Chapter 39 #2
She didn’t want to believe it, but it was right there in front of her. Her mind raced to her time with him, filling gaps in with this new knowledge. Foster had left the outpost more often than was strictly necessary, and she’d always thought he’d gone to Asia Prime for R&R.
The name Strata prickled against another memory, one where Foster had been talking about a newsreel he’d just watched. She had never heard of the extremist group but now realized he must have been probing to see if she wanted in on the project.
Whatever her response had been, she must have reacted incorrectly, because he hadn’t told her more.
She was glad of it now. The shit in front of her was messed up.
They’d kept these animals in inhumane conditions, tortured them to discover pain tolerance, submitted them to the harshness of Earth’s atmosphere over and over again.
No wonder they’d killed their creators.
“Their eyes,” she whispered when a new image of a beast rose in front of her.
“There is some evidence that they had been experimenting with Calypson DNA.”
Her stomach twisted in knots. “How?” How the hell would they have gotten hold of Calypson DNA?
“That is what I intend to find out.”
“You and me both,” she muttered, her fingers tapping away at the terminal, searching for more parallels from her experience on the Corvus to the lab he found on Earth.
Wherever she dug, she ran into walls. The data collected about the beasts was entirely organic. It didn’t begin to explain how that white box had stolen her memories. But this information could have been used to help the success of her own work on Earth, strengthening their seeds.
Her mind was a mess of questions, of worry, and of confusion. How had Foster done it? Kept these two separate lives? He’d been her best friend, her only friend, for years. Had she known him at all? It felt like sabotage and betrayal both.
She allowed her mind to wander, to ask questions, and to pull at memories from her past, re-analyzing them with fresh eyes. If this Strata group had come by the foundational scientific information through dishonest and immoral means, then she would have wanted nothing to do with it.
Foster had been right to leave her out, despite the hurt it caused.
She hadn’t realized how long she’d sat there, digging into the data, until Iax stroked the side of her arm gently.
“We will eat,” he said when she focused on him. “Then you can return to this if you wish.”
Her stomach rumbled its agreement.
Sawyer’s cruiser was equipped with a fully stocked dispensary, and they ate identical plates of balanced greens and proteins, sitting side by side in the small kitchen space.
“Your soup was better,” Iax said, his eyes crinkling.
She agreed, but didn’t say so aloud because sitting next to Iax redirected her focus to his throat and lips, and the way his hands moved. His glinting eyes darkened at her continued perusal, and her body warmed in response.
They found themselves in bed before either of them finished their meals, staying there for hours while they explored each other’s bodies.
Wynn acknowledged he might be purposefully distracting her from analyzing data, but didn’t mind in the least. Not when the pleasure he gave her, the intimacy they shared, escalated with each encounter.
They fucked in every part of this ship, in positions she couldn’t have dreamed up on her own.
But whenever her mind cleared, curiosity followed, and she found her feet moving to the main terminal and the data files Iax had downloaded there.
“What more can you tell me of Calypsons?” she asked during their third day of travel. “Can you upload information to the terminal like you did with the lab on Earth?”
He was silent for a long while, and she turned her body to face him. A pucker marred his brow. “I have not downloaded a dataset like I did at the lab. I can not give you continuity that way.”
“But you could give me something else?” She had so many questions, but answering one created three more. “My ocular implant and PALM never seemed to fit me right. Drugs rarely work too. Is it because I’m Calypson?”
His chin jerked in a small nod. “It aligns with our origins, the discord between human cells and Calypson ones. It is a strain that is never balanced in some individuals.”
A breathless sensation filled her mouth with this new information. “Can you tell me more about your origins?”
He tipped his head, hesitating again. “When we arrive, I will find you the access you require.”
Her stomach swam with sudden nerves. “How far away are we?”
“Not far,” Iax said, tilting his chin at the viewer. “There.”
Wynn looked in the same direction. The stars hadn’t changed, but the longer she stared, the more a slice of color emerged in the center of the viewer.
She straightened, setting her feet more firmly on the ground.
The bright patch lengthened, then widened as they neared.
The nebula. They were finally here, and she was seeing it with her own eyes.
It grew in size with each passing second, and what hadn’t been visible minutes ago, spanned the viewer from edge to edge.
A dry swallow lodged in her throat.
Her sense of time slipped through her fingers as they traveled farther inside. She kept glancing at Iax, waiting for him to look concerned, but his focus didn’t waver as he piloted the ship in his unique way, taking them closer to what hid inside.
