Echo and the Lone Drifter

There was a hollow thwump, then thwump, thwump, and on the fourth th-WUMP something came and pushed the Puck.

The sound was huge and somehow muffled and Logan didn't hear anything else.

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"Captain."

Logan's eyes fluttered.

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"Captain."

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"Captain."

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"Captain."

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"Captain."

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"Captain."

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"Captain."

Logan woke, his head coming up. He was halfway in the harness, hanging out of it, gravity active, his head swaying and bobbing. He stiffened his neck, raising his head, breathing through the nausea. He waited. He finally raised his hand slowly, tapping his helmet, looking at the display when he could.

"Captain."

"I'm here, Puck," Logan said, his voice hoarse, shaking his head, trying to clear it. "How long was I out?"

"Eight minutes and twelve seconds."

He looked around and saw the box on its side on the floor of the hold. It had a deep dent in the corner. Logan straightened, untangling himself from the harness, the suit heavy. When he was sure of his feet, he walked to the airlock door, looking in. Everything looked fine from here.

"Puck, give me an all-clear, systems check. Seals and airlock are the primary concern," Logan said.

He waited.

"All clear. Systems functional. Airlock is not compromised," Puck said, to his relief.

"How far are we off course?"

"Minimal, correction plotted."

"Open the door."

Logan's hand went to his helmet and he pressed a button, the seal opening. The faceplate peeled back and he triggered it, pulling the helmet off.

His hair was sweaty underneath. He wiped his nose, which was bleeding. He wasn't surprised. He did an inspection of his body as he pulled off the suit, in his undershirt and thin shorts. Bruises where he'd hit and otherwise the suit had protected him. He had gotten lucky. He wasn't even sure luck covered it.

"Analyze the box I brought from the alien ship," Logan said.

"The box is composed primarily of—," Puck began.

"Infer from context, Puck," Logan said, still removing his suit. "Extrapolate my most likely intent."

"You want to know what is inside it," Puck inferred.

"Excellent. Is it alive?"

"Yes. However, the container was damaged during transit," Puck replied. "It is possible the organic form was damaged as well."

—Hurts. Hurts. It hurts, it hurts. Please—

"Fuck," Logan muttered, his jaw clenching, feeling her waking in his head, feeling her rising fear. Pain and fear. "Find me a way to open that box, Puck."

Logan moved toward the box, looking at it all over. Red light flashed from inside, fiery red, an alarming color. He didn't see any way that it opened.

—Hurts, it hurts. Please let me out. Let me out, please, it hurts—

Her panic battered at him.

"Hold on, Echo," he said to the box.

He hovered over the box, waiting for Puck. It was a blank surface.

"The controls for opening the mechanism are on the handle," Puck said. "Safety precautions require quarantine for pathogen—."

"Override. Tell me how to open it."

"Analyzing."

—Hurts. Please. Please help me, it hurts. Let me out—

"Hurry up, Puck," Logan said sharply.

Puck gave instructions, Logan finding the panel on the handle, flipping it, the alien symbols under it.

—Please—

As soon as he pushed the symbol, a line appeared along the center of the box. It widened the smallest bit and compressed air whooshed out, a cloud of vapor, warm.

The two sides parted, opening like a book, another rush of warm air, humid, one of the sides falling away empty and crashing to the floor, surprisingly heavy, making a dull clang that didn't ring. The other side was still full, its innards molded to what it contained.

Logan was looking at a large egg, huge, big enough to hold a person. A small person. It had a whitish cast, almost transparent. He could see the shadow of a dark form inside moving in a limited way, but a part of the egg at the bottom left corner was stoved in, cracked, blood leaking out.

He touched the surface, trying to determine if it were organic. Could it be a juvenile Mecca? Another crack appeared on the outside of the egg, higher, tiny at first and then widening, the form inside battering at it.

—Out. Please. Let me out, I want out—

Logan squatted in front of the egg and began to help, pushing through and peeling away the hard outside layer, the layer under that a kind of thin skin-like film that tore easily. Behind that was something matted and wet, white. Hair?

He kept going, widening it as a hand pushed through to his left, splayed, frantic. Feminine and Terran-looking. He grabbed edges, pushing and rocking, pulling them away.

