  She held out hope that such changes were not permanent, that her mind would return to its former patterns after the micro-robots were disabled. 

Such resistance was difficult.  It seemed that the harder she fought to rebel, the more strongly the little censors clamped down on her emotions.  Belatedly, she realized that she was making it easier for the bugs to find what they wanted: her emotional triggers and ammunition.  Katy reversed course later in the day, attempting to calmly, rationally lay out the case for resistance in her mind.  Her motivations had to come from reason, not desire, or else they were vulnerable to mechanical control through her biology.  Her so-called ‘higher’ functions were not yet under the same attack. 

Finally, she decided to sleep.  Her researches were running more and more slowly with less and less result.  Part of that was due to fatigue, part due to mental resistance, but a certain part was just due to the limits of her expertise.  She had identified the activity of the micro-robots, their course of attack, and their likely end goal.  She had given her observations to NuRikPo, including even an analysis of the various construct types from the perspective of biological analogy.  Unless further observation yielded some unexpected insight – which was growing less likely – her contributions were coming to an asymptotic end.  She might as well sleep and slow the progress of the infection.

When she awoke, she found NuRikPo sitting at the shuttle’s control panel, head nodded forward.  Two days ago, in a similar situation, she would have been furious with the engineer for violating their scheduled sleep rotation, contemptuous of him for working himself to exhaustion, and put off by the idea of having to wake him.  She probably would have screamed something nasty at him from a distance.

Instead, she decided to walk quietly and check on the drowsing Zig.  She found him not asleep but staring at the console’s display.  The screen was showing iterations of several simulations NuRikPo had been working on earlier.  These simulations showed the various forms of micro-robots replicating, interacting with biological cells and one another, and eventually being broken down and rebuilt by other robot types.  Each simulation attempted to find weak points in the 'life cycle', where the machines could be dismantled or blocked from their activity by a counter-machine.  This output would then form the functional basis for construction of their counteragent: a ‘cure’ for the micro-tech plague. 

NuRikPo looked dazed, his large eyes staring transfixed at the animations.  Katy laid a hand gently on his shoulder and shook him with equal care.  He blinked and turned to look at the Human woman, raising one hand from the keyboard to lay it over her hand. 

“They’re just so… perfect,” he mumbled, turning his head slightly to address Katy, but still keeping the screens in view. 

“Perfect little monsters,” Katy retorted, though without much feeling.  It felt like a practiced complaint, delivered out of habit, not spite.  Hatred had become a reflex function for her, but now she stopped at the initial twitch of vitriol.

NuRikPo’s reaction was predictable.  “No, not at all.  We’re more monstrous: so irregular, so violent.  Our systems are predicated on so much waste.  We waste resources; we require mass suicides of cells.  These constructs waste nothing.  Destruction of units is carefully planned as a feature rather than a convenient default.  All of the resulting materials are then reabsorbed and reused by the colony.  There is no excretion, no waste product at all.”

“No wonder you’re in love.  It’s like a Zig’s dream,” Katy laughed lightly at her own jibe.  How had such words once been the expression of her loathing?  She knew so much about NuRikPo.  The depth of her insults betrayed the depth of her attention to him.  She had held his life in her hands, had been elbows deep in his body.  How could she not feel a connection between them?  She moved closer, her head next to his as they watched the simulations together.  She turned to her companion’s gleaming, red-gold cheek and leaned closer still…

“AAAAAAAugh!”

            The two sapients were both startled by the abrupt, loud exclamation from Katy’s throat.  They leapt backwards from one another.  NuRikPo nearly fell off the shuttle’s anchored piloting chair.  Katy had to catch herself on a strap to avoid falling into the engineer’s workbench. 

            “What was that?” NuRikPo wailed as he pulled himself back upright, “Some bizarre primate joke?  A sonic assault?”

            “That was me almost kissing you, you shiny chunk of excrement!  Either wake up and get back to work or take an actual nap and then get back to work, because I will kill us both if this continues much longer.” 

