4.26 Transfers

(English)

My first thought entering the camp was the terminology Nora had used to describe her own camp and campers.

Because that’s the exact vibe this place had: a camp. A huddle of buildings nestled in some wooded corner, deep into the mountains, dozens of miles from the nearest town—and like back home, there had to be something nearby. Win had described the air barriers as ‘covering the whole valley’. That kind of setup required a lot of power and a lot of machinery. Six spaceships could definitely provide the power, but their built-in air barriers wouldn’t cover even part of the valley.

No, there had to be some kind of settlement nearby.

We hadn’t seen one on our landing approach, but Win’s crappy little shuttle only had one window. At least I knew what direction it wasn’t.

The six ships were tucked against two rocks big enough to shelter them from any wind. Kemon’s whole camp was tucked into the natural alcove created by the two rocks, but I saw some of the scaffolding anchored into the surrounding rock features too.

As tall as those rocks were, the tops of the six A-ships still peeked out above them. Each one was bigger than the Jack by almost a third . Especially toward the base. Instead of the Jack’s twin engine model, each A-ship sported a single massive torch.

My skin crawled just looking at them.

“Chin up,” was all Jordan said. She wasn’t even looking at me, but she’d known my reaction anyway. She did know what happened the last time I was on one of the A-ships. Maybe my reaction was just common sense.

Win didn’t quite understand the phrase, but didn’t press.

“It is mid-afternoon, local time,” he said. “So most of the campers will have split up for activity groups, but seeing us land will have them all rushing back soon.”

“They go out into the valley?” I asked. “Unattended? Some of the abductees are really young…”

“Our youngest guest is actually nine, in Earth years,” Win said. “He might be an outlier though. No one else is within one year of his age, and I am assured he is tall for one so young. But to actually answer your question, no one goes anywhere without at least two other people with them. However all the activity groups are led by older abductees and at least one actual adult.”

“That must drive some kids crazy,” Jordan observed.

“Some,” Win admitted. “But it was actually one of the abductee’s idea. Once it was voiced, everyone agreed…Everyone also complains about it, but nobody thinks it is a bad idea.”

“So how long do you have to give us a tour before people start swarming us?” I asked. We were still a five minute hike from reaching the site, at least.

“No one is more than a few minutes away from camp, so…not long,” Win said.

“Essentials first, right?” Jordan asked. “Sleeping. Food. Bathrooms.”

“The ships,” Win said. “For all three. The two in the middle there are used for their mess halls for everyone, and but ships’ dormitories are split for boys and girls. Boys on the left half, girls on the right.”

“No portable generators,” I guessed. “The abduction ships are your power sources.”

“Smart,” Win nodded. “You are correct, although the truth is just one ship is powering anything right now, and it is kept at minimum generation capacity. With those engines, a small nation could be powered by just two or three ships like this.”

“So we’re just going to move in, like that?” Jordan asked.

“Well I would appreciate an opportunity to reserve some time to learn exactly what you’ve been through. My leader would be grateful for the opportunity to do the same,” Win said. “But several abductees have been reluctant to share anything. I cannot blame them either. Just from what we have heard, every one of you has been through something harrowing.”

‘Harrowing’, I noticed, was not a word I’d included in the default Starspeak-English dictionary. That Win knew the word in English told me they’d not been idle in adding to my work.

I asked Jordan, range dialed down to the transceiver’s minimum.

she offered.

<…He’s trying very hard to both remind us how nice they’re being and not be too pushy about it.>

I said.

she asked.

She might be on to something.

“Win, you’ve got the newcomers?” the Casti asked.

“English, Jao,” Win chastised. “The least we can do is make these two feel welcome.”

Anything the two of them said further was cut off by the cacophony of children stampeding toward us. Whatever ‘Jao’ had been keeping their attention with was nothing compared to new people.

As I tried to introduce myself as ‘Ted’, I noticed these kids were all on the younger side. I put the oldest at thirteen, but there were only nine kids in the group ready to meet us on the ground. Another group of a similar age emerged from a prefabricated building attached to the scaffolding strung between the ships.

