Adrift in Space

"Holy shi..., Anna," he went silent as he reached for the offered glass but took her hand instead and traced a finger in a curved arc along her forearm before he released her and took the glass.

"Your folks would freaking glow on Earth."

She let out a short series of cough-like sounds. Although Anna and many of her people showed amusement via human laughter he'd learned this was the native Sylvan version.

"I chaeat? Your eayes," her wounded tone again.

"Just making us even," he raised the glass, "figured out how to get lenses that would let me see ultraviolet. These chairs are all outlined, your decanter, it reflects. How you can see in here."

This time she left the room dark except for the ultraviolet outlines. The designs in her skin weren't fluorescent but highlights were visible. And likely unique to each Sylvan.

"I didn't see much else different though. Except in here. Your star doesn't put out much ultraviolet."

"Jusht haighlaights," she confirmed, "but laike crazy now."

"They're leaving, right?" Her grunt affirmed his statement. "A few hundred million... like you. Leaving. Is everyone off the planet."

"No...," her tone conveyed more sadness than he'd ever heard, "millionss have shtayed. Thaey wanted..."

"I've seen the simulations," Peter said, "when your sun goes, it'll scour the planet's dayside to bedrock. Won't completely evaporate the oceans, but it'll blow the atmosphere away too and then the oceans will be done for. Not to mention months of heavy radiation, just in case anything isn't dead yet. No, not will, did... Light is slow..."

Her slow exhale was confirmation. They both sipped. Bourbon. Excellent as usual. When he'd arrived on the station 'whiskey' was every brown alcohol and generally a step away from varnish. That there were multiple types? That tasted like this? Who the hell knew that?

Queen Anna apparently. But he doubted her enjoyment of this one was much deeper than his at the moment.

"I know some of your people burrowed, dug... old deep mines."

She snorted, exasperation, he detected her nod.

"Even if they survived... the sun will be too unstable to ever support life again, whatever's left of it."

"Yesh, one ark staeyed behind, until lasht moment."

"And the elevators?"

"Worked."

"When will it have to leave to be far enough away?"

"Eain's projectionsh have been... perfect. Lesh than a year and we should finally see it. The last ark will have had to leave four, five months before and it will be very rishkay. But the onesh who shtayed... long gone..."

He'd never heard her voice crack like that. He blinked at the sudden moisture in his eyes. He sipped, hoped for it to dull his senses quickly. Then he tried to shift the subject.

"We're listening to messages almost thirty-three years old... Are we certain the arks made it far enough? Survived?"

"No. We jusht have to... waiat."

"So. Three hundred years. And change. Then... millions of your paeple arrive. Not changelings."

"Shome. Manay maey chooshe that path when thaeay awaeke. For their babiesh."

"That'll still leave all... of the others."

"Why I musht sucshaead here."

"And. Ian's work on the attack... A thousand years before Earth is in their crosshairs. If he's right. Humans... can't think that far ahead."

"He, hiss work, hash been... perfect. Human'ss will... have to. Or die. Like mae planet."

"And if they, whoever, whatever they are, don't fuck up again, humans won't have two centuries to escape."

"No." Her voice was again firm.

"Your surname, Anna," he said softly and she looked at him with a querying expression, "is Lightbringer."

"Yesh."

"In myths, my people's, that's what Lucifer means. Satan, the devil. Your paeple bring many promises, but there's a price. Deals with the devil always come with a price."

She simply nodded then they sat in silence and emptied their glasses.

"Like Carole's deal with you."

Anna let out a soft sub-vocal sound, but nodded and her look had a hint of sadness. She was intellectually aware of human myths, something the resolutely rational Sylvans didn't have much of and he and other humans had brought this point up, tried to make them understand. Peter watched the decanter glint again as he held his glass out for her to refill it before she refilled her own. They sipped and watched the star field, she always timed these meetings for moonless 'nights' in Earth's shadow.

"Christmas party in two weeks," Peter broke the silence with what he hoped was a brighter tone, "then Anna's leaving. Year after Carole..."

Anna tilted her head before she nodded slightly and made a soft burr in her throat.

"Did shae tell you?"

"No... I'm not... the same person you met that Halloween. Your spy is good. She's not said a word. But... I can tell. I know her now. And I know you."