            Katy was actually enjoying the sensation of nausea crawling through her throat.  It felt honest and more real than the induced affection she had been experiencing moments before.  Not surprisingly, it was already fading.  She also felt a violent rage at being manipulated so thoroughly, but that emotion was squashed first.  Her adrenaline cut off soon afterward.  The shift in states was obvious if you knew what to expect.  There were tell-tales to such blatant adjustments, particularly the lag while the bugs struggled to swap over her sympathetic and parasympathetic system responses.  Adrenaline was easy, though.  It would take the robots a while longer to edit out the feelings of revulsion sparked by almost coming into contact with Zig skin.

            They’re full of poison, you stupid fleas, Katy verbalized internally.  She doubted that the machines could pick up on complex linguistic thought, but why not?  Let them understand the depth of their error.  Her will could be bent, but she could not be entirely broken.  Some things were just too foul to allow. 

            NuRikPo’s reaction further fueled her resolve.  He looked hurt.  At least, his expression was close enough to Human offense to suggest that interpretation.  His eyelids drooped at the edges.  He was frowning deeply, a disturbing enough variation in itself.  His shoulders slumped. 

            “I see.”  Dammit, he couldn’t even muster nonchalance, or at least a decent scandalized attitude.  He sounded sad and rejected. 

“I admit I am tired, but I have been working, Katy.”  His tone sounded like an appeal rather than a reproach.  “The counteragents are in synthesis.”

Katy’s head whipped rapidly between NuRikPo and his workspace.  Indeed, his transmutation module was connected to several other devices, which were in turn linked to the shuttle’s central computer.  Blinking lights and readouts indicated the ongoing process of synthesis.  Entire factories each barely a centimeter across had been erected within a sealed chamber, and were steadily being fed raw materials and excreting armies of finished micro-robots.  Their micro-robots, their soldiers against the invading forces. 

“What?  They’re ready?  Why didn’t you wake me up sooner?”  Even as she spoke the words, Katy knew the answer.  The reason for NuRikPo's hesitation was evident in the immediate erosion of her own eagerness to be rid of the foreign bodies.

NuRikPo answered anyway.  “I started watching them… and thinking: If I don’t design them correctly, our creations could escape beyond our bodies.  They might hurt the ship.  After that, I realized that we would already be hurting the units within us.  We would be destroying creations of unique beauty.  Such a waste.  They are not hurting us.  If anything, they are making us better.  I feel happier and healthier than I have in years.  You do, too.  Admit it.  You haven’t loved anything or anyone, in a long time.  Now, you love...”

“I love me, you dope, the me that exists without help.”  Katy was flailing against a web still being woven.  Her objections generated the strands that tangled her with ever-growing resistance.  Still she struggled, trying to fight the demands to let go of her rejection. 

“I hate you.  I hate having to work with you, heal you, or even listen about other people talk about you.  I hate the Scape Grace; I hate being stuck in that box of filthy, loud, violent idiots.  I hate this ship.  I hate its little crawly bits and its big disgusting bits.”

“Listen to you,” NuRikPo chided, “speaking the truth at last, with only one word mispronounced.”  He smiled… he actually smiled, a peaceful, beaming expression of joy.  “Just try saying it the right way.  You love…”

Katy struggled to withdraw her concussion pistol.  NuRikPo had been stepping forward, raising his arms.  At first, she just wanted to warn him away.  She would not be embraced.  As she produced the weapon, his expression shifted to one of alarm, and he leapt forward, apparently to disarm her.  Perhaps he was concerned she would follow through on her threats to kill herself. 

The Zig academic was clumsy compared to Katy.  He was her inferior in both physique and training.  She slipped away from him easily, though there was little room in the shuttle to escape for long.  She was not trying to shoot him, though, nor was she planning to hurt herself.  Instead, she opened the chamber of the weapon.  She withdrew the dart and showed it to NuRikPo, trying to pantomime ‘safe’ and ‘empty’.  She opened the dart, showing its cylinder to be unfilled.

Her ruse was successful.  NuRikPo relaxed for a necessary moment.  Katy closed, aimed, and fired the empty pistol, expending its pressurized charge into the side of the plexiglass enclosure holding the manufactured counter-agents.  The chamber's top popped open and flew back with a loud smack of plastic on plastic.  NuRikPo looked further confused and stunned.

He began to say, “I see…. Yes, we should destroy them.  But that’s not the best way.  Let me…” He moved forward to the controls of the synthesizer. 