I hadn’t noticed those buildings on the way down. Was the scaffolding just an extension of the prefab foundation? Or was it the other way around? Either possibility meant the A-ship were functioning more as buildings than transportation. If even one of them wanted to launch, the entire structure would have to be torn down and the ship moved away from the others to launch.

In an actual spaceport, massive trolleys would haul entire launch pads with ships on top of them, sometimes with artificial gravity to assist. How had they actually landed the ships here?

As much as I would have liked to keep paying attention to details like that, Win was right. Psionic chatter grew, with more and older kids emerging from the A-ships and the surrounding landscape.

“Who are you?”

“Have you seen any Vorak?”

“Are you Adept? What about you?”

The crowd threw a hundred different questions at us, and in seconds Jordan and I found ourselves in the middle of a very pushy hoard of kids.

I didn’t like being surrounded like this. My heart beat faster being around so many people, but it took me long to realize I was on the edge of outright panic.

“” Jordan yelled at me. She was focused on my balled-up fists.

“Shut up!” someone shouted. “Everyone take two big steps back.”

Breathe, I reminded myself. I didn’t want to hit anyone. They were crowding me, not attacking.

“You okay, man?” the same abductee asked.

“Nope,” I said. “Tight spaces. Bad. Worse when I’m surprised.”

“Yeah. We’re a little excitable,” he said. “Okay, everyone get out of here! Let them settle in first. Seriously, they landed, like, five minutes ago, dang…”

Win and the other aliens threw their weight behind the abductee’s suggestion, and people began filing away from Jordan and I. They rubbernecked until out of sight though, so the process was slow.

A manageable number of stragglers stuck around though, and I was just sizing them up when something slammed into Jordan from my peripheral vision.

My adrenaline cranked back up to a hundred, but hearing her name slammed on the brakes the very next instant. It was emotional whiplash.

“Jordan!” a voice cried out. But where—who it was coming from was hard to see.

Literally.

At first glance, it looked like Jordan had been tackled by a pile of clothing. But examining things more carefully confirmed the clothing was definitely wrapped around someone…just a totally invisible someone.

Psionic senses confirmed that there was indeed an energy-laden Adept consciousness, so I wasn’t imagining things. Jordan was startled herself. Looking at the shirt sleeves hugging her, this hadn’t been so much a tackle as Jordan falling over in response to an almost invisible hug.

“Drew?”

Tears followed quickly as the two embraced.

For all the different paces my mood was being dragged through, vicarious happiness did a great job washing the rest away. The look of sheer relief on Jordan’s face was cathartic by proxy. She hadn’t even realized how much her worries had been eating her up.

“I thought you were dead,” Jordan choked out.

“No, I’m alive,” Drew said. “I’ve been okay the whole time. Invisible the last two months, but alive.”

I shot a glance at Win.

“So when you said you weren’t sure about ‘Drew’ here…” He literally hadn’t been able to see the person.

“It is one of the strangest cases of Adept presentation I’ve ever seen,” Win said. “We assumed it was an involuntary augmentation.”

“You can’t turn it off?” I asked.

“I can create stuff on my skin,” Drew said. Stains played across midair, revealing the contour of an arm. “But I can’t make my real body visible again. It’s been weird.”

“How is that even possible with Adeptry?” I wondered. “You somehow add material and wind up invisible?”

“Some days I’m more noticeable than others,” Drew said. “I show more or less distortion. Just wait until it gets foggy. That’ll really mess with your eyes.”

“I’m just glad your okay,” Jordan said, choking up. “What happened to you?”

“I guess almost all the same things as you,” she replied.

Drew’s face was invisible, but I sensed the flicker in her emotions. She’d been abducted first. This whole time she’d had no idea her sister had been abducted too.

“Don’t let your imagination torture you,” I told Drew. “Finding out you’re okay is the best thing that’s happened to Jordan since getting abducted herself.”

There was just enough collar on Drew’s shirt to intuit when she was nodding.

“Yeah. Yeah. We can catch up later. For now, let’s give you a tour! Hey Dansi, can we call things early today?”