He exposed a delicate shoulder, wet matted hair everywhere, a back and head. Her other hand emerged and her own fingers returned and were wrapped around a tube sticking out of her mouth, pulling on it, choking and gagging. She was making short panicked noises. He got his hands under her arms and pulled her partially out as she yanked it from her mouth where it just kept coming.

She was naked, covered with some kind of clear substance, viscuous, her white hair matted with it. From what he could tell, there were tubes coming from her everywhere, looking organic themselves. As he watched, they began to dwindle, shriveling. He pulled on her, trying to clear the mess, to separate her from it.

—Hurts, it hurts, hurts—

His eyes went down her body and saw her foot, mangled and at a wrong angle where the box had stoved in, the bone showing, broken through the skin, blood everywhere. Her hands went to the tubes still in her nose and she pulled them out.

She began to cough deeply again, her whole body convulsing. The fracture was bad. She could lose the limb if he didn't get it treated right away, the blood supply compromised, her tissue dying.

Logan was behind her. He lifted her shoulders so she didn't choke as she leaned forward and vomited bile onto the floor of the airlock. He supported her, both of them covered in the slimy stuff now. Her hair was everywhere, sticking to her body and to him. The spasms finally slowed and she cried out, her hand going to her ankle, hovering above it, not touching it.

She looked up at him, tears mixing with the rest of the stuff, stretched in pain, but it was her face. From his dream. Echo. Fuck, she was real. He reached for her and she drew away, flinching, fiery red flashing up and down her body.

"Don't be scared," Logan said under his breath.

He gathered her up and lifted her, everything trailing after her, sticky, bits and pieces of shell still clinging to her and to him. She cried out with the movement.

He hit the release to the door to the bridge with his shoulder and walked through quickly, taking the doorway on the right, bringing her into the shower room, which also served as a medical station. He hit the lever with his elbow, trying not to jostle her, the table unfolding, and set her on the hard surface on her back.

She cried out again, blood everywhere. He watched as fiery red light danced under her skin at her foot at the point of the fracture and then up to her leg and to her chest, radiating outward, and then back down, starting again. She was moving too much with the pain, her foot mangled. He didn't know her physiology. Restraining her would be terrifying.

Logan slammed his hand onto a panel above his head. It popped open and he grabbed the small hypodermic there.

"Assess the possibility of an adverse reaction to the analgesic given alien physiology," Logan said quickly, waiting, poised.

"Unkn—," Puck said.

Fuck it, he was going to do it anyway. She cried out again, frantic with it, her eyes on her foot, panicking. Logan popped the end into his mouth and jerked his hand away, the top pulling off, and pressed the hypo to the meat of her shoulder. He depressed it, watching her face.

Her cry died a little and she breathed out and blinked, shaking, her face slowly relaxing. She looked up at him, tears streaking her face, staring, still breathing fast. Her eyes were searching his face.

"You came for me," she said, her voice thick.

"I did. Lie back, Echo," Logan said. "Activate the doctor, Puck."

She did what he said, slowly lying back, her hands crossed over her stomach, her eyes still on his face. The apparatus lowered from the ceiling, sensing the injury, sliding on its track down to her feet.

"Start diagnostic, vitals active," Logan said, imaging coming online for the apparatus. "Assess and treat."

A screen blinked to life showing her foot, the bones, showing the injury, a readout of her vitals. It was bad. Many arms with different ends, forceps and scissors, clamps and scalpel, unfolded from the box, automated. Echo looked at them and then at him as the table moved to immobilize her foot. She was shaking harder, her skin clammy, her breathing shallow. Going into shock, her vitals alarming.

"Don't move," Logan said, bringing his face close, putting his hand on her forehead and pushing her hair back, her eyes focusing on him. He did it again, stroking, trying to calm her. "It's going to clean the area and set the bone. You'll be all right. The block will keep you numb. It won't hurt."

She relaxed under his hand a little, shifting her eyes, watching it. She turned into him and grimaced when it drew the bone straight, her foot finally aligned and immobilized in a medi-cast, a light clear foam sprayed around. Then the whole thing was encased in a small clear boot, waterproof, a seal to protect the skin. There was a healing accelerant in it.

A hypodermic shot out and into her arm, startling her.

"Iron supplement, probably," he told her. "Antibiotics."

She was still covered in every different kind of mess. Both of them were, and it was beginning to dry, small flecks fluttering to the floor. He watched her vitals on the monitor as she stabilized, reassured when they got stronger.

