Resilience

  Resilience

  Book Seven in the Chronicles of Alsea

  Fletcher DeLancey

  Heartsome Publishing

  For the ones who don’t fit in.

  What makes you different may make you extraordinary.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Map

  Prologue

  1. Rain

  2. Respect

  3. Expectations

  4. Chases and braces

  5. Trust

  6. Team

  7. Transition

  8. A bay with a view

  9. Tests

  10. Target practice

  11. Actions and reactions

  12. Kasmet game piece

  13. Beakers

  14. Proposition

  15. Petting

  16. Tutnuken

  17. Logs

  18. Prey

  19. Answers

  20. Chase

  21. Infestation

  22. Defense

  23. On edge

  24. Communication

  25. Breakthrough

  26. Courage

  27. Brace shaft J

  28. Translation

  29. Logistics

  30. Pool party

  31. Search and rescue

  32. Follow the com

  33. Opportunity

  34. Salvation

  35. Song of life

  36. Iceflame

  37. Harmonies

  38. On the team

  39. Strategies

  40. Enkara

  41. Resilience

  About the Author

  Also By Fletcher Delancey

  Acknowledgments

  For this book, my usual team had to be expanded. I threw quite a bit of biology in here and brought in two new consultants to check my work. Many thanks to Alma Tiwe, my biologist friend who might be even geekier than I am, and to Polly Rankin, whose years of experience as a fisheries biologist made her a reader I particularly wanted to impress. (She was! My ego had to be squished back to normal size.)

  Rebecca Cheek gave me the benefit of her expertise as well, both in the life and physical sciences, and suggested making a gruesome scene even more gruesome, which I did gleefully. Saskia Goedhart made sure that the opening fight scene was properly choreographed and confirmed that yes, it really could happen that quickly. I picked a few military brains for questions such as who would service a shuttle and how big a shuttle bay should be; for that, my thanks go to Clifford Flesch, a US Navy veteran, and Maj. Chris Butler, USAF, Retired.

  Dr. Ana Mozo gifted me with her time despite being terribly crunched for it herself, and offered a wheelbarrow of advice regarding the many medical scenes. There were a bunch, given that a major character in this book is a ship’s chief surgeon.

  Rick Taylor also lent his critical eye, particularly for the issue of character consistency. Karyn Aho continues to be my Prime Beta, the first stop for any manuscript, while she makes certain that my characters’ psychological underpinnings are secure and believable.

  On the editing side, Cheri Fuller played an excellent game of whack-a-mole: she would point out my repetitive word usage, and in correcting those problems, I’d promptly commit new offenses. We did get all the moles whacked, whereupon proofreader Lisa Shaw found a few gophers that had escaped. Those are now corralled as well.

  Cover designer Dane Low did an amazing job in visualizing my alien, as if he peeked inside my head and drew what he saw there. This was achieved after a slight initial hiccup, when I mentioned bioluminescence and he drew something that looked like an alien on a glorious LSD trip. I’m sorry I couldn’t use it, but I kept the file.

  And thank goodness for my wonderful wife, Maria João Valente, who fell in love with a writer and somehow didn’t regret it even after learning the down side: that writers can pour astonishing quantities of words into a document while having very little left to say aloud.

  But I’ve got the words poured and printed now, and will hand them to you, the reader. Thank you for buying this book—and buckle up, because this one is a fast ride all the way to the end.

  Prologue

  “I will represent Alsea to the best of my ability.”

  First Guard Rahel Sayana had said those words just eight days ago, before making her first trip into orbit. Looking at the groaning crew members strewn about the floor at her feet, she had the uncomfortable feeling that she’d already broken her promise.

  And the day had started so well.

  1

  Rain

  The chime at her door came precisely on time, as always. One thing Rahel had learned about Dr. Lhyn Rivers was that she took her job seriously. Though not formally attached to the crew, she had been contracted to teach Rahel about Protectorate culture and the ship she was serving on. Every day, she appeared at the same time to begin a new tour.

  “Good morning!” she said brightly when Rahel opened the door. Her hair was contained in its usual complicated braid, dark brown and silver blended together, and her vivid green eyes—too large for her face and one of the most alien things about her, even with the lack of facial ridges—were alert despite the early hour. “Ready for deck twenty-one?”

  “Barely.” Rahel stepped out, the door sliding closed behind her, and walked down the curving corridor beside her taller friend. “Dr. Wells kept me late last night with at least fifteen different scans. I’m glad to be done with it. Every time she put me in that omniphasic diagnostic bed, I was afraid she’d press the wrong button and send me shooting off the ship.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Yesterday was your last compulsory day of testing. Congratulations on surviving a full week in the gentle hands of our chief surgeon.”

  Rahel let out a huff of laughter. “Her hands are the only gentle thing about her.”

  Dr. Wells had been a fixture during this first week aboard the Phoenix. She was competent and intimidating in equal measure, and her temper was the stuff of legend. Rahel hadn’t seen it yet, but she had heard stories.

