The Preacher's Daughter

Basel heard her small cry and called back, "Okay, all finished. Let's go." He then turned and saw Eliana standing motionless and stiff. "Eli, everything okay?"

Basel never saw anybody in his life move as fast as Eliana did. In the blink of an eye, she snapped from standing upright into a low firing stance, her devil-dog released from her thigh-holster and targeting the wooded area just to Basel's left.

"Basel!" she yelled out. "CAT, strap in! Move!"

Eliana scanned the area with cold military precision as Basel leaped to obey, and then she sprinted to her side of the CAT and hurled her body inside. She had their transport accelerating at full power before her door was closed.

Basel stared at her as she pushed the CAT passed 100 kph, not wanting to break her concentration from all the minor course corrections she had to make to avoid the rocks.

"Basel, lock us in, full lunar mode."

"Acknowledged Commander," he replied in total sincerely as he worked for a moment to seal their craft. "We are now full internal, all systems report nominal in lunar mode." The CAT in its current state was now prepared to submerge or drive across a vacuous lunar landscape.

"Mark the time and distance-to-station from our last stop."

"Marked and logged."

"I want full decontamination of our hull as soon as we get inside the CAT's airlock. Have the outer doors set to open as we approach. Minimize the time the outer door is open."

Basel typed on a console in front of him as Eliana sped through the snowy landscape. "Done Commander. Plasma decontamination will commence as soon as the airlock seals. All station systems report ready."

"Bring up passive station sensors. No active pinging, but I want full scanning on the passives, vibration sensors and full spectrum from UV to RF."

Basel typed another minute. "Done Commander. Passive sensors are recording now."

"Have them report anything out-of-normal immediately."

Another pause. "Done Commander. Our comm-link is open and linked to auto-sensor evaluation."

A quiet minute passed. "Good job Basel."

"Commander, what happened back there?"

"We were being hunted, by something that almost defies description."

"Hunted?" Basel whispered. He felt his body shiver despite his arctic clothing and the warm interior of the CAT.

Eliana nodded. "Yes. I'll explain more when we get back to the station. Let me concentrate on driving for now."

Considering the wild speed of the CAT, Basel thought that was a very good idea.

Chapter 10. Pedal Offer

Time: January 19, 9570 6:59 AM UCT

"Plasma burn will complete in twenty seconds Commander, QEM bubble remains locked and stable." Basel took a second to touch the cool roof of the CAT, now turned opaque to shield them from the scheduled two minutes of blinding light outside. The ion temperature inside the CAT's airlock and outside their sub-micron-thin quantum electromagnetic shield was now higher than the solar surface.

"What are the residuals?"

"Checking the spectral amplitudes now... Very low. Usual trace amounts of oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon nuclei... a little nitrogen... consistent with having a few bits of dirty snow on the CAT."

Eliana sighed in relief. "We're clean then."

Basel looked at her. "Clean from what Eli?"

Eliana shook her head. "Not yet Basel. Please still consider this a military operation."

"Yes Commander."

"I'll talk soon. As soon as the CAT is tucked down, I'm going to get each of us a pair of multi-scanners. Meet me in Observation."

They jumped and ran from the CAT as soon as it was locked down into its parking bay, and met again a moment later in the Level-4 dome. Eliana handed Basel a scanner and pointer to the CAT tracks leading to the southeast. "Look for anything unusual. If I'm guessing right, we might just get a very brief glimpse of the creature. I'm thinking it's way too smart to give us a good view of itself."

They stood and scanned for a while, the sun moving slowly along the horizon and just about to sink below it. Eliana whispered, "Basel, thank you so much for accepting my command. I want control for just a little longer, okay?"

"Yes Commander."

She sensed his puzzlement. "Just until we sight the creature Basel. I'm expecting we'll have a chance sometime around eight o'clock, later if we're fortunate."

"Hmm?" he said as he scanned.

Eliana also scanned as she spoke. "We were 52.1 straight-line kilometers from the station when the encounter occurred at 6:24 AM, 59.3 kilometers along our driving path. I want to time when we sight the creature again. It might give us a measurement of how fast it can travel."

They scanned for a while. "Commander," Basel whispered. "The encounter, what should I look for? What did the creature look like?"

"It was so fast, I just caught a glimpse in the corner of my eye," Eliana whispered back. "So fast!"

