Symbiosis
by Sylvia Nickels
Ginora Three opened her eyes as the ship dropped out of jump space with a jolt that almost rattled her bones even inside her atmospheric jumpsuit.
“You are awake, MiDame.” BenGin spoke from his seat facing the forward view screen.
“I suppose.” Ginora Three moved to the seat beside him. She was thankful that BenGin was with her. Her ship had inexplicably decided to leap into jump space on a simple visit to her family at the exploration camp where they lived on Soranus. BenGin, per protocol in his data banks, had placed her in suspension until they approached a planet since she had no experience with frigid jumpspace travel. With no need of rest, he kept the ship systems going.
“That was a pretty harsh drop. Why?”
“Unknown. The sensors detect strange signals but no ship traffic.”
“We’re near a planet?”
“The jump tunnel appeared to turn sharply back upon itself. Indications are that we are approaching an exit junction. Data banks indicate planets are usually found near exit junctions. If one exists, it should be within visual range at any moment.”
“What...” A dark ball appeared to swim toward them out of a sea of stars. Faint markings on the surface bore no resemblance to any images she had seen of ancient planets. No satellites or space stations encircled it. A dead planet?
“Shall we attempt a landing, MiDame?”
“Would it be wiser to take a shuttle?”
“Sensors detect unstable explosive substances in some places underground. If they are equipped with guidance systems they could fire and bring down the ship, stranding us. If we land, we can avoid them.”
She touched a button, sending a jump-dispatch announcing their location back to Soranus, she hoped.
They made a circuit around the planet then the ship settled to the pitted surface, which except for the lack of risabaga plumes, resembled the harsh skin of Soranus.
Were there survivors? Were there other planets in this system? Were they in the same condition as this? She wandered a little distance from the ship. An object on the ground tumbled away as her boot kicked it. Bending to look at it she saw it was a small cylinder. Several lay scattered around. She picked one up and pressed the end of it. A two foot stream of some type of electrons swirled out of it and resolved into a holographic image.
“Greetings. We hoped you would return someday.” The humanoid figure appeared to the eye as solid, though flat, two-dimensional, and some degradation had occurred, creating thinner spots in a few places.
“Ben.” She called and her companion appeared at her side. If holobeings could be surprised or touched, he would have been.
“MiDame. Is it sentient?” He reached a hand out toward the figure.
“I think not. More like our early communication holos. See, there are more.”
She picked up another and pressed the end. A figure with golden hair swirled from this one, also flat. It smiled and spoke. “Greetings. If you see and hear me, please know that we eagerly await your further explorations. We will do our best to lead you to us again.”
Ginora walked a little further and picked up yet another cylinder. A representation of a more wizened appearing humanoid emerged. “Welcome. We trust that our world has reached a stable period by the time you find these messages. If not, you must leave and return at another time.”
“What do they mean, hoped we would return, lead us to them again?”
BenGin looked at Ginora Three, his nominal owner. In recent years, holo-beings had been granted the opportunity to become ‘virtual’ citizens on Soranus. But they could not survive without the aid of humans and humans became dependent on holos, so the relationship was symbiotic.
“My friend, your data banks are far more extensive than my own organic filing cabinets. Nothing?”
Her holographic, though three-dimensional, companion appeared to take a moment to access the information stored in his projection circuits, carried in the pack inside Ginora Three’s atmospheric suit. It was not necessary, lightning plodded through thinnest atmospheres compared to the speed of his processes. “There is nothing, MiDame.”
“So we explore.”
They collected the cylinders in a ten kilometer radius, then moved the ship and repeated the process. They gleaned little additional information about any former inhabitants of the planet, or if any still existed.
As Ginora approached an odd outcropping she felt vibrations travel through her boots. At the same time, she heard BenGin, through her comm helmet, give a strangled warning cry. “Stop, MiDame. Run.” And the dark world on which she stood became altogether dark.
When she opened her eyes again, for a moment she saw only a glowing field surrounding her. Tentatively she touched it and her hand penetrated it. But when she attempted to move her whole body through the field, it resisted and she could not.
“You will not be able to leave the containment field, MiDame.” BenGin spoke from directly in front of her.
“Ben! You’re all right?” Relief washed through her.
“Yes. But I regret that you are not.”
She realized that she still wore her atmospheric suit but no longer the pack containing BenGin’s projection circuits. Looking around she saw it hovering a few centimeters from his form. A series of chills ran down her spine. “Where are we? Why can’t I leave this field?”
“This planet is controlled by a race of holographic beings. They overthrew the humanoids who created them many centuries ago. The descendants of those humanoids now serve the holos. Observe.”
GinoraThree looked around. Many humanoid figures, sometimes a pair, inside glowing cylinders like the one which imprisoned her moved about a huge space. They appeared to be working on alien machines and using tools she had never seen.
“This, MiDame, is apparently our home now. In exchange for the new knowledge I bring, I have prevailed upon them to assign you to me.”
Copyright © 2006 by Sylvia Nickels
