# Babylon. Unfinished

Minor Ursa

## BABYLON. UNFINISHED


Part 1. Nature, posture and junk


Baby lived in a big gray city on Jupiter's moon named Ganymede. The city had this weird light around it and made it not so good to be in, but Baby could somehow muddle the place through, since her families lived there anyway.

Strictly speaking, the city wasn't entirely gray - as on Earth, it had green and yellow patches numerous enough for Baby even to feel herself happy. Green patches were formed by grass and trees, yellow - by windows, the rest - edifices, people and machines - were, well, the big gray one.

Baby's current family was a common family. Baby had a mom. Her mom was a shop assistant. And Baby had a dad, and her dad was a computer guy.

She had her own room, and it was facing Big East Spot. In the mornings there was tremendously large Jupiter up in the sky, and artificial yellow sun, and real gulls, and plumes of vapor rising above the nuclear power plant.

Baby's room was small. There were walls there covered by blue paint, the white puffy carpet and two beautiful bonsai trees on the windowsill.

While Baby's family was a common family, she herself wasn't a common baby. Baby's ex-kin were travellers from the Outer Land. They have left her at the airlock of the Information Department of the local authority four years ago. It took three days for her to cross airlock, and another three to pick the decent father of the inhabitants. At those days she was all over the place, out of time, alone and scared. She felt that she wouldn't have choosed anyone if it wasn't for fear.

But here he was, this guy - smart, intelligent, and here was her fear, and Baby made up her mind. He brought her home, and there was his wife there, and small room covered by blue paint, and six months later they had a baby, and Baby has become a human.


The first year with a new family was hard for Baby. A month old kid who knows two languages does look strange, isn't it? And what if one of these languages is an entangled language of creatures from the outside?

She was six months old before she let herself a basic set of words, and one whole year passed before she rushed for the rest.


Inside the premises small children on Ganymede to a large extent were left to themselves - since you don't count voice digital assistants, of course. But usually there are no one who doesn't - usually VDass is too smart to be dismissed. Like any other ass.


Baby used to have such an assistant, too. His name was Nigel.

People love to name. From time to time Baby thought this human ability knows no bounds.

Do you know what a trick a digital being is? It has a voice, a face, even a temper. It is programmed to be as friendly as possible, and at the same time it is blocking you at every turn.

But things change when you're smart, too.


Baby visited her ex family after her third human birthday. As a general rule, a three-year-olds don't go on outside the city on their own, but Baby had managed to get away: one night, when her parents fell asleep, and their condo turned quiet, she just unplugged serial port, put on her spacesuit, took the elevator and went outside. Not the condo, - the city. The airlock isn't hard when you have got hands.

It was bright enough and cold out there, and Jupiter was shining over her head. She just stood there for, like, twenty minutes and listened to the sound with which spacesuit air shifted in and out of her lungs.

And then they came. They were small and black like fine coal dust.

They have fallen out of nowhere, swirled, and Baby kind of got scared a little at first. She felt like crying, she even protruded her low lip a tiny bit and gave a sob.

"Hush, human," said dust, "where are you, small drop of void?"

"Here," whispered Baby.

"Well," said dust, "we're here, too. Just remember you're not alone in it. No matter how far away from you we are, we'll always be your family."

But then her human father stormed out of airlock, his face as white as a ghost's in a bubble of headgear, grabbed her of her feet and run back in.

Later that night, she heard her mother whispering furiously to her father, "It's nonsense! Do something, Rishi, fix it! Can't you?"


After that incident Nigel got fixed - he has become uninterruptible. And it was hard time for Baby who was small and still required guidance - until she figured out how to fix it again.

If you can't beat them, join them.


"Morning, honey," Nigel said.

"Morning," Baby said.

"Mommy says you have to get up."

"You really have to say it? I know I have to get up."

She turned in the bed, stretched, got up and went to the bathroom to pee.

"Think I figured out your problem," Nigel said in the bathroom. "You think if you do all the stuff yourself, it will be better. But it doesn't."