"Oh?"

He enjoyed his rare triumphs over the Queen.

"You like the synchrony, a year ago tonight you told Carole... and she left in January. You need to... get things moving."

"Yesh. Shae will go to another satellite for a few weeks, then to Nashville, then to maeat Jayne to get ready for the Uni."

"She's incredible," Peter nodded, "you've faked an undergrad degree for her, but she knows the stuff, she learned biology from you and her mom from the time she was an infant and I tutored her in computers. She'll be fine at the Uni. Unless she's too busy fucking better looking guys than me."

"She'll be like her Queen," Anna said after a clear human laugh followed by a soft sub-vocal challenge, "fuck them all and shtudy at the shame taime!"

Peter laughed at the memory of this Anna's video record. If Anna Squared kept up half that pace the guys at the Uni would scream for mercy.

"So, do you have a new one for me to, um, train?"

Anna took a sip before she spoke in a less jaunty tone.

"Not yet. Anna Shquared ash you call her ish... unique. You've met a couple of them jusht younger than her..."

"And they're as good as Angie. But not Anna Squared. Not quite."

"True. Your schiencsh callsh it the 'uncanny valley.' If my changelingsh not perfect, humansh will react poorly. If not perfect, better to be original. Laike mae."

Peter sipped his bourbon in the silence as they both watched the dimmer stars disappear. He knew they only had a few minutes before they'd cross the terminator. Anna's mood had also dimmed after its short peak, he'd never seen her morose like this in public. Only...

"Shi..."

She turned to look at him, her head tilted at his outburst but she said nothing.

"Right after you brought me and Carole up, you said to me something about 'close advisers' would see our conversation."

She nodded, a human gesture all of the Sylvans understood but didn't always use. A side-to-side wag was their equivalent.

"What am I?"

She smiled and lifted her glass to him, tipped it slightly, then put it to her mouth. He replicated a heartbeat later before he spoke softly.

"You've shown me a side you can't show 'them,' your doubts. And worry."

The illumination in the room had increased so he could see her features. She'd gone into hypersleep barely into her thirties, had slept for almost a century, taken her two year shift awake as part of the rotating crew as they travelled through the Great Empty. Her second century of sleep had been interrupted early with the deaths of the senior leadership in their hypersleep booths. That had been twenty and five years ago, that shock soon followed by the messages from the doomed first expedition as the pair now known as the Golden Criminals sabotaged the first interstellar starship as part of their escape plan. Like Anna's team did a dozen years later, they'd have parked their starship in orbit on the opposite side of the sun from the Earth and loosed a single, rather than the second expedition's three, stealthed satellites to let the Earth catch up to them a few months later to begin their spying mission.

For just a moment Anna's vitality seemed to have drained, the weight of over two hundred and fifty years pressed her down. Then the look cleared. Sylvans regularly lived two, even three decades past a hundred and could stay vital for almost all of that. So she was barely middle-aged.

"Then, I need to say something. Your plan? Anna Squared, changelings, slowly infiltrate Earth's technology and media..."

"You dishagraea?"

"Oh hell, no! Not me. But your own people. Well, some of them."

A sub-vocal huff of dismissal cut off and her mouth stayed slightly open as she read his face. Then she touched those lips that weren't really lips with the tip of that square tongue.

"Tell mae."

"Your computers. I've... well, your security isn't as good as—-"

She coughed. Sylvan laughter. Then she shook her head. His passing thought was Sylvans might just fit in, she'd applied human reactions naturally. She poked her glass at him.

"Go on..."

"I've found signs of, well, something. I don't know what yet but I think there are Sylvans who are planning something. Something big. Whatever it is, my AIs have been blocked. It's not any of your official projects."

"How do you know?"

"I broke all of YOUR security months ago."

She stared at him but he couldn't tell if she was truly angry. Or just not yet angry.

"Washn't the phrasse 'off with hish head' that Queensh got to ushe?"

"You got a guillotine hidden on this rust bucket?"

Her human laughter was sudden and clear. His surprise was as clear. She took a slow, deep breath and closed her mismatched eyes.

"Who should I talk to? I've kept silent, haven't been sure which of your computer folks to tell."