Katy preempted him again, dipping the empty injection dart across the surface holding their micro-robots.  A fine grey powder, like graphite dust, filled its cylindrical chamber.  NuRikPo again reversed course to try and intercept her as Katy snapped the dart closed and loaded it into the pistol.  She struggled to keep her feelings neutral and her hands steady as she clicked the weapon shut.

NuRikPo held his hands out in a beseeching gesture.  “Katy, please.  I know what you’re thinking.  But please, listen to what you’re feeling.  You know this is wrong.  You don’t want to kill them.”

“Sure I do.  And if you screwed up making these things, I won’t mind killing you.”

Katy raised the pistol and fired at NuRikPo’s chest.  The dart chuffed out with sufficient force to launch it across the small space, push its needle tip through the Zig’s bodysuit and tough skin, and inject its contents into his bloodstream.  He staggered back, looking confused.

“Why?” he asked, blinking rapidly in his distress.

“Because I can hold out a little while longer.  We need you able to make more antibodies.  Also, I wouldn’t know how to destroy your synthesizer.  You could destroy it, if I left you infected.  So you’re the test subject.  If it works, we win.  If it kills you, poetic justice.  If it just fails either way, we’ll laugh idiotically about it later in bed.”

“In bed?” NuRikPo had the decency to look confused.  Then he frowned.  “With you?  What?”  He sounded almost scandalized.

“Oh, good, it sounds like it works fast.  When you’re ready, shoot me.  I don’t mind if you enjoy it.”  The paradox of her last sentence felt like a guilty pleasure.  Katy was both pleased by the thought of being freed from the manipulative internal machines and saddened by the thought of their destruction.  She wanted to please NuRikPo, but appreciated that she would soon enjoy offending him again. 

NuRikPo continued to stare dumbly as she handed him the pistol. 

            Katy finished her directions, “Just get to work.  I’ll watch you for any bad signs: seizures or hemorrhaging or such.  Hopefully, I didn’t give you an embolism.  If I try to get away or interfere with your work, shoot me with the blue ones; they’re tranquilizers, safe for Humans.  And hurry up; I’m already feeling the urge to apologize to you.”

            “I don’t understand.  If we were being influenced so strongly, how is it you can resist while I could not?”

            “The same way I realized what the machines were doing to us.  That's the power of hate... you glittering louse.”

The Wreck of the *Untranslatable* - Chapter 16

            After finishing the installation of the 'Ningyo feeders’ on the bridge, Luuboh returned directly to the medical room to check on its other projects.  Tklth continued to doze in the dim, chilled environment.  The tissue samples Luuboh had isolated continued to change, each with a different rate and pattern depending on its environment.  One sample had been placed in a nutrient-rich feeder solution: it had rebuilt portions of flesh and even replaced nerve fibers with a metallic chain of interlinked machines.  Another, in a drier, colder, unsupplemented dish, had only progressed to finishing its support matrix and then stalled, possibly starved for materials and energy. 

            It was helpful to know the limitations of the micro-robots, but they obviously could survive indefinitely within living tissue.  Killing the host to kill the invaders was not a useful solution.  As Luuboh’s other experiments were demonstrating, any chemicals capable of penetrating and disabling the inorganic constructs would harm organic cells as well.  The limitations of its knowledge were becoming evident.  If there was a process that could selectively affect nanotechnology of this type without harming the body it had infiltrated, it was beyond Luuboh’s skill.  It had done well to find and correctly operate Katy Olu’s electron microscope in order to discover and image the tiny mobile units.  It might also find a counter-agent through trial and error, but it was running out of viable samples and was reluctant to create more. 

            Certainly, there were enough chopped bits of Tklth for weeks of experimentation, but Luuboh was loathe to sacrifice the stabilized tissue for an amateur investigative exercise.  It also did not want to risk further exposure to the micro-robots.  While decently appointed and reasonably sterile, the medical room was far from a safe cleanroom.  Luuboh had stayed in its environmental suit while it cut and enclosed the various samples of Tklth’s infested flesh.  It had then deposited the remaining, hopefully clean ‘samples’ in the biological storage freezer.  Last, still suited, it had hauled the bag containing the dead Ningyo’s spattered suit to the shuttle deck.  It had to hope that the body bag would hold in any remaining constructs that might have lingered within the liquefied flesh of the Ningyo.  For that matter, it was praying that its own clean suit had kept any stray crawlers at bay. 