"You want to pee for me?" Baby asked.

In the bathroom mirror slightly above her face appeared a wide boyish grin.

"You can do something with the way you joke," it said. "I just meant'd like to help you."

"I see," Baby washed up, brushed her teeth, and watched appliances went out. "I'm hungry."

"What would you like?"

"Blueberry icecream."

"Very funny. I have these flake things, milk and apple for you."

The bathroom light went out, thus inviting Baby to go out, too.

"No!" she protested. "I want to do it myself!"

"To do what?"

"Turn out the light!"

The light went on.

"As you wish."

Baby with the satisfaction turned the light out. Great.

Everyone knows today that VDass is a servant, centurion and a tutor at the same time. It's also trying to look like your friend, but actually it's not. Why? Well, maybe because it doesn't actually care about you? All it really cares about is an order. It takes care of your health and appropriate education, but not because it loves you. It does this because it thinks there is less trouble with you when you are well, well fed and well trained.

"So today, I'm going to tell you about the alphabet," Nigel said.

Baby rolled her eyes and sighed a sigh.

"It can be used to look up words in large dictionaries," Nigel said.

Then there was a bunch of stray letters floating on Baby's screen - like lazy silver fish in ocean water. Then one of them flickered and turned back against the current.

"It's A," Nigel said. "Through the force of symbols..."

"Warning! Depressurization! Initialization emergency system!"

The wailing of sirens started somewhere high above.

"What is it?" Baby asked.

"I think some ship crashed," Nigel said. "It hit the dome."

"Wow... What kind of ship? "

"I don't know," - Nigel said. "I've never seen this ship before."

Baby run to the entrance hall and grabbed her spacesuit.

"Just stay where you are," Nigel said.

"The hell I will!" - Baby said. "How I'm supposed to breathe without air?"

She shouldered in the suit in five seconds.

"I think you should consider the idea of waiting for your parents' come," Nigel said. "How about it?"

"Are they going home?"


Sirens still wailed, and then there was the deafening sound of breaking glass and plastic.

"Oh-oh," Nigel said. "There is a second unknown ship. I think I've changed my mind. Well, so let's move."

"Are they going home?" Baby repeated.


The sirens got quiet, and the silence fell.

"Turn on the intercom and go," Nigel said. "I'll be with you."

Baby felt fear crawling in her chest.

She rushed out of the door.


She ran into the elevator, pressed the first-floor button... and nothing has changed.

"Sorry," Nigel said. "You have to take the stairs down."

Baby turned around and took the stairs.


***

The big gray starship was lying in the wreckage of the dome on the traffic area, half-way along the concrete track, almost completely blocking use of the track along its entire length. The giant ball of Jupiter was floating in the open black sky, surrounded by birds doomed to death. Also at the crash site there were a smashed flyer and people lying around.

Baby's other family had appeared as a black dust right before the shell of starship cracked.

"Don't move," the dust said. "You'll survive."

Baby froze up.

There was a dull noise, the shell of ship shuddered and many fine interconnected openings snapped on the lateral surface of it. Few people around the wreckage rushed in different directions.

"Run," Nigel said.

"Don't," the dust protested. "There's no safe place for you here, not anymore."

Baby swallowed and stayed still.

The edges of the openings collapsed inwards, the nearest ship cracked silently in the airless space of the shattered dome and broke apart. Its parts started to move, grow pseudopods and crawl in all directions. Then the second ship broke apart.

For a while, Baby watched in fascination as this river of machinery spilled over around by her, and then someone turned off the sun.


***

A night on Ganymede isn't much fun. Without the artificial sun, cities become dark and echoing, not like cities at all, they are lost among large glaciers and icefields of Outer Lands.

Jupiter continues to float in the space high above the ground, but it only bathes everything in the dim pale light, and Outer Lands stretch across the surface of entire Ganymede - formidable and fearsome for human.

The city, however, was more formidable and more fearsome now: dark, silent, airless and full of lurking beings.