"What shape?"

Eliana sighed. "Indistinct."

"Huh?"

"I'm not sure it had clear edges. It was very hard to tell."

"No edges? How can that be?" Basel frowned. "Well, what about color?"

"Assume fantastic camouflage, chromatophors beyond anything ever imagined, even for an octopus. I think I saw it flow over a dark rock surrounded by snow, and it moved a dark image of the rock across its body as it came towards us. Unbelievably good camouflage Basel, the brain processing power needed for such a feat is staggering. It was orienting its camouflage to my line of perspective, a fantastic feat to do in real time!"

Basel sounded unconvinced. "And you say it flowed?"

"Yes."

"Could it have been a real liquid? Somehow a reservoir of melted snow bursting?"

"What?! No, of course not! Basel, this thing was alive, acting with intelligence. It darted from behind one tree to behind another!"

"But you say it's a liquid?"

"No, just that it flowed like one! Basel, it was flowing out of the gully on your left to attack us! It was flowing uphill!"

"Ah..."

The sun set as expected at 7:12 AM Universal Capital Time. They spent the next hour scanning in silence. They saw nothing in the deepening twilight, except for the occasional flicker of the Northern Lights.

"An hour after sunset Commander," Basel said quietly.

Eliana sighed as she continued her scan. "I'd like to keep this up for another hour before we turn the job over to the automatic scanners. I'm expecting to see something very soon. Focus where our tracks enter the clearing." She was referring to a point about 300 meters away.

Five minutes later...

"Mark! Twenty meters north of the tracks! Did you see it Basel?!"

"That flicker Commander? Yes. It wasn't much."

"Replay the sequence and focus on the UV spectrum."

Basel complied and said a moment later, "Yes, much brighter in the UV. Very fast."

Eliana. "Oh yeah. When it hit the clearing, it realized it was about to make a big mistake. Very quick response time. I'm estimating it covered 59 kilometers in 105 minutes."

"Thirty-two kilometers per hour," commented Basel, "on par with the world's fastest human."

Eliana gave a mirthless laugh. "Well, for a short sprint! This creature did it for almost sixty kilometers over rocks and deep snow. The point to remember is that we can't outrun it."

Basel gave a small nod of his head that was hard for Eliana to decipher. "Commander, is the immediate emergency over?"

Eliana paused to consider. "Yes, I think we're safe for the moment. We have a triple hull of di-burnium alloy between us and the creature, and the observation dome is almost as tough. I'm hoping all the technology is on our side of the battle. Basel, we have so much to consider!"

"I agree! Eli, can we talk?"

Five minutes later, down in their living quarters...

"You're not sure the creature exists?!"

"I'm not doubting your sincerity Eli, and I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm trying to keep an open mind..." Basel looked at a loss for words.

They were sitting on their two-person sofa. Eliana was silent for a moment and then surprised Basel immensely by pushing the sofa into a reclining position. She then started untying her boots.

"Basel, as my boyfriend, will you take off your shoes and socks with me?"

Basel at first thought her actions were bizarre, but as he lay by her side barefoot, Eliana lifted her leg and began to caress the top of his foot with the bottom of hers. Slow gentle strokes, very loving. The minutes passed silently, and Basel felt much of the tension between them disappear.

"This feels really nice," he whispered. "I thought it was weird for you to do this at first, but know I understand. You're sending me a message, aren't you?"

Eliana nodded. "Several messages. Message number one, I stayed up for over an hour last night, thinking about how much I enjoyed you petting me like this, and how sweet you were when I froze. Message number two, my defenses are still down. My bare feet are an expression of my vulnerability. Message number three, I accept that you doubt me. It changes nothing of my feelings for you. Message number four... I'm trying to say thank you."

Basel cocked his head. "You're thanking me for doubting you?"

"I'm thanking you for your honesty and telling me that you doubt me. I am convinced the creature is real. If I forced us into battle without knowing about your doubt, I could kill us both."

Basel nodded and was still for a moment, enjoying the simple caress of his foot. He sighed and sat up, popped the sofa to a full reclining position, then turned and lay back down on the flat bed, Eliana's feet by his head and his feet by hers. He took a bare foot in his hand and held it for a moment, then brought it to his mouth and began kissing the ball of her foot and her instep.