  “That’s not true, you know.” Lhyn angled over to a small alcove built into the bulkhead, its recessed lights shining on the yellow-flowered plant that filled it. “Dr. Wells is a kinder person than most people realize. It’s a cultural constant that people present different public and private faces. Yet we still assume that what we see in public tells us all we need to know.” She touched one of the flowers, which turned a deep blue beneath her finger, and added, “I love Filessian orchids.”

  “I like them because I can remember their name. The rest of these . . .” Rahel gestured at the corridor with its profusion of plants. Graceful arches marched along its length, bracketed by pillars housing broad-leaved vines that swept to the floor. More plants clung to the tops of the arches, some small and bushy, others with long, leathery leaves that reached for the ceiling. Along the sides of the corridor, each door was topped by a lintel crowded with greenery, and if that weren’t enough, every few steps was an alcove featuring either a Filessian orchid or some equally spectacular flower. Between these were large mosaics of colored tiles, spotlit as if they were installations in an art gallery.

  Rahel had never expected a warship to look like a place of worship. She felt immediately at home here, enjoying even the air she breathed. She had been prepared for sterile air, but the Phoenix had a subtle, woodsy scent, spiced with the fragrance of its many blooming plants.

  “I can’t imagine why you’re having trouble remembering the names of a few hundred plant species along with the schematics of a Pulsar-class ship,” Lhyn quipped.

  “Ha. I was looking over the schematics for deck twenty last night and realized I’d already forgotten at least a quarter of what you showed me. How is it that you Gaians can install a lingual imp
lant in my head so I can speak your language, but you can’t program me with a map of this ship?”

  She was teasing, of course, but Lhyn took her seriously.

  “It’s a different kind of learning. Language is a result of neural impulses that are translated to specific muscular movements of the tongue, cheeks, lips—”

  “Lhyn.”

  “. . . and jaw, but—hm?”

  “That wasn’t an actual question.”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry.”

  The burn of embarrassment hit Rahel’s senses, and she shook her head at herself.

  As a scholar, Lhyn was supremely confident. She was one of the Protectorate’s most famous anthropologists, spoke thirty-eight languages fluently and fifteen more quite well, and could put details together with a speed and intuition that left Rahel breathless. But Lhyn had explained that studying cultures and moving through them were two different things. She might be a genius at one—and the fact that she would use that word to describe herself was a perfect example of her confidence—but that didn’t translate to any facility at the other. It was one of the reasons she had chosen Alsea as her home: in a culture of empaths, her inability to blend in was an asset. Alseans valued a person whose words always matched her emotions.

  “No need for apologies,” Rahel said. “Besides, I’m only now getting used to my mouth saying words I don’t know. I can’t imagine how odd it would be to have my brain coming up with facts I don’t know.”

  Lhyn smiled, all embarrassment gone. “Wouldn’t it be amazing? To have limitless information at your fingertips? It’s been tried, of course.” She led Rahel down the corridor. “But the Protectorate outlawed the research.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “Every attempt to go from theoretical to experimental failed. The voluntary subjects couldn’t cope with the information density.”

  It was a clean-sounding phrase, but Lhyn’s sympathetic horror said otherwise.

  “What does that mean?” Rahel asked.

  “They burned out their brains. Overloaded the neural connections and—” Lhyn held her hands apart, then flipped them upward. “Fried them.”

  “Like the Voloth?” It was the only comparison she could think of, the invaders who had tried to conquer her home and were instead driven mad by Alsean high empaths.

  “Not exactly. They didn’t go insane, just catatonic.” Lhyn stopped by the mosaic across the corridor from the lift, a brilliant rendering of a red waterfall cascading down a sheer cliff. “But as long as you’re aboard a ship like the Phoenix, you have something close to limitless data. Go ahead, find out what this is.”

  It was one of the first and most valuable things Lhyn had showed her. Rahel was used to tapping an earcuff to activate it and make a call, but communication equipment on the Phoenix was more advanced. Now when she prepared to leave her quarters, she inserted a small, comfortable ear plug that not only allowed sound to pass through from the outside, but also enhanced it. The internal com linked to the ship’s computer, which constantly tracked her location and listened for any requests.

  Best of all, she and the computer could converse in High Alsean, a welcome bit of familiarity in this alien place. She could even choose among several different voices for their conversations, though after trying them all, she had settled on the same one that the computer used for its external communication.

  “Phoenix,” she said, “what is the mosaic at my location supposed to be?”

  The feminine voice spoke flawless High Alsean inside her head. “The Firefall of Allendohan, a waterfall four hundred and twelve meters in height. It flows over a cliff face composed of quartzite and iron oxide, giving the rock a red tint. At sunset, the angle of illumination increases the reflection of red wavelengths. During these times, lasting from five to thirty-five minutes, the waterfall appears to be in flames.”

  “Have you seen it?” Rahel asked. Allendohan was Lhyn’s home planet.