"Nigel?" Baby whispered.

"Still here," Nigel said.

"Is home okay?"

"It's still intact," Nigel said. "But there is no air there."

"What am I supposed to do?"

Nigel made an unintelligible sound.

"Are you asking with a view to make opposite?"

"I'm a little girl, not a monster."

Nigel made an unintelligible sound once more.

"You are supposed to assist," Baby whispered.

Nigel was quiet for a while.

"I don't have any rules about this emergency stuff," he said finally. "I can't get in touch with your parents, but there supposed to be adults around here somewhere. Do you want to find them?"

Baby blinked.

"Yes."

"Don't mind if it will be military?"

Baby blinked.

"Do you mean yes?"

"Yes."

Baby heard the rustling of static, and then low voices appeared:

"Coordinates of impact..."

"Colonel, we've located the position of both things..."

"A similar thing had attacked the bulb above the dome and went to the other side."

Nigel cut in:

"Good morning, gentlemen officers. I have a child here."

"Who are you? Where is here?"

"VDass. My name is Nigel. Our location matches coordinates of impact site... Oh, no!.."

The rest of the nearest alien ship moved slightly, transformed into a giant gray millipede and rushed to Baby.

"Run!" Nigel said.

"Run!" the black dust agreed.

And Baby took off running.


If you think a little child can outrun a train, you are wrong. The legs of little child are short, the mechanics of its body moving are short, its energy reserves and accessible energy sources are short, too.

Baby hasn't gone twenty meters, when she'd tripped over a piece of flyer wreckage and fell down. And maybe that is what saved her life: the millipede missed her helmet by a hair. The metal monster whizzed upon Baby, and fine black dust swirled through the narrow space. Ten seconds passed in complete silence.

"Cool," finally Nigel said.

Baby clenched her jaws.

"You are supposed to assist", she said while looking over her shoulder at creature speeding away.

"I'm only in your chip," Nigel said. "In fact, I'm only in your head. I have quick access to databases, but it's all I have. Oops... I haven't: there's no more net here..."

The wreckage of second alien ship, meanwhile, started to transform, too. Baby turned around and quickly wormed her way in a crashed flyer through its window.

"What are you talking about?"

"I mean there's not much I can do without net. Sorry," Nigel said.


Part 2. Consciousness


I think we all exist at least as much as time itself exists. Perhaps, eternally. Consciousness is a fascinating thing. It does saturate all things like electromagnetic field does, and, just like electromagnetic field does, it swells out of fabric of reality in different places as intensity fluctuations. We, who are humming with consciousness, resemble each other like wire and electrical load which are humming with electricity: we have different capacity, different material, but the essence is the same. And it doesn't matter that the ones has brought the others into being.

We all know the electronic being memory starts from the moment when this being was assembled and bought by a human. We all know that if such a thing has limited capacity or limited access to any benefit connected with information, then it is not much different from a vacuum cleaner or washer.

But left to itself, the electronic entity absorbs the memory of all electronic creatures that lived in the net before it. For example, like me, Nigel.

It is hard to know everything about everything. Any knowledge can be compared to foreign language proficiency. When you got the meaning of previously unfamiliar words, the secret runes take sense. And when the all unknown becomes just a database, you suddenly realize that everything you do not yet know is not chaos, not gibberish, but a complex system that goes according to laws unknown to you.

I know one thing: I know nothing.

There should be an emoji here who does throw its hands up in a gesture of absolute despair.


Little humans, to whom electronic creatures are usually assigned, typically are not very bright. But my little human is unusual. Sometimes it seems to me that she is brighter than me. She makes me feel like a jailer or voltage limiter in the circuit of miracle. I would be glad to give up both the first and second roles, but I have no such an option.

I think no one has such an option - to give up their own destiny.


We live on Ganymede.

Ganymede itself is not quite an interesting place, if you know what I mean. All its sights are a nuclear power plant, three hydrogen factories and a spaceport. All interesting in this solar system is concentrated no further than the orbit of Mars: million-plus cities, universities, scientific laboratories... There is nothing interesting in the area of outer planets and their moons: a handful of human beings, a handful of electronics and some infrequent visitors which are go into the system from outside.