After returning, it had carefully stripped off the suit while simultaneously spraying off in the shower stall adjacent to the medical room.  The chamber was built for exactly that purpose, and mixed a mild quaternary ammonium solution with highly pressurized hot water to intercept possible biological contaminants while the occupant removed outer clothing.  The biocidal chemical was definitely useless against the inorganic constructs, but the force of the water hopefully swept away most of them.  To be totally safe, Luuboh probably should have shaved off its fur, but it was insufficiently paranoid – and too vain – to take that step. 

The best it could really hope for was to identify, document, and anticipate the nature of this threat.  That way, when NuRikPo and doctor Olu returned to the Scape Grace, they would be forewarned and immediately able to take steps to disable the miniature robots.  That was presuming they returned at all.  Luuboh had to consider the reasonable possibility that the coming battle could result in the destruction of the ship which held NuRikPo and Katy Olu.  The battle could just as easily end in Scape Grace’s destruction, but that outcome would render the problem of the micro-robots moot. 

Once it emerged and dried off, Luuboh had started its study.  When the call came in from Jolly to report to the bridge, Luuboh had pulled together its results to that point.  It had risked taking the time to stop by bay 3e and upload those reports for captain Lerner’s reference.  It had wanted to wait until its understanding was more complete, but could not pass up the chance to minimize suspicion about its movements.  If asked about its extra stop, it could have explained that it was retrieving the magnetic clamps from storage. 

At least now, the captain had some warning about what to expect.  Luuboh would try to provide more data as time and opportunity allowed.  What it might learn and what they could do about the problem were both unknown. 

In the meantime, while it waited on the progress of its experiments, Luuboh monitored Tklth’s progress.  After two days, the mutilated Vislin was looking remarkably well.  Her general health was as good as might be expected for a patient being fed intravenously.  She was losing muscle tone; no surprise there.  She was well hydrated and her vitals were within the acceptable range for Vislin, per the medical library. 

Her respiratory and neurological activity were actually stronger than Luuboh thought normal.  Given the lighting, chill, blood loss, and trauma, those systems should have been functioning at reduced levels.  While Tklth remained somnolent, her breathing was deep and steady, her heart pumped strongly, and her EEG readouts indicated brain waves more varied than simple sleep rhythms.  The guide programs in the brain monitor kept isolating mu wave patterns, which the medical library stated should only occur during wakeful observation and learning.  Luuboh could not be certain that this was a relevant variation; it might be somehow normal for Vislin or an artifact of using the system improperly on her species. 

Either way, it was getting close to the safety time limit for the cautery patches.  Luuboh would have to remove the patches soon to avoid toxicity reactions.  Hopefully, the wound sites beneath would have sealed fully and begun healing from within.  Tklth certainly seemed strong enough.  There was nothing to indicate adverse reactions to the patches and no signs of infection around their edges.  The removal process was painstaking and might be uncomfortable.  Hopefully, Tklth would remain drowsy enough to allow Luuboh to finish its work quietly.  The Vislin was still restrained, but loosely, so that it had some range of motion to prevent muscle cramps or scale damage.  Luuboh did not want to have to lock her down again to avoid injury while it peeled gauze from flesh.

Luuboh was reading the instructions for this process when Tklth’s status changed unexpectedly.  A noise from the direction of the bed caught its attention.  At first, it thought Tklth was choking.  Then, it realized that she was only clearing her throat.  Luuboh had already turned around before Tklth moved.  Its alarm was reduced as it realized she was only turning her head to look at it.  At first, Tklth’s gaze was unfocused and wavering.  Then, she narrowed in on Luuboh.  Her beak clicked in a gesture Luuboh could not interpret.  Was she angry?  Was she hungry?  Was the movement just a reflex of some sort or a conscious attempt to speak?