  “Yes, it’s spectacular. It’s on the opposite side of the planet from where I grew up, though. I only saw it twice. The irony is that this artist isn’t from Allendohan. I had no idea the Firefall was so famous until I left home.”

  “There’s a philosophical truth in there somewhere.”

  Lhyn chuckled as they crossed to the lift, which chirped in recognition of their arrival and opened its doors. “Probably, but I’m a linguist, not a philosopher,” she said. “Deck twenty-one, hydroponics.”

  The lift’s lighting took on a slightly blue cast, the only indication that they were now hurtling through the ship.

  “You’re also an anthropologist,” Rahel said. “I don’t see how you can do that without being at least something of a philosopher.”

  “Don’t tell. I keep that out of my articles.”

  The lighting returned to normal and the doors opened, revealing a vast bay four decks high.

  Rahel stepped out, marveling at the size of this place. It was filled with tall, tiered racks of plants in orderly rows stretching from one side to the other, beneath a forest of trees that brushed the ceiling. From the trees hung even more plants, fantastical shapes that twisted and curled and adorned themselves with blooms and fruits unlike anything on Alsea. Fleet personnel wearing the uniform of the botanics section busied themselves among the racks and wove through a bewildering maze of pipes with varying diameters and orientations. The air was heavy and moist, full of the scent of growing things, and she could hear pressurized water hissing as it was released somewhere out of sight.

  “Great Mother,” she blurted. “Has Salomen seen this?”

  “It’s one of the first things I showed her.” Lhyn’s enjoyment was on her face as well as her emotions as she gazed around the cavernous bay. “She didn’t want to leave.”

  “Are you speaking of Bondlancer Opah? Aye, she was a treasure. It’s not often we get a world leader in our little corner of the ship.” A slender, black-haired man rose from a crouch at the end of the nearest rack, tossed a few dead leaves into the bin beside him, and dusted off his hands. Holding one out to Rahel, he said, “And now I get a new celebrity. Masaru Shigeo, chief of botanics. You must be Rahel Sayana.”

  Rahel would never get used to the Fleet custom of grasping hands, much less the odd up-and-down motion that seemed to vary every time she met someone new. Some people did the motion once, others twice, a few three times, and two had done it repetitively as they spoke to her, as if they’d forgotten what their hands were doing. Sometimes her hand was held gingerly, as if she had a contagious disease; other times she found herself in some sort of unspoken contest to prove who had the superior strength. She found no pattern to the ritual, nor any way to predict how the next one would be conducted. Lhyn said a wealth of information could be learned about the other person from the way they shook hands, but Rahel much preferred the Alsean way: a simple meeting of the palms, held vertically at shoulder level, allowing a transfer of emotions through skin contact.

  But the Gaians were sonsales, unable to sense emotions even through physical touch, so she accepted Shigeo’s hand.

  He moved her arm up and down twice, using a crisp, economical motion, then released her with a slight smile. “Not used to shaking hands, eh?”

  “It’s . . . different,” Rahel allowed. She turned to Lhyn. “Why do you call it shaking? Shaking is this.” She held up a hand and shook it vigorously, then stopped when both Lhyn and Shigeo burst out laughing. “What? I know that’s the right word.” Her language chip didn’t make mistakes in terminology.

  “It’s the right word.” Lhyn was still chuckling. “Just the wrong application. And you’re right, that doesn’t describe it. I’ll have to look up the etymology.”

  “In some instances, we should call it jerking,” Shigeo said.

  “Shippers, yes. I try to avoid those. Then there’s pulling.”

  “Or sublimated fighting,” he offered.

  “Oh, good one. Or sublimated seduction.”

  “I don’t get those very
often, more’s the pity.”

  “How do you sublimate seduction in a handshake?” Rahel asked.

  With his dark brown eyes twinkling, Shigeo held out his hand and waited patiently until she accepted it. Gently, he enclosed her hand and held it still.

  “Rahel Sayana, it is a great pleasure,” he murmured in a deeper voice than she had yet heard from him. She watched in confusion as he executed a graceful bow. “I’ve waited a long time to meet the first Alsean space explorer,” he said to her hand, then looked up through his long lashes. “It was worth the wait.”

  He straightened, letting his fingers slowly slide along hers until they slipped away.

  “I don’t understand,” Rahel said. “That wasn’t seductive at all.”

  As Lhyn laughed, Shigeo thumped a hand over his heart and staggered back a step. “I’m wounded.”

  “That’s what you get for trying physical seduction on an empath.” Lhyn’s amusement rolled off her skin, wrapping around Rahel with bubbly warmth. “She can sense that you’re not attracted.”

  He straightened and flashed white, even teeth in an easy grin. “It’s true, I usually prefer less intimidating women. You look like you could toss me over that rack.”

  “She probably could,” Lhyn said before Rahel could respond. “Alseans have denser musculature than we do. She’s even stronger than she looks.”