The Casti—Dansi—looked between the two sisters. She wanted to enforce the rules, but it was impossible to argue with a touching reunion like this.

“Okay…Drew, you give the two new ones a tour. But the rest of you still owe me another hour!”

The small group of abductees following her grumbled, but filed out.

“Win, are you staying with them?”

“Yes, thank you,” he replied. A glance at me confirmed we’d understood him. “How good is your Starspeak?”

“Better than you English,” I joked, botching the grammar on purpose.

Win smirked, saying nothing.

“Does this tour start with your boss, Win?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, the soldiers before said—” Jordan faltered. She hadn’t counted on needing to lie to her sister.

I took a risk and whispered to her psionically.

I said.

Simultaneously, I started yammering to give Jordan a chance to play it off.

“The Casti before talked a lot about your boss without saying anything, you know what I mean?” I asked.

“I am afraid not,” Win said.

“They were vague, so your guy Kemon seems very mysterious. Mystery makes humans curious. Surely you know that by now.”

“That’s hardly unique to Humans,” Dansi said as she walked away.

“She’s right,” Drew said to Win. “Sid said you think it’s an alien thing, but really, it’s an age thing. We’re younger than you guys.”

“He has said that before,” Win said.

“Who’s Sid?” I asked.

“One of the guys, he’s kinda a pill though,” Drew said.

I flashed a look at Jordan. Her sister was ‘kinda’ a gossip. Then again, she had turned invisible. She, like all of us, must have been through a lot.

“Come on,” she continued. “I’ll introduce you.”

We climbed the scaffolding to the level of the A-ship hatches. The massive platform suspended between the ships was separated into four rough clusters of couches and chairs. The soft furniture actually seemed decent despite being in open air with just the massive tarp overhead to ward off the elements.

It was clearly some kind of common space or rec room. No tvs though. But were those speakers? Maybe someone had rigged up music somehow.

Looking carefully at the layout, there were a few conspicuous gaps in the furniture that I guessed were sporadically filled by something Adept-made. Like a ping-pong or pool table.

In the corner, one couch was taken over by a very tall buzz cut guy reading a…textbook. ‘AP Computer Science Principles’. Next to him was a stack of similar textbooks, all with bookmarks halfway through them. Calculus. Statistics. Music Theory. World History—oh man, I would have killed to have that book a few months ago.

“Where’d you get all these?” I asked as we approached.

His eyes, flicked up for one whole second before going back to reading.

“I’m busy,” he said in a thick southern accent.

“Hey…” I frowned.

“It’s the afternoon, and Sid does the lion’s share of wrangling the youngsters all morning, so he’s exempted himself from group activities most days,” Drew explained.

“Are you always this cheerful?” I asked.

“Not when people interrupt my relaxation,” he said.

“You read AP Comp Sci to relax?” Jordan asked.

“I read to relax,” Sid explained. “And there’s only so many times I can reread Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Farinheit 451 before I start skimming out of habit.”

“Besides, this way you might learn something,” Drew joked.

“Buzz off, Drew,” he said.

“We have new people! It’s Ted, and this is Jordan!” she replied, ignoring his request. “My sister!”

That actually got his attention enough to look up again.

“Wait, really? Sister?”

Jordan nodded.

“Your sister got abducted too? What are the odds of that?”

“You’ve got the AP Stat book,” I pointed out. “You tell us.”

“Shut up,” he grumbled.

“He’s just sour because he’s not Adept,” Drew said. “Speaking of…?”

“We’re both Adept,” I said, materializing a flicker of plasma off my fingertip. Jordan created herself a coin to flip.

That really must have been a sore spot for Sid, because he just scowled and buried his nose deeper in the book.

“Then forget a good tour! You already know the ships probably, eat, sleep, dump in them. All that can come later. For now, you’ve got to meet the others.”

“Oh yes,” Win said. “I left them with assignments. I wonder how well they have progressed.”

Drew led us to scaffolding stairs that took us through the gap between the rocks forming the camp alcove. Instead of going toward the ground though, it crossed the gap to another rock and led up.