Eliana giggled. "It tickles a little, but I like it. And I understand your message back. You love me, and you're suggesting we might have a little easier time talking if we weren't eye to eye." She reached across and held Basel's foot in her warm hand.

"Yes. We're giving each other our bare feet as a sign of our trust. You ready Eli?"

"Oh, I'm looking forward to this. Contention can be an extremely powerful tool when used correctly. Go ahead!"

"Okay. I remember feeling a deep chill in the CAT, shivering when I heard you say some fantastic creature was attacking us. Eli! This has happened more than a dozen times in Ranger history. The fears have always been delusional, and have almost always led to the deaths of one or both of the cadets."

"A completely valid point Basel. I hold no ill will against you for your skepticism. In fact, I'm honored you continued to obey me."

"I'm trying to keep an open mind. And I realize the meteor is reality, and the unusual lack of an impact crater is reality. But heck Eli, an alien invasion?!"

Eliana smiled and kissed Basel's foot before replying. "Well, I never exactly claimed that. One creature might not be an alien invasion. I think that might be the biggest danger here, that we overlay the creature's behavior with human emotions. Its motivations might operate completely differently. We might make an assumption that seems rock-solid but is just plain wrong."

"I agree."

"Basel, what about the UV on our scanners?"

"It was probably just a flicker. It could have been a reflection off the Northern Lights."

"What was doing the reflecting?! It was bright UV! I'm guessing bio-luminescence. Perhaps the creature was being careless or could not control it. You know better than I do, for a reflection to be that bright, it would have to be off a spectral surface."

Basel paused. "That's true. I'd need a mirror polished for UV... Interesting..." He nodded his head. "After we're done here, let's take a closer look at that spot with the sensors."

"Thank you. Basel, would you tell me how your modified camera works? Could it have captured an image of the creature?"

He was silent for a moment, caressing Eliana's foot as he thought. "Maybe. Certainly something to look at. What I was trying to do is really cutting-edge physics. I read about the idea in Quantum Today two months ago."

"And you built a prototype in the photonics lab from just that? Impressive."

Basel blushed. "Well, a bunch of ideas just sort of came together. It isn't usually this easy."

"So how does your camera work?"

"I take two low-frequency holographic oscillators and beat them against each other. I get an intense source of extremely low-frequency photons, ascending pulses from 1 Hz to 10 kHz range. I use the sweeps to penetrate the snow and produce a holographic map of the underlying rocks."

"Oh wow, I get you. Do you have a reference for comparison?"

"Yes. There are detailed topological maps in the station's library. If there's a buried impact crater a few meters wide or more, we might find it from a differential comparison with the library data."

"What a fantastic idea Basel!"

"Yeah well, we might get lucky... I don't know if it'll work or not. Give me a couple of days. I'll also try to see if I recorded anything unusual in the creature's area. Eliana, my device was not designed to do that."

A gentle caress of his foot and a playful kiss on his instep. "I know. Thanks for trying."

Basel smiled as he felt a warm nose sniffing between his toes. "Eli, this morning, was it my imagination, or were you upset about something before the encounter with the creature?"

"I felt it watching me for a while before I saw it. Basel! Your camera! We were at our fourth stop of using it when the creature attacked. Could your camera have drawn the creature to us?"

He paused for a moment to consider, idly petting Eliana's ankle. "Physically possible I suppose. I don't know of any Earth creatures that could detect such low-energy photons. They carry very little information. What would be the evolutionary purpose for detecting them?"

"I don't know. But I'm guessing the creature might have evolved on a much colder planet than Earth. It appears very active at a time when even the polar bears are hibernating. I think we got very lucky today. The creature was careless. Perhaps its camouflage is so good, it's not used to having its prey recognize its presence."

"Ah," said Basel understanding. "You think your pistol might have been ineffective?"

"Would supersonic needles kill something that can survive a hundred gravities of acceleration? If it is a very flat creature, the needles might pass right through and explode in the ground underneath."

"Hmm..."

Eliana shivered. "I think we might have survived today because the creature got careless. I'm determined that we never have to rely on its carelessness again."

"What do you mean?"

"While you're working on the imaging, I'll be working in the garage, installing the auxiliary fusion engines on the CAT. I want to bring it up to its full military potential, especially the laser weapons."

"Heat weapons... Makes sense... Eli, you said you felt the creature watching you? How?"

