Lightspeed: Year One

I turned to look at her. She was kicking her heels against the table.

“You should go into Vosth research, and you should use your experience with Menley to open up a line of inquiry. It’s probably xenobiology or something, but it might be fertile ground for new discoveries. Then you could be the colony’s expert on the Vosth. Interspecies relations are an important part of this colony. That’s why I’m writing a paper on them for my civics certification.”

“I’m not getting this titration done, am I?”

Endria smiled, and said the words most feared by common citizens interacting with civil law. “This will only take a minute.”

It wasn’t against the law to go outside the compound, and some people liked the sunlight. Some people—daredevils and risk-takers—even enjoyed the fresh air. As for me, I passed the front door every time I got off work and always felt like I was walking along the edge of a cliff. I’d tried taking different routes but that made it worse somehow, like if I didn’t keep my eye on it, the airlock would blow out and let these seething waves of silver flow in and I wouldn’t know until I got back to my shower or had to switch out my suit for cleaning. Or I’d be opening my faceplate for dinner and feel something else on my lips, and there would be the Vosth, crawling inside. I had trouble eating if I didn’t walk past the airlock to make sure it was closed.

Yeah, Menley made that worse.

I started staring at the airlock, expecting to see his face squashed up against it. Maybe he was just outside, seconds away from getting some idiot like Endria to let him in. People walked past me, and I could hear them talking in low tones while I watched the airlock, like maybe I’d gone into an absence seizure and they should get someone to haul me away. And then they could have me investigated for colonist’s dementia despite the fact that I’d been born here. And they could take me out to the Ocean of Starve . . .

After two nights I realized if I didn’t step outside to make sure the Vosth weren’t coming with a swarm, I was heading for a paranoid fugue.

Actually walking out took two more nights because I couldn’t stand to open the airlock myself. I finally saw a couple strolling out as I passed, e-suited hand in e-suited hand, and I fell in behind them.

The airlock and the outside were the only places I could be anonymous in my e-suit. The couple didn’t even cross to the other side of the enclosure as it cycled the air and opened the outer door.

The grass was teal-green. I hear it’s less blue on Earth, and the sky is less green, but I was just glad neither one was silver. The sunlight was strong and golden, the clouds were mercifully white, and there wasn’t a trace of fog to be seen. So that was good. For the moment.

The Ocean of Starve was a good ten-minute hike away, and I didn’t want to get near it. I walked around the habitat instead, eyeing the horizon in the Ocean’s direction. I’d made it about a half-kilometer around the periphery when I caught a flash of silver out of the corner of my eye and jumped, ready for it to be a trick of the light or a metal component on the eggshell exterior of the dome.

No. It was Menley.

I screamed.

The scream instinct isn’t one of evolution’s better moves. Actually, it’s a terrible idea. The instant sound left my mouth Menley turned and dragged himself toward me. I considered running, but I had this image of tripping, and either losing a boot or ripping a hole in my e-suit.

Menley staggered up and stared at me. I took a step back. Menley turned his head like he wasn’t sure which eye got a better view, and I stepped back again.

After about a minute of this, I said “You really want inside the compound, don’t you?”

The Vosth opened Menley’s mouth. His nostrils flared. I guess they were doing something like they did to the speakers in the audience booth—vibrating the equipment. The voice, if you wanted to call it that, was quiet and reedy. We are the Vosth.

“I know that,” I said, and took another step back from them. Him. Vosth-Menley.

You will let us inside? he asked, with an artificial rise to his voice. I guess the Vosth had to telegraph their questions. Maybe they weren’t used to asking.

“No,” I told him.

He shifted his weight forward and ignored my answer. The Vosth are allowed inside your partition shell?

“Look what you do to people,” I said. “No, you’re not allowed inside.”

This is natural, they said, and I had no idea if that was supposed to be an argument or agreement.

“What?”

Take off your suit, Vosth-Menley said.

“Hell no.”

The air creates a pleasurable sensation on human skin.

“And the Vosth create a pleasant infestation?”

We will promise not to take you.

If they had to tell me, I wasn’t trusting them. “Why do you want me to?”

Do you want to? the Vosth asked.

I checked the seal on my suit.