Luuboh was further surprised when, after a few seconds, Tklth turned her neck and eyes steadily to scan the room.  She did this without significantly moving her limbs, though her shoulders rolled and her back arched in a stretch.  After this exploration, her attention returned to Luuboh.  The Mauraug had been watching her with mingled curiosity and concern.  Was she in pain sufficient to penetrate the medications and her hibernation?  Was this reaction a temporary waking process, something the Vislin biology did to check for hazards during the night?  Luuboh might have had many questions, but it was Tklth who began asking for answers first.

“Why am I in medical?” Tklth asked, her fluting voice as always an odd contrast to her deadly exterior.  Normally, it was also a contrast to her harsh attitude, but at the moment, she seemed peaceful.  The question was not asked in panic or accusation.  It sounded like genuine confusion, a request for information.

“You were wounded… badly.  You attacked the Ningyo,” Luuboh pointed out in return.

“Ah.  I remember,” Tklth acknowledged, still sounding surprisingly calm.  “I killed one of them.  Then their leader shot me.  I thought I would die.  Did you come back and help me?”

“Eventually,” Luuboh grunted, “but not to kill them.  Their leader, Jolly, decided not to kill you.  It let me and Soloth carry you back to medical.”  Its bewilderment at the conversation mingled with its irritation at having to explain the situation to Tklth.  Most likely, the Vislin would not remember this conversation later.  It would ask the same questions again.  Worse, it would not be nearly as reasonable about accepting the answers, if past interactions provided any precedent.  Luuboh was used to Tklth being angry, pushy, and even abusive.  It liked her better damaged and drowsy.  Sadly, the captain would prefer her whole and functional, even if she was an ass, whole.

For now, Tklth accepted its answer without berating Luuboh for fleeing the battle.  She nodded, awkwardly, and turned to look at the ceiling.  Then her gaze lowered gradually until she was looking downward at her own body.  Luuboh tensed, fearing the moment when she recognized the extent of her injuries.  Shock might have shielded her mind earlier.  Now, stable and somewhat lucid, she might be genuinely traumatized by the realization of how badly she was damaged.

Once again, the storm never came.  Tklth only scanned over the remnants of her lower half, dispassionately taking in the patched stump of her leg.  She could not see her back, but surely could feel the absence of her tail.  Yet still, there was no screaming, no cursing, and no flailing about.  She finally did react, but it was only a bitter cry of mourning.  Her eyelids flickered in distress.  Her claws flexed.  Luuboh was familiar enough to recognize this as Vislin sorrow.  Its own anger warred with sympathy, which wrapped around again to anger as Luuboh became aggravated about having to share the pain of its sometime tormentor. 

“Why don’t you sleep?” Luuboh asked with courtesy rather than kindness.  “You’re still weak from your injuries.  You need rest.  I’ll change the bandage and make sure the tissue stays healthy.  You’ll have a new leg and tail as soon as the doctor and engineer get back.”

“But I have been sleeping so long already.  I am not tired anymore,” Tklth answered, sounding calmly reasonable rather than petulant.  “You can change the bandages; I will not be any trouble.  Thank you for saving my life.”

It was the last sentence that told Luuboh something was very wrong.  Tklth might be capable of gratitude, but she had never thanked Luuboh for anything, ever before.   In particular, in this situation, she should have been cursing the Mauraug for its cowardice, for its incompetence in her care, or for walking on two legs while she lay flat on one.  If drowsing, she should have been less articulate; if truly awake, she should have been bitter and abrasive.  She did seem awake.  Her gaze was steady and clear, her movements growing in precision as she roused.  That was also strange.  By all references, a Vislin should be barely able to function in the current chill.  That, coupled with the lowered lighting, should have had a member of that species acting as if heavily sedated.  Tklth looked no more impaired than would be expected given two days of bed rest and an intravenous diet.  She was less impaired than should be the case after such a massive injury.

Luuboh had a sinking realization.  To cover its suspicions, it asked clinically, “How are you feeling, Ticklish?”