Eliana blushed. "I'm world-class in this sort of sensory integration. I don't like to brag, but I'm off the charts."

"Oh, shadow of shadow sensing. Yeah, I've heard about this."

Eliana laughed. "That's a terrible name for it. Shadows don't have shadows! But the quantum world of interaction is infinitely coupled. A change in a shadow does cause secondary effects. My brain is very good at integrating holistic input and making associations below my conscious level of thought. I'm off the charts in knowing when people are looking at me. It's a very useful talent to have, in both my professions..."

A long period followed without another word being said. Basel and Eliana spent a long time petting and kissing each other's feet. They finally sat up and smiled at each other and head to the Level-3 control center. A minute later they were busy examining the sensor recordings of the UV flash.

Chapter 11. Acceptance

Three days later...

Time: January 22, 9570 2:50 PM UCT

"Thanks for the help cleaning up Basel," Eliana said as she put away the last of the dishes.

He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Thanks for helping me prepare dinner." They had a custom of keeping their dinner time free of shop talk, but now it was time to discuss today's progress, and Basel was eager to get started. "You sure you don't want some help with the CAT?"

"Oh, I find the work therapeutic. And I've got the starboard auxiliary engine installed and tested now, 850 kW additional power."

Basel nodded. "I've never seen one of these things fly."

"I wouldn't be surprised if no one alive today has ever flown a CAT. The turbines can handle the power, but their design is just not optimized for flight. I think I'll be able to hover okay, but I doubt the CAT will handle much air speed."

"I have no idea how the distance governor will treat vertical height. Eli, don't assume a spherical shape for the limitation, except maybe as an absolute maximum. We might have a much lower ceiling."

"Okay. Making any progress on the holo data?"

Basel nodded. "Some good news and some bad news and some news I don't know how to classify."

Eliana laughed. "You know my personality. Tell me what I want to hear first!"

"The ground-scanning imaging is working better than I expected. We should be able to detect craters less than a meter radius from the echo delays."

"Excellent!"

"Bad news #1: There was nothing in particular captured in the scanning that recorded the presence of your creature. I detected a hibernating bear at site #2, but nothing seems alive in the imaging at site #4 except you and me."

Eliana sighed. "That is unfortunate. We need more information on this creature. What's next?"

"Bad news #2: Getting the scanners to work inside the CAT's manifold will be trickier than I realized. Assume another five days before we can start our survey."

"Okay. Anything else?"

"A bit of weirdness. Site #4 was a little unusual. The imaging was a little fuzzy, more so than the other sites, but not enough to hurt the scan."

"Fuzzy?"

"More reflections and echoes. I have no idea why. It might be a property of the rocks local to the area."

"That would be something we could test, return to the area and rescan."

"Not a bad idea. Eli, how soon do you think we might be ready?"

"Give me another full day. I want to test all the weapon systems before I try our first flight. We'll have to work out a schedule where I get some flight time and you still have the CAT available to install the scanner."

"Ah, so you're thinking we'll do the scans airborne."

"Sure. I'm assuming the creature is ground hugging. Can't you do your scanning while I hover?"

"Well, we'd have to be very low."

"How low?"

"Let me think about the focal lengths..." Basel thought for a while in silence. "Uh, we might need to be as low as twenty meters, maybe even lower. Would that be okay?"

"I'll take whatever distance I can get. Twenty meters sounds much safer than being on the ground. I'll be ready by daybreak on the 24th. Care to join me for a test flight?"

"Of course! It will be nice to get out." Basel swung his arms and then twisted his shoulders back and forth.

"Any problems?" asked Eliana.

"Oh, just a few kinks. I was doing a lot of tight work in the photonics lab today..."

"Would you like a backrub?"

"Wow, that sounds wonderful. Right now?" he asked hopefully.

Eliana grinned. "My backrubs tend to put people to sleep. How about we take our showers and get ready for bed first?"

Her suggestion was rewarded with a beaming smile from her companion.

Forty minutes later...

Basel came out of the bathroom in a happy mood, completely dry from the hot-air sprays and wearing a fluffy towel-robe. He appeared to be alone on Level-1, and that puzzled him for a moment. He walked over to peek into Eliana's bedroom from her open door. Nothing.

He turned and saw a barefoot, pajama-clad Eliana descending the ladder. He called out, "Ah, there you are!"