The Best Defense (near-future HFY) - One Giant Leap 12: Prisoners of No War
Chief Supervisor Holm Dar
Date: 15.7.3.6.218 HC
Location: Librarian Survey Ship Curious Observer, transiting Sector E5J7
“The Engineers report ready for voidspace traversal, Shipmaster.” Nna tapped at his controls, displaying the ship’s readiness indicators.
“High tide is passed,” Holm grumbled.
“As your grandmother would say,” Nna observed, “the splashing pup catches no fish.”
“It doesn’t mean we haven’t wasted time with this bickering.” Holm felt his ears flatten against his scalp, remembering how he’d finally had to call the senior-most Engineer, Farmer, and Healer in for a repeat of the same briefing they’d given Sinak. “We should have been on our way periods ago.”
Normally, even a ship as small as theirs needed little more than a period to recharge their voidspace capacitors. If there had been decent infrastructure in the system, they could have tapped into beamed power from a stellar energy collector; but this far from the red dwarf primary, they’d had to rely on their internal fusion reactors. But they had been floating in System E5J7-9 for over two periods now, and it was entirely because of inter-Guild rivalries. Every one of the Guilds, even the Farmers, had been dragging their flukes over the matter with the natives. After the new power allocation forms had reached Engineer Senior Journeyman Znik Tol, however, things had simply gone downstream from there.
Now everyone on the ship knew the whole story. Holm was quite certain he’d be demoted when he returned to civilization. Well, nothing for it. He was too senior for his position anyway. It had been politics that landed him a survey assignment that should have been the responsibility of a junior supervisor at best. Now it would be politics that swept him into something else as well.
“Secure the ship for void traversal,” he ordered, shaking off his weed-gathering. “Signal Spacer Senior Journeyman Sinak to proceed when ready.”
Jessica Richards
Date: Is time still the same out here?
Location: Big room in space
Getting kidnapped should be terrifying. Getting kidnapped by aliens, as it turned out, was mind-numbingly boring.
“I wish we know where we are going.” Chris looked out the window in the outer door. “Alien guy not very chatty.”
The window didn’t hold much of a view, of course; in fact, unless you were right up against it, you couldn’t even see the stars outside. The light inside their oversized prison cell just turned the glass — or whatever the hell it was — reflective. Lights that never turned off, either; they were on some kind of alien day-night cycle, but only dimmed rather than went out. So all they had was a small window into the infinite nothingness, four nearly-featureless walls, and a blank inner door that presumably led to the rest of the alien ship. That door had only opened a few times so far, once when their toilet arrived, and twice more when the alien excuse for food had been delivered.
“Kinda expected, really.” Pete shrugged. “We’re ‘prisoners with no rank.’ We’re not going to be told anything they consider useful intelligence.”
And there was each other, of course, but that only went so far when most of them couldn’t understand each other. Jessica wasn’t sure why the aliens could translated all their languages into Alienese, but they couldn’t turn Portuguese into Indian or Chinese into English.
Wait, was it Indian or Hindi? Or something else? She’d have to ask. She didn’t want to use the wrong term and offend Manjeet. Her college and the HR department had been very clear about the need to use appropriate terms, but she couldn’t remember what it said about this. Though both had been very clear about the use of Latinx, and that hadn’t gone over well. She still hadn’t wanted to talk to Pete after that, much less Nash.
Zhao Hua, who was sitting with her back against one of the walls by the outer door, asked something. Jessica couldn’t understand it, but from her expression the Chinese woman was concerned about her.
“I’m okay,” she assured Hua. Chris and Pete had had to tell her that ‘Hua’ was the other woman’s given name, not her family name. That had been yet another faux pa. “I’m just a little . . . overwhelmed.”
Her life in Denver had been simple. Everything and everyone was understandable. She knew where everyone was, and who to associate with. It was comfortable. Here, though, there was no comfort. No place to sit, other than the little mats they had instead of beds. No way to rest under the lights that didn’t go out. No distractions. Just the little amount of conversation they could get from each other, and the inside of their own heads.
Jessica still wanted to believe this was all a trick. Some sort of elaborate prank. Like, maybe that view out the window was a giant TV screen. The room could be human-made. And for crying out loud, the aliens used Microsoft Sam as their voice.
But that was actually what made it circle back around to being believable. Why would anyone fake something so unimpressive? And even if it was some amazingly bold reverse psychology, how could you fake this weird sideways gravity thing? Or even just reduce it to the level they were at now? They’d all tried seeing how far they could jump in the lower gravity — well, except for Katharina Wolter, who was too egotistical for that — and that was impossible to fake.