The doctor finally released her with instructions, Logan waiting through them. He got his arms under her. The foot was waterproof now.

"Do an analysis on all alien materials and take samples. Swab the medical area and hold, Puck," Logan said, lifting her.

She was lighter than he expected. He hadn't noticed before. He brought her to the shower.

"Standard cycle," he said, activating it.

He still had his undershorts on, a black t-shirt. She startled in his arms as the water began from all sides, warm. He set her down on her feet gently, supporting her, watching her put weight on the boot, designed for this, and then more confidently. She didn't seem to be in pain, although she looked shaken.

He began at the top of her. She stayed still for it as he lathered her hair, washing her face and neck, moving down her body, staying clinical and detached. Trying to. She was a beauty.

She relaxed more as he did it, her shaking not so bad now. He paused when he got to the feathers between her legs, looking at them. He couldn't resist, reaching to touch one lightly on her thigh. His mouth quirked. The feathers reminded him of a fairy-wren, a small round bird with downy white feathers and a sweet piercing song you saw everywhere in the protected parks on Old Terra.

She watched his hand. She was exactly as he remembered.

He stepped away from her, pulling the shirt off and washing himself, making sure he'd gotten all of it. He kept the shorts on, no need to call attention to what he was sure she'd already noticed.

When he was done and they both were clean, he inspected her all over, his eyes lingering. His mouth quirked again. She had a sweet, sexy little round butt, just like everything else about her. She looked even more wet somehow and he realized it was her feathers, bedraggled with water. He smiled a little more.

"Gentle dry," Logan said, knowing the feathers were probably more sturdy than they looked, but somehow worried a more brisk dry cycle might hurt them.

The warm air came from every direction. Her eyes widened. She liked that. Logan stepped back and watched as she turned in a slow circle, a deep indigo blue light flashing all through her body, her eyes slitting with pleasure, moving a little awkwardly with the cast, sighing, stretching, her arms coming out.

She shivered and abruptly puffed up, the air reaching and fluttering over her feathers as they stiffened all over. They settled as quickly, her white hair floating down, clean and dry and silky and very snarled as the jets stopped.

Taking her hand, aware she was still naked, Logan led her onto the bridge and to the table, moving slowly, Echo awkward on the cast. He sat her down and squatted in front of her, studying her. However impossible it seemed, she was real and she was here.

"You're Echo," he said.

"Yes."

"Does this place seem familiar to you?" he said.

She looked around and then at him.

"I was here before, but there was a window."

He gave a low incredulous laugh.

"I was dreaming," he said. "I touched you. I thought you were just in my mind, Echo."

"I was just in your mind," she confirmed.

"But you were on the Mecca ship."

"Yes."

"And you were here."

She looked at him doubtfully. He suddenly wondered if the voice he had heard on the audio record wouldn't actually, on analysis, turn out to be his voice. How long had she been in that egg? He looked at her face. Beautiful and delicate. Those eyes.

"What are you?" he asked her. "Are you a Mecca?"

She looked down at her hands.

"A little," she said. "No."

He waited. She looked up at him and winced. Her shoulders fell, that blood-red color throbbing in her hands.

—I'm a skrim—

"What is a skrim?" he said, shaking his head.

"You can hear me?" she asked in return, seeming startled.

"I've always been able to hear you."

—Even now?—

"Yes."

She answered aloud this time.

"You don't have a word. I'm a skrim, a splice. A psyche, a hybrid. A changeling. The Mecca program made me from recombined Terran genetic material."

He was staring at her. He shook his head.

"How much of your genetic makeup is Terran?"

"99.9%," she answered.

"And the rest of you is Mecca? .1%?"

"Yes."

"How can you speak our language?"

"The Mecca program that made me scanned the Terran main net."

His breath sucked in.

"The Mecca program linked to the Terran framework?"

"Yes."

The aliens had bypassed Old Terra security. The Concord Senate wasn't going to be happy to hear that.

"Why did they destroy their ship?"

"They were already dead. They didn't want their technology to be taken by others."

"Why did they make you?"