Her stomach clenched with unease the deeper they submerged the ship into the gaseous cloud, her nerves telling her this was a mistake. But it was too late now, and she had nowhere else to go.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, the clouds thinned, revealing dark shapes within. She clutched at the armrests, fingernails digging in. Her apprehension turned to confusion as the clouds dissipated into nothing.
What am I looking at?
Her brain couldn’t comprehend it, though it tried. It wasn’t a station or a ship. It wasn’t mechanical or a plant. There was no metal composite, though a majority of the formation was as dark as a Tellusian warship.
It was none of that, but all of it at the same time.
As they neared the structure, the more it baffled her.
Thick arms, both transparent and opaque, extended away from a central mass, becoming slenderer as they reached outward toward the gaseous clouds.
Bulbous shapes bigger than research stations grew from senseless locations.
The organic quality of the construction reminded her of the shirt Iax wore when he first arrived at her outpost.
She turned her head, taking in his placid expression.
His calm kept her panic at bay, though her stomach twisted from the sight of this unusual…
structure. She refocused on the parts of it that were the closest. Glasslike tubes wove in and out of the darker appendages, then twirled in on themselves.
They had to be constructed from transparent aluminum to withstand the pressures of space, but she’d never seen the material used like this.
Everything she saw made more questions erupt in her mind.
“How does this exist?” She leaned forward to watch one arm disappear beneath the ship. “How are people protected? Is there shielding?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
She reached and grabbed his arm. “Iax. Talk to me straight here. I’m kind of freaking out. Please explain to me how this is possible.”
He turned his head and met her gaze, then stared at her a long while before he gave her a nod.
“Everything you see is connected. Life. Death. Birth and rebirth. Nothing exists on its own. Everything is shared, distributed. What makes up the outer shell of our territory also makes up the outer part of me. We are stronger because of it.”
She snorted. “That’s a long explanation to not tell me what the heck I’m looking at.”
His mouth twitched, then he faced forward again. “It is both organic and inorganic working in tandem.”
The central mass of the structure distracted her from more questions, because she finally, finally, recognized something.
Within the confines of the black twisting shapes, the appendage of a ship stretched outward, its white metal composite contrasting with the organic forms. More transparent corridors existed here, all leading to the center, these mostly parallel with each other instead of twisting in all directions.
“That’s the Calypso, isn’t it?” she asked, standing to get a better look at the ancient ship.
“Yes. It is our heart. Our birth.”
“Does it still fly? Or has it been altered irreparably?”
His head tilted, but he didn’t answer.
Too classified? Or something else?
Movement caught her eye, and she leaned forward to stare around Iax.
A small ship, something like she might see on Earth, traveled between the larger, bulbous shapes.
More of them flew behind it. So many. She’d thought they were stars in the distance, but no, the expanse of the nebula hid the stars.
Little ships buzzed everywhere, from the center of the structure and beyond.
And it extended so far. She tried to think of a station or colony that rivaled it in size, but her mind grasped no comparison. Nothing in orbit around a planet or moon.
That’s it. It was like the Calypso had turned itself into a planet.
Its size only increased as they flew closer. Soon, the central structure’s vastness obstructed everything. She focused on the one part she could identify, the engine connected to engineering, then found more. The biodome stood out among the bands of black encompassing it.
Iax circled downward, then sidled up to one of the transparent arms that spiraled from below.
Wynn had all but forgotten her fear as she’d taken it all in, but it returned tenfold when she heard the ship connect with the arm. The hollow sound reminded her of a docking clamp. She hadn’t seen a docking hatch, but air hissed around the door.
The controls powered off, and Iax stood. Wynn found her feet glued to the deck, her fingers tight on the edge of the main terminal.
“They are waiting,” he said after a moment.
“Who?”
“The Four.”
The names he’d told her bounced around in her head, and with them, the memory of Briar Galloway’s face at her birth.
Resolve straightened Wynn’s spine, and she stood to meet Iax’s gaze straight on. The Four had a lot of explaining to do, and she wouldn’t rest until she got answers.
When Iax reached for her hand, she took it willingly. A steady feeling swept over her. She might be nervous about what she was about to find on this strange station, but she had Iax at her side. That meant more than anything.
Swallowing, they stopped in front of the exit. The airlock released, then the door slid open. She almost expected to be sucked out into space at how flimsy the corridor looked, but warm air entered, accompanied with the scent of something earthy and moist.
“No harm will come to you,” he said, gently tugging her forward.
Wynn gripped his hand tight, and he squeezed hers back. The action grounded her and stalled the spinning sensation that wanted to take hold.
Inhaling a deep breath, she stepped into a silent corridor.