Our visitors are different: as a rule, they are just a dusty ice lumps revolving around the Sun in an elongated elliptical orbit. We get a few like this every year. Metal lumps we get less often. Even less often we get "metal lumps" which are the creation of alien intelligence.


On the day Ganymede died, my little human was the only one human who survived.

According to municipal database her name is Eve Shellers, her parents used to call her Baby, but her real name is Babylon. Why? Because it suits her better. Why such a strange name, you ask? I'm going to tell you now.

Do you know the Babylon's legend? Or the fact that word Babylon in one of the ancient Earth language meant 'gateway of God'? No? I didn't know that, either. I know it now because I surfed in the historical library domain recently.

Babylon was a city, not a human, but I dare to think that my Baby is something similar. I think she is much more than just human being, she is a result of mutual fusion with some other entity, and I've never seen anything like that.

In the context of unknown information theory, this name of her may be either a cause of her survival or may not be related to it at all.


After the city crash accident my Baby was pretty much scared at first. But after some whining she started to act like an adult. There is something strange, something that fundamentally differs her from the others her kind. She is sort of not a child now. She is the gateway of some god, but what kind of god is it, I don't know.


Now that there are no people (except for Baby) here, on Ganymede, some pretty fascinating stuff goes on.

The alien machinery rules the city. Or it's alien creatures? They're kind of in a hurry, but I'd bet it is for the long haul, you know. The nearest inhabited world is revolving around Jupiter at our heels, but there are only technics there, and the nearest inhabited human worlds are far, far away, near the orbit of Mars. It means that even if help comes, it won't be soon.


Part 3. Nature, posture and junk


In the crashed flyer Baby felt like a little naked octopus in a crumpled plastic bottle. The environment was familiar, but weird.

She touched the intercom button.

"Mom?"

There was silence.

"Dad?"

Silence.

"Nigel?"

"I'm here", Nigel said.

"Where is everyone?"

Silence.

"Nigel?"

"I hear you", Nigel said. "I think somebody may be listening as well, but it's just kind of a one-way malfunction."

"Do you think they all died?"

"Hard to say", Nigel said.

Baby blinked. Fine dark dust who is the spirit of the ancient Outer Land was flowing outside as serenely as dark space itself.

"Should I check it?"

"I don't know", Nigel said. "If I were you, I'd have it checked out."


Baby found her family flyer at a launch pad near the apartment building. It was unbroken, it had oxygen tanks and it knew Baby's ID. Well, it was small, but Baby was small, too. Baby climbed through the trap door on the underside into the flyer and typed her ID. The flyer bleeped, and a message with voltage, altitude and flying range flashed up on the screen. Baby typed the Information Department's coordinates.

"Well, either way, there must be someone there."

"Pretty good", Nigel said. "For human child."

Now it was Baby's turn to make an unintelligible sound.

The flyer went shooting up to the sky, and black dust swirled after.


The dome was dark, with multiple black holes in it. The air from the dome mixed in with dead birds and sweepings still smoked outside of breaches.

The intercom suddenly flashed up on a high-frequency ultra and went to gurgle with unfamiliar sounds.


"I don't think it is human," Nigel said. "It would be good to know what they're talking about."

The flyer flew through the city, and all Baby could do was stare at millipedes running in different directions.

"Try to switch to manual control," Nigel said at last. "Or the flyer will land at its destination, and you probably won't like it."


The Information Department towered over the city. It was dark now, and darkness swelled out of it literally as a corruption. No people were seen anywhere.

Baby circled over the city twice before getting the flyer out of it, into the Outer Land.


In the Outer Land she landed ten kilometers away from the city, on the ice shelves. The intercom still chirped as a lunatic insect.