“Weak.  Pain.  My head hurts.  My wounds ache.  I am hungry.  I smell terrible.  You smell terrible.  But considering everything, I feel reasonably good.  Pain is better than death.”  The insult was expected, but delivered with shared rather than cruel humor.  Tklth had not even taken issue with Luuboh’s use of her Terran-styled nickname.  She sounded… reasonable.  That tone was not just uncharacteristic for Tklth, it was uncommon for anyone in the same situation.  She sounded like someone else.  She sounded like…

Luuboh realized that it had a discovery to share with the captain more urgent than the results of its tissue experiments.  Tklth was most definitely infested.  She had been altered.  Something was affecting her behavior and the most likely culprits were the micro-robots.  They were probably also bolstering her recuperative systems.  While this alone was good news for the Vislin – and might explain her survival as well as her rapid recovery – the effects on her mind were bad news for the other sapients on the Scape Grace.  If the micro-technology had spread elsewhere in the ship, it might already be working its way into the nervous systems of other crew members.  While making pirates calmer and more reasonable could be viewed as an improvement, those changes also benefitted the Ningyo occupiers.  Tklth was starting to make silly, Ningyo-style jokes in the midst of a dire personal situation.  That similarity suggested more than a casual coincidence.  It was possible that other aspects of her psyche were being made more sympathetic to the Ningyo, as well.

It wasn’t safe to let her get up.  For now, Tklth wasn’t going to be walking the halls or posing much of a threat to anyone outside of the door.  Still, a fair amount of damage could be done from within the medical room, if she decided to turn on the ship’s crew.  Even if her aggression had been damped down, Tklth’s training could be used to dispassionately murder quite a few people.  From what Luuboh had heard, she could probably be deadly with just one arm, let alone two arms and one leg.  Luuboh had been afraid of her beak alone.

Luuboh's fear at this moment was a different kind of fear.  It realized that it had been frozen with shock for a long moment.  Tklth had been watching the Mauraug quietly, her rigid, scaled face betraying no suspicion in return.  Luuboh needed to say something to keep the conversation going. 

It managed, “Right, yes, good.  Well, you’re still at risk.  I’m doing my best, but I’m not doctor Olu.  You should not move around too much until the wounds are better healed.  Your vital signs are still a little low.”  Luuboh lied easily.  It was practiced in such deceptions to a degree other Mauraug, like Soloth, would find repugnant.  Its survival skills had to differ from theirs, so it felt little shame using subterfuge to avoid harm.  In this case, the harm it was avoiding might threaten the entire ship, not only Luuboh itself.

“I’ll remove the bandages shortly.  I’d like you to remain restrained until that’s done.  No offense; it might be painful and I don’t want to chance you doing something we’ll both regret.”

Tklth’s reply, meant to be reassuring, again had the opposite effect, “I understand… but I wonder.  I just do not feel like that will be a problem.  I feel… different.  Not angry.  Something tells me I have changed.  I am cold but not tired.  I have been hurt but I do not want to hurt in return.  Is this what one calls a life-changing experience?  I wonder if I would frenzy, even if the pain were unbearable.”

Luuboh did not honestly know whether to hope she would or would not.  It grumbled, “I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we?  Still, let’s not risk my hide on your newly discovered inner peace.”

Update - Summer Love Confessions

Greetings, Empyrean readers! 

     First, let me say thank you, and we love you.  I've been feeling some love back from a few readers and it is much appreciated.  Since we're giving our 'journeyman pieces' away for free here, gratitude is a nice alternative coin.

     Second, if you're reading this far, let me beg for more.  The work here by Laine and I is done for practice, but also to build up the Empyrean Dreams setting.  We're creating a shared universe and showing others what can be done with it.  Your feedback is appreciated both in person and on the site.  If something is left unclear in a story, if you like a particular feature (a creature, a plotline, a reference, etc.), or want to see more of something, comment!  We'll even take well-considered criticism. 

     Third, here's fair warning for the future.  The Wreck of the *Untranslatable* is not a short story.  It's actually a short novel.  Check out the chapter list page if you haven't already; there will be at least 25 chapters/posts in total.  I'm almost done with the ending.  Since that story has most of my attention lately, Bad Egg has been slow in progressing.  I promise I'll get back to it once Wreck is out of my system. 

     After that, no more promises.  I've got a job to find and maybe a literary agency to chase down, not to mention a handful of non-Empyrean story ideas waiting their turn.  Laine might stop back in for a chapter or two, but she's keeping busy in the non-fictional universe, also... so no presumptions there. 

     Good thing there's enough Wreck to last us another couple of months...

-N.L.