And mildly fun. It turned out that if you were moving, you could feel that somehow one side of the room was ‘uphill.’ Chris and Ricardo had tried to explain why, but it didn’t make sense to Jessica. All she got was that it had to do with the direction of the spin of the ship, like when she’d tossed Ricardo’s shoe. Apparently, she should have paid more attention in physics class.
Nestir, the Russian guy, was also sitting with his back against the wall, but in his case it was the wall on the “downhill” side of the room. He’d had his eyes closed like he was trying to rest, but now he jumped up, turned, and pressed his ear against the wall.
Most of them noticed, including Pete. “What is it, Nestir?”
“Slushat’.” Nestir tapped the wall.
“What?”
“Slushat’!” This time, Nestir cupped one ear. “Slushat’.”
“I don’t hear anything.” Jessica looked up, too, but only saw the plain metal ceiling with its exposed pipes and lights.
“No, I get it.” Peter frowned. “Something just changed. I can feel it in the deck, too.”
“What?”
“Spend enough time afloat, you get a feel for ships. I wasn’t on any of the really big ones, mind you, but big enough. Only I have no clue what this one is supposed to feel li–”
“To entering dark space this vessel is preparing.” The Aliensoft Sam voice was back. Overhead, the lights dimmed, then brightened, then dimmed, then brightened. “To secure immediately all crew from functions unnecessary. To evacuate required from compartments unsecured.”
“What’s going on?” Jessica looked around, worried. The lights continued their cycle. A babble of different languages rose up, probably everyone else asking the same thing. She raised her voice. “Hey, aliens! What are you talking about?”
The German lady started yelling over her, as if determined to be the loudest voice in the room. “Ich verlange mit Ihrem Vorgesetzten zu sprechen!”
“Impressive voice, I must say,” Thando commented. “I wonder if she was an opera singer?”
“She does hit the high notes,” Manjeet agreed. “But no . . . what is word? Upasthiti. Makes audience like you.”
“Appeal?”
“Good enough. She has no appeal.”
“To entering dark space this vessel is preparing. To secure immediately all crew from functions unnecessary. To evacuate required from compartments unsecured.”
“Evacuar?” Ricardo echoed in Portuguese. “Para onde?”
“Exactly my thought,” Peter replied. “Sounds like an automated announcement. Like closing time at the store.”
“Norte.” Nash scoffed. “In Mexico, abuela kick you out store. No bother annuncio. No escucha, hit con chancla.”
“Yeah, trust me, Nash, I’d prefer we had your abuela and her shoe for backup right now.”
“I settle for abuela hit Alemán.” Nash clicked his tongue, glancing sideways at Frau Wolter, who was still yelling at the ceiling.
“Baines-san,” Chris asked, “what normally make ship sound different?”
“Could be a bunch of things. Depends on where you are and what kind of ship. But the loudest part is usually the engines.”
“If spaceship,” the Japanese kid said slowly, “is probably big engines.”
“Yeah. I thought of that.”
“So.” Thando grunted. “We are going somewhere. Good. At least it’s not the same view without end.” He gestured at their only window.
“Space big,” Chris pointed out. “We have no idea how fast we are going right now. All we see are stars, yes? But aliens, they are from distant star, so must have way to go faster. Maybe big engine need time to work.”
Jessica felt worried. “Wait. I watched the Artemis blast-off. Doesn’t going faster mean extra gravity?”
“Gravidade?” Ricardo asked, looking questioningly at Peter and Nash. “Não, girar.”
“Rotate?” Peter frowned. “You mean the spin gravity thing? Are they going to stop spinning?”
Jessica’s eyes widened in horror, and she tried to control her breathing. “Why would they stop spinning?”
“Whatever it is,” Thando rumbled, “we got nowhere to go.”
“That’s what worries me.” Pete tried to hide it, but Jessica saw his eyes flicker to the outer door. The door that apparently opened into space.
Jessica closed her eyes, trying not to hyperventilate; but the sound of choked sobs caught her attention and she opened them again. A little distance away, the Korean woman, Ji-min, was kneeling on the floor and rocking back and forth, clutching her stomach. She took a deep breath. Having a panic attack wouldn’t help anyone, including herself. She forced herself to leave the knot of worried, babbling people and knelt down next to Ji-min. She’d barely talked to her — not that she could say much — but Ji-min seemed to have the worst time of all of the abductees, even vomiting twice into their new toilet.