"No one," her voice was hard, "I beliaeve you. I have had... mae sushpishionss. You musht faind them, who, what they are planning."

"But your 'paeple,' to hel—-"

"No," her tone brooked no dissent then softened, "who to trusht? You. Mae."

Unexpected Encounters

[December 1984]

His hair combed but still wet he wrapped a towel around his waist and stepped out of the little bathroom.

"Hey, lover, remember, we have dinner tonight. Don't get lost in your work again!"

He exhaled at that and she kissed him quickly and he watched her pull the door closed behind her, off to do whatever it was that spies did to prepare for their mission as a Uni graduate student in bioengineering.

He thought of the eager student he'd met not quite a year earlier. He'd known immediately she was different from Queen Anna's changeling crew. It wasn't just her height. Her eyes were, like theirs, green. Her skin was, like theirs, pale and without the subtle designs of the Sylvans. But as a lone young human woman on an alien space station, they were her closest natural peer group so it seemed natural she'd be friends with them.

Besides, Carole had pale skin and green eyes. He initially believed the cover story that Anna, like Carole, was a human, born on earth. But unlike Carole, he'd believed she was openly working with the aliens, like Jayne the Cat. And Sheryl. And that white-haired woman he'd seen that night Queen Anna had sent Carole away. And him now.

Anna's carriage was stiff but smoothly better than Kim's and subtly better than Angie's, the two generations of changelings just before hers. It was well within any definition of 'human.' She was taller than average for women so at first meeting people might think her ungainly, despite her pretty face, her full chest on a frame with a smooth stomach and an ass that was shapely but without broad hips. Her eyes were maybe a brighter green than was common but their shape implied little more than an exotic heritage.

But he'd started at the name. Did they have so few to use?

"No, lover," she'd said, "I chose it. I'm going to be the first one to really 'go down' there... This is all due to her work, should be her name that goes down."

He knew the 'her.' Indeed. She'd originally told him 'Queen' was only a nickname, kind of a title, but not with the earthly connotations the word carried. He'd eventually found the source of that 'title.' Her 'paeple' held her in high esteem and he knew her title was 'Director of Biology' but her authority went well beyond that. His lover's mind and body, her pussy, ass, mouth, were the momentary apex of the Queen's decades-long project. Her use of her body was the apex of Peter's efforts of the last year. She'd fuck any man she took a fancy to into an early grave, he was pretty sure.

The aroma of sex was thick, he'd cracked enough of their systems to adjust the circulation to prevent it from clearing the room too quickly but without it seeming clammy. The other contributor to that aroma had showered and dressed while he'd lolled in a post-sex stupor in bed.

It had been the voice that had finally convinced him.

"Babe," he'd said as they'd lain side by side on their backs in bed after another marathon bout of fucking, both of them covered with sweat. They'd been together just over three months and he'd never quite worked out when he'd invited her to move in, she'd shared some sort of quarters with Angie and Kim on this satellite, with other changelings on the other, when she hadn't been on Earth with Jayne or with Jenny, her contact in Nashville.

"Um?" She hadn't opened her eyes, but had rolled her head toward him, her left hand in his right.

"You weren't born in Africa."

She released his hand and shifted her arm as she rolled to lift herself onto that bent elbow.

"Of course I was."

He rolled his head and opened his eyes to look into her fretful expression and smiled softly.

"Don't worry. Humans... well, earthlings, will buy your Africa story. But, it's your voice."

She frowned. Anna's voice, the Queen's, the original Anna's, was fine, emotive, her accent heavy but her command of English solid. Leagues beyond any ability he had to speak their language. Same with the other 'original' Sylvans he'd met.

The older changelings were worse, they felt the full range of human emotions, they laughed and he'd seen a couple of tears fall from Angie's eyes when Carole had left. But their voices just didn't stray from a near monotone. He knew the Queen fretted over this flaw in her work, it had to be something deep but like languages genetics wasn't his forte.

"You're much better than Kim, bit better than Angie. I... suspected. But it's taken me this time to convince myself. And hey, I'm around you every night."

Her expression calmed but she didn't fully relax. He could tell she was deep in thought.

"You've spent months on Earth, that's clear. You were with Jayne that summer right after they dragged me and Carole up here, right?"

She nodded.