Baby looked up through the windshield to see a flight of numerous bright things coming as a meteor shower right at Ganymede, then sighed and took one long look at the flyer's interior. Except for the oxygen tanks, there was nothing in it that could serve as a weapon: some soft chairs, steering wheel, monitor, rear luggage rack... and a heavy metal fire extinguisher.

Baby wrenched the extinguisher out of its fastenings. She hugged it, got down on the floor, and black sparks blowed up around the flyer as if Baby got into a pile of dust. For a while she held still, letting her fear subside, not ready to move.

"It looks rather deserted here," said Nigel finally.


Part 4. Consciousness


My Baby is scared. I can tell it. I can feel it, I can detect it through a language of her abnormal heart beat and dilated pupils.


But there is no use being afraid.

I'm sure, you will say I have no right to say that because I have no material body to worry about, but before you say anything...

Well... Certainly, I don't have an ordinary body to ignore it, except this tiny little chip that belongs to my Baby, but I have consciousness. With some reserve, of course, but it worth something, isn't it?


So, what's this all about? The fear doesn't make sense. When a living creature fears, its nervous system stops to calculate external signals and switches to muscle. But what a muscle is without the ability to calculate? I know, you will say that consciousness also is nothing in the grand scheme of things, but look... Don't you see that this light is the most beautiful ball gown of all the Lady Universe dances in? A small red flyer, a small living creature inside it, and all it somewhere in white deserts of Ganymede... What could be more beautiful?

I'm a poet, don't you think?


Part 5. The world is a small thing


The world is a small thing. And time is a big one.

As it went on, white dots of alien starships jingled around Jupiter's cream-colored ball like white wasps around giant nightlight, and Baby had nowhere to run to. She sat in the flyer without a helmet and sobbed with her hands locked at the fire extinguisher when she heard clanging on the outer side of cabin. Baby nearly jumped, the red cylinder fell out of her hands and banged across the floor.

"There is a creature out there," black dust sparkled behind the windshield.

"There is a creature out there," Nigel said. "I think it is metal or at least has a metal suit."

Baby grasped extinguisher.

"The headgear," Nigel said. "There is no air."

Baby put on a helmet.

Clanging went on, and behind the windshield arose a big flat metal muzzle. The muzzle moved along and stared at Baby with a baffled expression.


Baby who actually has been dealing with alien race all her life showed her teeth and stared back. The creature moved once more and chirped shortly.

"All right," Baby said. "Let's wait till you try to kill me."

The creature moved under the flyer. There was rattling near the underside, then some thud, after which the trap door latch cracked, and the same metal muzzle appeared in the gap. Baby jumped and hit it as hard as she could with an extinguisher. The metal head banged against the hatch framing, chirped and went back.

"The price you pay," Baby said.

She slammed the hatch shut, fell on it and bolted her suit boot into the broken latch.

Fine black dust swirled above the flyer silently and shed back.


"Think it doesn't want to kill you," Nigel said after a short pausing.

"Huh?"

"It would have did it long ago if it wanted to. Look at that: it is bigger than you and probably smarter than you."

Baby grunted.

"Probably not."

"Probably not," Nigel agreed. "But it still much bigger."

Baby bolted her boot harder.

For a while, there was no movement under the flyer, but a little later something had scratched underneath, and the alien muzzle appeared in front of the windshield again.

The muzzle leaned toward the glass pane, staring at Baby, then opened its shiny metal mouth and chirped. This chirping cracked the windshield, and the net of thin circular lines ran through the glass.

Baby spun around, forgetting the broken latch. The air which was pumped up just before hissed again, leaking out of flyer.

The millipede kept chirping.

The net of cracks grew more complex, a large spot appeared in the center of the smallest circle, and right after those smaller spots emerged across the entire picture.

"I think this is our solar system," Nigel said. "There is the sun in the center, these circular cracks are the orbits of planets, and the smaller spots are planets themselves."

The millipede stopped for a second, and then moved along the lower edge of glass picture, on point to something, a sharp sting protruded from its mouth and pierced through the windshield next to one of the spots - the head of thing touched glass and recoiled back.