We arrived on a small plateau next to camp with a dozen people in the midst of practicing various forms of Adeptry. Three of them seemed to have all the attention on them, including that of the Farnata presumably overseeing them.

The first guy was materializing and dissolving massive chunks of iron taller than he was. I recognized it as magnitude and mass limit training, just on a bigger scale than I’d ever attempted.

Another kid looked like he was fiddling with a futuristic looking gun he must have created. He was trying to disconnect the thing from a fluid-filled tank he wore on his back.

A girl was frowning at some kind of mechanized joint she held in both hands. Probably cascading the details of its inner structure.

“Johnny, Donnie, and Madeline,” Drew introduced each one. “Then we’ve got Aarti, Ben, Knox, and Ike.”

This was going to be a lot of names. Thank God for psionics…

One of those names stood out. Did Jordan sense it too? If she did, she didn’t give any visible hint. No way Kemon’s abductees did. They wouldn’t be hanging around with him.

“Hey guys!” Drew called. “Win’s back with new blood.”

“Oh snap!” Donnie said, and immediately bolted over to meet us…leaving his futuristic gun unattended on ground.

Neither Win nor the other Farnata seemed to react, and wasn’t that a red flag?

“That thing isn’t going to explode on us, is it?” I asked, pointing behind him.

“Oh. Right,” Donnie said, dissolving the gun back into nothing.

“How’s your progress?” Win asked.

“You were right. I think I can get the gun working without a tank,” Donnie said. “If I can just make the liquid inside the chamber. But it’s hard to stretch out the timeframe of creating something like that.”

Win nodded. “It can be. What about you, Johnny? Hitting a limit yet?”

“Still growing linearly,” he said.

“It will not do so forever. You should see diminishing returns soon,” Win said before turning to Madeline. “Have you remembered the word for it yet?”

“Servo,” she said. “It’s a magnetic servo.”

I could practically see Win add the word to his copy of the dictionary.

“You left them all with homework?” I chuckled.

“The only way to improve is practice,” he said. “If my absence is all it takes for them to become lazy, then they will never be ready for the Vorak.”

I didn’t want to bite that hook, because no one else seemed to think Win had said anything unusual. Luckily, Jordan was more than willing.

“Why would you need to be ready for the Vorak?”

“We cannot be sure,” Win said, “but we’re concerned one of the Vorak militaries might launch an attack to try recapturing the abductees.”

I glanced at Knox. Yeah, it was definitely him.

I desperately wanted to ask more about the Vorak, namely if they had any evidence. Because what he described wasn’t impossible…but no chance in hell it would involve the Red Sails. Even if they ‘recaptured’ Kemon’s abductees, the only thing they’d do with them was dump them on Nora.

And, ironic as it was, if she learned how it happened then she’d likely gut Marshal Tispas long before I had the opportunity to make good on my promise.

But there were more Vorak fleets out there than the Red Sails, and I knew precious little about what measures they might take.

But plausible as the story was, especially with what my psionics were telling me about Knox, it strained feasibility.

I was beginning to understand Kemon and Win hadn’t done very much explaining what planet this camp was located on. It was the second innermost planet in the system, and the current orbital positions had it on the far side of the star compared to any non-Coalition controlled space in the system. For any Coalition enemy to reach these abductees, they would have to fly through millions of miles of hostile space with enough force to capture and extract more than a hundred hostile humans, all before Coalition forces reacted to the incursion.

It would be suicide.

Also interesting Win was talking about the ‘Vorak’ generically instead of the specific fleet in this system. But of course they wouldn’t talk about the Majesty. It was a predominantly Casti-manned fleet.

If it was a Vorak fleet instead of the Majesty, they’d have to fly even further without turning any heads, and it would provoke an even more extreme reaction.

But I couldn’t open my mouth either. All I had was my own experience. ‘Trust me bro’ wouldn’t be good enough to convince everyone they were being lied to.

“Huh…” was all I could say.

“Better to be ready for a fight in case we need to,” Johnny said.

“We should try to avoid fighting as hard as possible,” Jordan said.