“Hey.” They had almost no vocabulary in common, but Jessica hoped her tone would work. “Ji-min. I hope I’m pronouncing that right. I’m not really good with languages.”
Ji-min sniffed loudly, looking sideways at her. Not knowing what else to do, Jessica just kept talking.
“Actually, I’m terrible at languages. I studied French because, well, everyone did Spanish. Okay, and the French teacher was kinda hot. Bad mistake now, huh? I mean, unless we run into some French aliens. If my roommates were here, they’d do better. One of them loved watching K-dramas. She probably knows at least a few words in Korean. And the other one . . . well, actually, she’d probably be useless too. She’s into all kinds of neo-pagan stuff. Lots of Norse runes and Egyptian gods.”
“Ihaega anne dwaeyo.” Ji-min sniffed again, but she didn’t seem to be crying as much. Her arms were still wrapped around herself, but at least she was looking at Jessica.
“Yeah, I know, I’m babbling. Actually, it’s all a shameless distraction. And as long as I’m busy distracting you, I can’t panic either. Win-win, right?”
“Win-win?” Ji-min repeated. She nodded. “Win . . . good?”
“Oh, you know some English?” Jessica was surprised. The Korean woman had barely spoken a word since they’d woken up, only communicating with Chris in a mix of their own languages.
But Ji-min just shook her head, then started talking in Korean; hesitantly at first, but then picking up speed. Jessica kept smiling and nodding. It was only fair, right? She’d babbled in English. She couldn’t complain if it went the other way.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Weirdly, though, she thought she heard a lot of familiar words in there. She didn’t think there was that much shared vocabulary.
Finally, Ji-Min took a deep breath, extended one hand, and said “Jeoneun Ji-min-imnida. Laong taim no sei?”
It took Jessica a moment to realize those last four syllables had actually been heavily accented English — long time no see. Yet it also sounded practiced and familiar, kind of like how Americans would say common French phrases like au contraire or c’est la vie and get them right in a very wrong kind of way.
That was a . . . weird thought. Did Korean use English the way English speakers used French?
“Hi, Ji-min.” Jessica pushed the thought away and took Ji-min’s hand. She enunciated carefully. “I’m Jessica. I’m very pleased to meet you.”
Ji-min nodded. “Virry preest to meech-oo,” she repeated.
“To entering dark space this vessel is preparing. To secure immediately all crew from functions unnecessary. To evacuate required from compartments unsecured.”
Ji-min cringed at the sound, and Jessica scowled up at the ceiling. She’d been making progress, damnit!
“Hey, aliens!” She raised her voice again, though she didn’t try to go as loud as the Wolter chick. Jessica figured that was unnecessary. If they could carefully aim translations directly at each one of them individually, then they could pick up what everyone was individually saying, too. So she just kept it loud enough to make it clear she was addressing them. “We can’t leave, you know. So what’s going on? Why does this place need to be evacuated? Is there an emergency?”
Nothing. More talking from the others, more yelling from Wolter. Then the announcement repeated itself.
Jessica finally lost control, though instead of panic she just got angry. “For fuck’s sake, you slimey bug-eyed alien freaks! What kind of stupid pea-brained idiotic game are you playing? If you’re going to leave us in here with absolutely nothing to do, then don’t bother us with announcing how you’re evacuating your dark spaces!”
Snorts of surprised laughter from Pete and Manjeet made Jessica realize she’d gotten a bit louder than she’d intended. Her face flushed.
“Emergency none.” Aliensoft Sam was back. “Routine central processing warning is.”
“So now you talk to us? What, do I have to insult you for you to show up?”
“Negative. Preparation of transition to dark space complex is. Additional: context lacked to understand description of vegetative cerebral structure.”
It took Jessica a moment to realize what Aliensoft Sam was referring to. She sighed. “Never mind that. What the hell is going on?”
“Entering dark space we are. Negatively required for action subjects are. Danger unanticipated. Previous warning by regulation required.”
“So I was right.” At some point, Pete had come over to stand near Jessica, which gave her a start. The others were right behind him. “It’s an automated announcement.”
“Correct.”
“Great.” Jessica made a face. “Most exciting thing all day, and it’s just bureaucracy. Hey, aliens, when are we going to have something to do?”