"And only Jayne knew?"

She nodded again.

"Did her mother, anyone at the hospital, shopping, ever react? Ever go 'bullshit' when you talked about your parents being missionaries, you growing up with nannies and foreign kids and others? Learning English like that, well, it's a great story."

She exhaled slowly and looked over him at some distant point. "No, people usually said it sounded like a neat way to grow up. Especially in your Valley, where all the kids all go on missions."

"And remember," she looked back at him as he spoke, "I have the gang to compare you to and I know what they are. No one, well, except Jayne and your contact in Nashville know what you are. You'll be fine."

She lowered herself and snuggled against him with a soft laugh.

His duties for one of his jobs satisfied for now, his other beckoned. They'd sent Carole because they'd judged his Professor's AI work might assist them in teaching their significantly more advanced AIs about humanity. They'd chosen him in part because his lack of family connections stood him apart from the rest of his work group. But they'd also judged him, properly, as the most creative of the crowd.

His earbud chirped then a harsh voice broke in with a short, recorded message.

"Hey, asswipe," Anna's voice was almost emotive, he thought, "pull your fucking head out of the computers and get home. We have places to be!"

Oh, yeah. He blinked and shook his head. Spoke into his wristlet for it to deliver.

"Yeah, uh, on the way."

His earbud squealed. That wasn't her voice, she had a custom capability on her wristlet. He'd looked into turning it off but previously he'd been worried that would've signalled Queen Anna how much of their security he'd bypassed.

That was moot now.

But he saved the latest onto his personal padlet. He'd masked most of it from the ship's systems, had it pretend to sync openly while it hid most of what it held. He'd spent the day directing semi-autonomous AIs to explore a suite of secret capabilities. Tools. Messages. Large files. Protected.

Very well protected. And not by any of the standard protocols or ciphers. Similar but modified. Breaking it wasn't hard. Breaking it without being detected as he'd done with the standard systems was.

Research on encryption based on huge primes was the rage on Earth but the quantum systems along with the shipboard supercomputers ate those for lunch. Nothing on a computer on Earth was hidden from him, or the Sylvans, if he could get access. And networks down there extended their tendrils by the day.

He sighed. Since he'd revealed his efforts to the Queen he'd failed to identify the players or the plot. He suspected it was targeted at Earth, but even that wasn't certain.

Tonight was the first Christmas party, before a weekend of celebrations, the actual day the following Monday. Anna would leave two days after that.

He needed to be 'there' for her. It was obvious why the Sylvans wouldn't just nuke humans into oblivion, they needed the planet in working order. But could it be something more subtle? Next week's problem. After Anna Squared was gone.

He gathered his padlet and told the lab to power down for the long weekend, his coworkers had largely gone to other satellites to be with friends or families. Terminals and lights dimmed as he left, although the supercomputers never slowed in their cryogenic baths.

His earbud chirped again, incoming.

"Meet me at the party. Toga on the bed. Don't even think about wearing underwear!"

He snorted.

As he walked through the halls and wondered if his dick was visible under the white toga with traditional red trim that was shorter than he'd expected, his mind wouldn't quiet. Anna Squared had gotten her toga party. No one else had been enthused but as it was only the 'preliminary' Christmas party Queen Anna had finally relented and given in to her namesake who would soon bring truth to the long-held human myth that 'aliens walk among us.' He expected almost everyone still on this satellite would be at the party, just over a hundred souls, with him probably the only actual human. All of the other humans he knew of had gone to the other ships, his guess that they wanted as many other humans around them as possible. He shrugged at that thought. He'd not had a strong dislike of any of the other 'expatriate' humans he'd met but other than Carole had little feeling for any either.

And Carole. She'd finally adopted email and responded in a friendly but terse manner to his, as a rule. She seemed happy enough and apparently knew about him and Anna Squared but didn't seem to express annoyance at it. He knew her well enough to suspect she had 'something' to tell him but whether that was she had her own lover or she never wanted to see him again was unclear. The latter didn't seem likely from the tone of her emails, though. But it was obvious she wasn't in a hurry for a reunion. Queen Anna had obviously applied a basic firewall to block him accessing any indirect sources of info on her, he could've broken that in an instant but in this case he'd respected the limit.