“I agree,” Madeline said. “I recognize you from when the pirates got us.”

Jordan frowned a moment before placing her face. “That’s right. You got put back on the A-ship.”

“You didn’t,” she said. “You and Melanie got put on that pirate ship.”

“She died,” Jordan said. “Fighting should be a last resort, because fact is we’ll probably lose.”

“All the more reason to practice,” Johnny said. “Better to be able to defend ourselves and not need to than vice versa.”

Jordan frowned, because it seemed like Johnny hadn’t actually heard her. She made the same connection I had, and she glanced at me with concern.

“I can’t argue with the sentiment,” I said. “But I’ve seen too many abductees die already. If running is an option, I vote that.”

That at least made a few of them blink. The idea hadn’t occurred to them before. Or it hadn’t been allowed to be seriously entertained.

“I do not want introductions to get ‘bogged down’,” Win said, forcing a change in subject. “The other activity groups should be returning for dinner in the next hour. Should we move that direction?”

“Sure,” Drew said before I could object.

“The crummy nutrient bricks?” Jordan asked hopefully.

“Yup,” Drew grumbled. “But misery loves company, so we all eat together. It’s a whole thing. Come on! Then we’ll find you two sleeping quarters. You haven’t already shacked up have you?”

She elbowed her sister tauntingly, but Jordan and I both just snorted.

“Not my type,” we both said. We both meant it too, but speaking in unison like that had Drew cackling like only a younger sibling could.

“Sure, sure!”

“No one is having sex, though, right?” I asked. “If someone got pregnant out here…”

“Yeah, I’m just giving you guys a hard time,” Drew said. “Besides, some of the younger kids are, like, ten. Pretty much everyone old enough to already know is panicking about having the ‘birds and the bees’ talk. I mean, seriously, how young is too young to hear about that?”

“I…have no Earthly idea,” I admitted.

“Being in charge sucks,” Drew complained.

“You aren’t in charge,” Sid replied as we walked past. He was still reading the computer science textbook.

Note to self: high priority on understanding who was in charge among Kemon’s abductees.

Even if the alien adults were running things, there would still be teenagers or college-age kids who the rest would look up to.

The rest of the tour went quickly with Drew showing us the various books and laptops different abductees had been carrying when they were nabbed. Sid was right, across a hundred different kids, there was no small amount of Earth memorabilia.

Apparently someone’s laptop had a few movies on the hard drive, so the camp sometimes had a film night.

The longer things dragged on, the more of a blur they became. Meeting the Adept group stuck out, but Jordan and I met so many people in the next few hours, they were stuck being remembered as names on a psionic list for now.

Dinner was every bit the miserable loud party Drew had described. Everyone peeled open the same foil to chew on the same brick of human-compatible nutrients. But everyone piled onto the couches atop the scaffolding’s rec platform, and different Adepts created different things to turn things into a proper party.

Someone had cracked how to make speakers with Adeptry, and music was playing from someone’s phone.

I wished I’d brought my phone with me, but that regret and the food were the only dampers on an otherwise exhilarating night. Kemon’s campers pulled out all the stops for us newbies. Dinner on future days wouldn’t compare half as much to the first.

But sleep was one of the things the older abductees were adamant about. The youngest kids were herded toward the A-ships showers before being tucked in. Scozha didn’t have a twenty-four hour day cycle, but it was closer than a lot of other planets. So one-by-one each age group of abductees went off toward bed, until it was just me, Jordan, and the handful of kids old enough to have started college. Even they were yawning and preparing to turn it in.

“Go with your sister,” I told Jordan. “I’m going to talk to Win about something.”

“Important?”

“Only a little,” I said. “Details in the morning?”

“Okay,” she nodded.

Win was half asleep in a hammock he’d materialized.

“Hey,” I prodded him awake. “Drew’s helping Jordan, but—”

“Right. You need— you need a berth too…” he mumbled, defaulting to Starspeak at first.

“Acutaly…do you mind if I find some alternative sleeping arrangement that isn’t inside the A-ships?” I asked. “…I really don’t want to wake up in one again.”