“Negatively required for action subjects are. If inquiring on subsequent contact, sustenance provisions provided will be shortly. Advisement, appetite may be delayed in consequence of dark space sickness. Device/drone/Roomba dispense will after transition.”
“That’s not what I — wait, what?”
“Duties have I elsewhere. Communication this shall cease.”
“What the fuck, Sam! You can’t just drop that and not explain!” Jessica waited a few seconds. “Sam! I’m talking to you!”
“Apparently he can and he will,” Pete observed. “Or can and won’t. Whatever. What’s with the Sam?”
Jessica shrugged. “You know, the Microsoft Sam voice?”
“Oh. Makes sense. Good a name as any, I guess.”
“At least there is good news,” Thando stated.
“What’s that?” Jessica looked at him, confused.
“More food coming.” Thando patted his stomach. “I need fuel for this girlish figure.”
Jessica stared at him, then had to chuckle. He was by far the most muscled person there. “Well, if you can call it food. They’ve never heard of spices.”
“Very not umami,” Chris agreed.
They’d all received the same thing with each meal delivery, individually packaged for each of them, though the contents of each meal had been different so far. The last time, the food was something that looked like red carrots, had the consistency of a baked potato, and tasted like a cheap oats-and-raisins cereal bar. The kind you choked down because it was “health food,” while dreaming of a bowl of pasta. At least, that’s what Jessica did, but she really liked pasta. She wondered if she’d ever taste it again.
Supposedly the food met their dietary requirements. After the bizarre pronouncement about this ‘hegemony’ thing and denying even the basic concept of human rights, Aliensoft Sam had just calmly went off on a surreal series of questions about their dietary needs. It leaned so far into organic chemistry that Ricardo and Manjeet — who turned out to be a pharmacist — were the only ones who understood it. Even then, they’d been unable to communicate with each other, so they’d both gotten very frustrated.
“It’s probably shipboard rations,” Peter suggested. “Or they gave us the dregs, since we’re prisoners. But I’ve had worse MREs.”
“Si.” Nash laughed. “Em-ahr-ay! Recientemente excreta. Har’ed comprende. Food is . . . no es aceptable, en mi hotel.”
“’Har’ed?” Jessica had gotten most of it, but that was a Spanish word she’d never encountered.
“He means me,” Peter explained. “Jarhead. You know, my . . . job?”
“Oh.” She nodded. Peter had been avoiding talking about what he was. She figured it was a soldier thing. Don’t give the enemy information. Not that they didn’t already know. How clueless would the aliens have to be to miss something so obvious?
“To move from doors native subjects must. No toleration shall be of interference in device/drone/Roomba.”
It was Aliensoft Sam again, but another recorded announcement — one they’d all heard several times by now, including the stuttering translation of whatever Alienese word they used for the delivery robot. The other door, the one without a window in it, slowly started sliding to the side. The first time it happened, they’d all backed away nervously; now, only Peter, Nash, and Thando moved, conspicuously standing between the door and Jessica, Ji-min, and Hua.
“That’s not really necessary, you know,” Jessica told them.
“If we get attacked by a mob of schoolchildren, I’ll gladly hide behind you,” Peter snarked back. “Until then, I’ll do my job.”
Jessica let it slide. It wasn’t like they had a lot of other things to do, after all. If he and the other two wanted to play at being heroes, fine. Though she had to admit it was still weird to see Nash acting protective. Or maybe he was just spoiling for a fight.
The other side of the door was a small space, just large enough for the form waiting inside. It was a boxy, practical shape, about three and a half feet tall and a bit more than that long. It looked a lot like a grocery store cleaning robot with a retractable forklift. With a nearly-silent whirr, it started rolling forward on four wheels. Not hover jets, not mechanical spider legs, not anything exotic. Just wheels.
Frankly, Jessica found the design disappointing. The aliens seemed kinda low-effort.
Normally, the drone made its delivery and left; this time, the inner airlock door closed, shutting the robot in with them. They all looked at each other, confused.
“Well, Sam did say it wait until after dark space,” Chris pointed out.
“What is dark space?” Manjeet asked.
“I think it hyperspace.”
Jessica perked up. “Like in Star Wars?” Finally, a term she recognized.
“You’ve seen Star Wars?” Pete looked skeptical.
“Just the most recent one, but yeah.”
Chris made a face. “Does not count.”
“Have to agree.” Manjeet nodded.
“Dark space transition in one span,” Aliensoft Sam intoned.
Pete frowned. “That would be more useful if we knew how long a ‘span’ was.”