"The ship's purpose was exploration. It left the Mecca home world and traveled far from its home system to find other species, a journey of many generations," she answered, sounding like she was reciting something she'd been told to say. "There was an accident. They couldn't get home. The Mecca on the ship knew they were dying. One of them wanted to continue their purpose, so he made a program. If the ship encountered other sentient beings in its travels, even after the Mecca on it were dead, a skrim would be spliced and grown. It would have the genetic makeup of an individual from the new species but a small amount would be Mecca genetic material. The Mecca hoped that the new species would recognize and possibly accept it."

"Why?"

"So Mecca would continue through me in this place."

Logan was staring at her. He finally rose and went into his bedroom and returned. He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. He had brought one of his black t-shirts. He really didn't have anything else that would fit her.

He put it over her head. Closer, Echo had a scent, compelling and strange, definitely not Terran. It was pleasant, evocative, a light dry musk, a sweet fragrance under that that was more familiar, the two blending. She immediately stopped his progress, bringing her hands up and pulling the shirt off, handing it back to him.

"No, thank you," she said.

Logan took it and put it over her head again, stepping close to pull her hair through, beginning to work on her arms.

"It would be better if you were clothed."

"Why?"

"Our skin gets cold," Logan answered.

As soon as he said this, she stopped his progress again, pulling the shirt off, her hair settling, holding it out to him, inside-out now, his eyes going to her breasts as he took it, her pink nipples jutting. He looked away.

"Thank you," she repeated. "I'm not cold."

He took it from her and turned it right-side-in, putting it over her head again, going through the same process, pulling her hair through. Naked, she was distracting. Very distracting.

"Terrans cover their bodies for other reasons as well," he said. "It is a part of our customs."

"I know. Mecca don't," she argued.

She reached for the bottom hem of the shirt, intending to pull it off again, obviously having decided she could pick and choose which things she liked from her mixed heritage and that clothing wasn't one of them.

"You might offend Terrans if you weren't wearing clothing when they met you," he told her.

Echo stopped pulling the shirt off. She let her arms drop, the shirt settling. She was a little thing. It came almost to her knees.

"Are you offended?" she asked him, a small flash of amber iridescent light following under the skin of her arms, moving to her hands and disappearing.

Offended? He smiled at her slowly.

"No, Echo. But I would like you to wear it."

She thought about it.

"All right," she agreed.

His eyes went to her hair, the chaos of it, a white halo of mess and tangles. He rose and went into his room again and got his comb, all he had, walking behind her and taking up the mass of her hair, snarls all through it. It was going to take some time. He sectioned it and started at the bottom. He tried to be gentle, seeing her wince occasionally.

"This is your ship," she observed.

"Yes."

"You made the young simple being, the thinking one. Hello, Puck."

"Hello, Echo," Puck said.

Logan didn't comment. It was a little strange to hear these two greet each other. She was quiet as he worked through it, enjoying the softness of her hair, how much of it there was, enjoying his own responses to her beauty. Everything had happened so fast. The quiet now was a little odd.

"Where are we going?" Echo asked him.

His brows went up.

"To Terran space. To Dufur, actually. It's where I live."

"Will I go to your home?"

Logan's hands paused and then they resumed.

"I didn't know you were real, Echo," he said carefully. "I haven't had a chance to think about that yet. Typically, as soon as we got to Terran space, the Concord would automatically download the Puck's log. When they did, they would learn about the Mecca, about the ship, and about you. I imagine that shortly after that, someone would come and bring you to the Concord Senate on Old Terra."

She was quiet.

"Would you come with me?" she finally said.

"I'm not on the Concord Senate. They are the Terran authorities."

Amber color washed down her arms, the light under her skin. Beautiful. He thought it was connected to what she was feeling.

"What will they do with me?"

"If you went with them, they would probably take you and put you somewhere where you were safe. Ask you questions. Study you," he said. He wouldn't lie to her. "You would be given what you need, but they probably wouldn't let you leave."

She went still.

"Because I'm a skrim?" she said.

"Because you're different. They would want to study your physiology and your behavior to try to understand the Mecca. Terrans haven't met another sentient species before."

She was quiet again. He kept combing until her hair was a silky fall, finishing.

"Will they hurt me?"

Amber light played under the skin of her shoulders now and then traveling down to her hands, then radiating to that fiery red he knew was fear or pain. She was scared. Logan set the comb down next to her and came around, walking to sit in the other chair. He needed to figure this soon. He answered her question.