“Bad memories,” he recalled.

“The worst,” I nodded.

“I’m sure something can be arranged,” Win assured me.

“Thanks,” I said.

Ulterior motives aside, I was grateful for that at least.

·····

My psionic alarm woke me up without a sound. Not in the morning like the others, but a bit more than an hour than when I’d first laid down.

Ulterior motives…not just Win’s, but mine too. Sleeping outside the A-ships gave me an opportunity to move undetected and watch for who else might be stealing away in the night.

Come on, Caleb, I chastised. You can’t be drowsy for this.

I hadn’t actually meant to fall asleep—the alarm had just been a precaution—but I’d drifted off fast. Oh well. I’d just have to go carefully while I shook off the cobwebs.

Every planet had different hours of daylight, and adjusting was always rough. I wonder if terraforming ever involved trying to make planets spin faster or slower. The amount of work that would have to go into it though…surely it was impossible.

Flexing my imagination helped stir my brain. Jordan couldn’t help me with this, and I wouldn’t ask her too anyway. So I patted myself down, double checking for anything that might betray me with noise.

My suspenders had been left on the Jack in favor of plain duds the Coalition had made. I liked those suspenders, so it chafed me to admit they were actually pretty comfortable. But above all else, I was wearing quiet clothing now. Sneaking wear.

Nai had stocked me up with candle-constructs before I left. I’d dismantled some constructs, left others embedded in storage onboard the Jack, and carved myself enough room to hold onto nine candled radars—eight, after I pulled the pin on one.

I’d tried to time this as well as possible. The radars wouldn’t last long, but I needed a way to track someone precisely once they got a moment alone.

I’d set my alarm well.

A one-hour window after lights out had been a pretty safe bet, and my radar confirmed as much. The radar reached far enough to encompass all six A-ships, and there were more than a hundred human minds to track.

But I didn’t need to track human minds.

Win, Kemon, and the rest of his crew were sequestered to the pre-fab cabins on the ground, either sleeping or discussing matters not for our ears. Another night, it would have made for a juicy target to get ears on.

Instead, I looked for minds on the move. Sure enough, there was one mind on the edge of radar, quickly heading toward the edge of my range.

Silent as a secret, I pursued him. I was grateful the campsite was built on solid rock; I didn’t have to worry about mud squelching underfoot while I chased him. I caught up to give myself some breathing room with the radar, deciding to climb one of the outcroppings. I could follow him better from above.

I finally got a real glimpse of them.

Knox.

Carefully but briskly, he was picking his way between rocky hills away from camp. If my hunch was right, he was going after a radio stashed somewhere nearby.

He went almost half a mile and I cursed when I had to pop a second radar. But it was worth it to keep track of him and stay at a safe distance.

The dark-haired guy made his way to the largest stone visible from camp. It was a massive piece of solid rock, as long as a warehouse and twice as tall. In the dark, it was hard to make out the features of the pale rock, but near the peak…was that an antennae?

While Knox busied himself near the base of the rock, I went up.

Sure enough, there was a thin antennae poking up from the stone, but positioned at an angle. The top of the rock was angled away from camp, so the antennae would stay just out of sight to even someone on top of the A-ships in the distance. It would stay totally invisible to anyone on the ground, from any angle.

The antennae was connected to a wire that went straight into a hole bored into the massive rock, presumably toward a handpiece hidden somewhere accessible on the ground.

This was perfect.

Down below me, I could hear faint clacks where Knox was presumably preparing to broadcast. He might have been receiving one, but considering the timing? I doubted it.

So when I yanked the cable free from the antennae, Knox would be sure to come investigate.

I ducked out of sight and waited. Just a few seconds later he swore under his breath and started climbing.

He was visibly wound up, but his focus was in all the wrong places. He pulled himself over the edge of the rock and knelt by the antennae, going right past me without noticing.

It wasn’t until I materialized my revolver did he realize anything. He went completely still, not daring to turn around.

“Don’t move,” I warned in Starspeak, “You and I are going to have a conversation…furfish.”