A beat later, the alien computer said, “Eleven.”
“Why’d it start with eleven?” Jessica wondered out loud.
“Hyperspace!” Chris ran to the outer door to look out the window.
“Ten.”
“A span does not seem very long,” Manjeet observed.
“Nine,” said Aliensoft Sam. “Eight.“
Or perhaps Jessica should think of it as Auto-Sam? Computer Sam? It would be helpful if the voice had even a little variation when different people were speaking. Or maybe there was only one alien on the ship?
They crowded around the window, even Katharina Wolter, though she used her elbows to muscle her way to the front. Jessica hung back instead. She had a hard time looking out into that endless depth of stars as it was. She wasn’t sure she could handle whatever was about to happen.
“One,” Auto-Sam finished. “Transition.”
There was a rolling flash of light outside the window, like a bolt of lightning on a cloudy night. Then . . .
Jessica staggered as a wave of dizziness washed over her. Everyone else had similar reactions.
“. . . que?”
“Ho kya rha hai . . . ?”
“The fuck is happening?”
“Chikushō!”
Was this what Alien Sam had mentioned? Dark space sickness? Jessica shook her head. She felt like the room was spinning, but she fell back on her old dance team days. Focus on one point. Keep steady. The most obvious point in her vision was the window to the outside, so she stared at the darkness she’d been avoiding a moment before. She forced herself to straighten up and breathe. The dizziness didn’t quite fade, but she was able to push it aside for now. Hopefully it wouldn’t last very–
Another rolling flash outside, and the dizziness was over as fast as it had come.
“Everyone okay?” she called out, carefully moving her head. There was a little bit of wooziness as she did so, but it quickly faded. Those who understood her answered in affirmatives. “Okay. Hey, aliens! What just happened?”
No answer.
“Fine. Hey, you sons of flea-spotted syphilitic hyenas!”
Still nothing.
“Get your diminutive vegetative cerebral organs in here!”
“Oh, nice one!” Chris congratulated her.
Pete shrugged. “Might have overplayed it.”
“Worth a shot,” Jessica said. “Insulting them seemed to work the last few times.”
“It’s usually not a great idea to antagonize the warden.”
The abductees slowly started spreading out again, though the English speakers still grouped together. Jessica watched as Nestir wandered over to the delivery drone and started examining it. Previously, when it had dropped its cargo and immediately left, they hadn’t had much chance to look at it. Nestir seemed to be making up for that now, even going so far as to lay down on the floor to try to look at the undercarriage. She didn’t see anything unusual about it, just some designs on the outside that were either alien letters or abstract modern art, though she couldn’t rule out a verdict of ‘both.’
Thando grunted. “Nestir looks like he’s going to try to take it apart.”
“He’s bored,” Pete answered. “We’re all bored, but I get the feeling he’s the kind of guy who tinkers in his garage instead of watching TV. Let him have this.”
“Hmm.” Jessica thought about that. “We need activities. That was only the first time we did that . . . ‘dark space’ thing. Who knows how long we’re going to be cooped up? Or even if they’ll give us any magazines or something. So we need stuff to do.”
“You mean like school activity?” Chris asked, doubtful.
But Pete was nodding. “Yeah, keeping busy is important. Though in . . . my line of work, we mostly do that to keep out of trouble. Not really an issue here.”
“And in your ‘job,’ you know how to conduct exercises, right?”
Pete eyed her. “Physical training exercises, or . . .”
“What other kind is there?”
“The kind with lots of marching and map-reading.”
“I’m just thinking we could use some organized activity, and that’s at least good for our health, right?”
“Sure, but getting everyone to agree will be–
Pete broke off as Nestir seemed to have gotten close enough to trigger the drone. It opened a compartment on its side, revealing eleven identical containers of identical yet unidentified substances.
“Native subjects to take sustenance,” Aliensoft Sam announced. “Caution recovery from dark space sickness. Place discards in pile when finished are.“
The eleven squared-off bowls were gently lowered onto the floor. The drone then turned precisely in place and headed for the door again, scooping up the empties from the last meal as it did so. The airlock door opened to let it out.
“So much for that.” Jessica sighed again. “Well, who’s hungry?”
Without waiting for an answer, she scooped up two containers and headed over to Ji-Min, who was sitting alone once more. She wasn’t sure how much she could do, but she was going to try for more progress.
“Here, Ji-min!” she said brightly, handing her one. The other woman stared at it. “Not sure what we have today. This one looks kinda like . . .”
Abruptly, Ji-min dropped the food, rose unsteadily, and rushed for the toilet. The others turned at the sudden movement, but when they saw where she was headed, they all looked away. The toilet hadn’t come with any privacy screens, and everyone had silently agreed to just turn their backs when anyone was using it.
But after a moment, Jessica followed. The sound of Ji-Min’s retching made it clear she wasn’t using it as intended, anyway, and she’d held roommates’ hair back enough times after late-night parties to know that maybe the other woman could use a friend. Ji-min had short hair, but that didn’t mean a hand on her back wouldn’t help.
“Hey, sorry, Ji-min,” she said softly when she got to her side. “I guess you were still a bit dizzy from the whatever-it-was. I guess this is the ‘dark space sickness,’ huh?”
Gasping for breath, Ji-min rocked back on her knees, leaning against the toilet seat with one arm, rubbing her stomach with the other. She moaned something, but Jessica couldn’t even make out individual syllables, much less any words.
“It’s okay. Take your time.” Jessica reached out for her, and Ji-min flinched. Jessica hesitated, but after some hesitation, Ji-min nodded her thanks and leaned against her.
Jessica noticed the small but fresh stain on Ji-min’s blouse. It was a simple white button-down, still mostly tucked into her business-like pencil skirt. It must have caught some backblast. She made a mental note to ask the aliens about some kind of laundry service. Maybe some new clothes — they made a whole toilet, so surely they could make clothing.
“Gomawo,” Ji-min said, after a false start where she had to cough and clear her throat. “Gomawo. Th-thaan-ku? Thann-ku.”
“You’re welcome.” Jessica smiled at her.
But, still distracted by the stain on Ji-min’s blouse, she saw something else. Or rather, realized what she was already seeing. Ji-min wasn’t just holding her hand on her abdomen. She was tracing an unconscious, comforting circle. Not high, where her stomach was; but lower. Much lower.
Ji-min’s hand froze, and Jessica raised her eyes to see the other woman looking at her, an expression of such fear that she almost recoiled. But then her brain caught up, and she realized that whatever ‘dark space sickness’ was, Ji-min did not have it.
“It’s okay, Ji-min,” Jessica said, aware of her own voice shaking with sudden trepidation. She mouthed the words that she didn’t really believe, but had to say. “It’s okay . . .”
Oh, crap, she thought to herself. I hope one of us knows how to deliver a baby.
Deputy Supervisor Nna Tss
Date: 22.7.3.6.218 HC
Location: Librarian Survey Ship Curious Observer, transiting Sector E5J7
Tsirlan physiology was less susceptible to the physical effects of void sickness. One had to be quite careless to injure one’s self during an unsecured transit. However, regulation was regulation, and there was no reason not to observe the forms by strapping into a smart chair molded to his body.
Besides, the straps against his carapace allowed him to avoid betraying the symptoms those of his species did experience, namely the prolonged daze and potential hallucinations that were an unavoidable aspect of void travel. It was most disconcerting, and the mere fact that every known unaugmented sentient save one experienced it was no excuse for not displaying the proper leadership one of his rank and position should.
The other members of the Librarian command team were still limp in their own smart chairs, some of them twitching unconsciously. Nna had left the feed from the cargo hold live on his station, though in a smaller holographic display since his first duty was to check the surrounding space for any —
A glance at the cargo bay feed with just two eyes soon turned into all six staring at the information. The natives were upright and . . . eating? How? The absurd thought that he was accidentally watching a recording was quickly disproven as he verified the feed. Most sentients required extensive training to avoid emptying their digestive organs. Perhaps one or two of the natives could be well enough to eat, but all of them? No, nine of them . . . it appeared Subject Two was still suffering the effects, and Subject Nine was assisting her.
With an appendage still trembling from the effects of the traversal, Nna backed the recording up to the moment of the traversal, and felt the phantom sensation of a cold trickle down both of his spines. Subject Two was not suffering from void sickness. Her symptoms only started well after the traversal was completed. In fact, none of the natives showed any but the barest reaction.
It was impossible. No amount of training could resist the effects of the void, even with the strongest void shields in place. That was why he had set the automated servitor to wait until the subjects indicated they were ready for sustenance. Only a trained psychic with the proper implants, or the bio-engineered Xgrar servitors of the Domination, were known to be so resistant.
It was impossible . . . like so many things about the natives.
Further study, thought Nna, is required.