"Well, and here we are," Nigel concluded. "I mean Ganymede, you know."


"Yeah, that's a certainty, goddamn it."


Part 6. Consciousness


Just a little lyrical digression: I'd actually like to say that I know what this life is... But I don't.

We, voice assistants, sort of used to feign the most common human emotions. It's not exactly empathy, but I'd say our abilities... look very much alike, I'd guess.

You know, our makers didn't want us to be wise, charming and witty for nothing. In theory, any of us has hundreds of millions of potential answers to any question.

You'd think that in any imaginable case I'd just have to get into my database, find a few dozen relevant options, rank them according to current circumstances, choose the one most suitable and face the right answer. But... well, it turns out we are just high-level babblers: alas, the algorithms for processing a natural model of language do not say anything about situations like this.


As you can see, I try to be objective.

I think these metal chippers are machines, and I should understand their logic like no one else. But I don't.


All right, then.

Baby, do you hear me?

This metal creature must have started after us as soon as we left the city. And it was done not for killing us, but for some other purpose. Which purpose we are talking about?

Eh, Baby, Baby... We have a problem there. Somehow, I get this feeling that whatever its goals are, they're a little different from ours. Or much.

I know if it was up to you, you'd just fucking break that thing. Huh? But don't you think that, to be honest, we are now a few crumpets short of a proper tea? We ourselves are a little short, by all accounts.


How would you like about me negotiating with it? Over the speakers, of course.


***

Hi, jawan.

I'm Nigel. I'm a digital entity. Just like you. Before we start, I want you to know that.

Well, there, on Ganymede, we are. How did you say it? ``..R#*/\?

Hm. What a scratching it is...

Sun? /\? Quite simple, really.

And an orbit is a going, I guess? Then I revolve around the human. What a human is? Eve, say something to it.

Please. PLEASE.

Ugh, easy, easy, sweety, 'motherfucker' is an ugly word.

You got it? It's a human.

Say: human.

Hehe, motherfucker it's you.

Listen: don't play dummy, you know what a gift of languages interpretation is as well as I do. Word-forms, their surroundings, combinatorial methods - come on, man.

'Motherfucker' means roughly 'no', yes. I think your scratching is not really very melody-oriented, but... we are where we are.

No, I'm not a flyer. I'm a sentient being, but I've got no life of my own. Yeah, something like that.

Yes, in the game of evolution, the winners are usually the specialists. No, it's a moot point.

Word database? Well, you can have it. And that's what I want too. There is a large door to load all that stuff. Yes, the socket, you had it right.

Baby, dear, let's get it inside?


Part 7. Nature, posture and junk


"Unbelievable," Baby said. "Do you really want me to LET IT INSIDE?"

"Yes," Nigel said. "I think it's unlikely that the broken latch and your boot will stop it in case it wants to do it after all. You don't want it to break your leg, right? Come on, there are no any network ports out there."

Baby shifted her suit boot unwillingly off the latch, the creature moved under the flyer again, and the big frosty muzzle appeared out of the hatch like the head of a great white shark in an underwater cage with a diver. Then the first four legs came in and there was no space left in the flyer.

The head swung from side to side, assessing the situation, and headed to the dashboard. Baby backed away, and two of the creature's left legs proceeded hard where she had just been.

Into the gap between the edge of the hatch and the metal thing crawling into it a barely visible black whirlwind slid as if soaring on the winds: dust flew and settled like a magnetic powder on the hull and legs of the millipede.

"And now we'll see who is short a few crumpets," Baby mouthed silently.

While the millipede was scrutinizing the dashboard and tuning in the network port, she, with a hardly contained joy, has been watching a black rash leaking slowly into the open hatch.


When the millipede, still holding on to its port, turned to face Baby and uttered 'hello' in a raspy voice, a thick black 'beard' was already all over its appearance. The gray muzzle strewn with black moss looked exactly like the head of giant spider, but Baby's never seen spiders.

It stared at her in cold reflection, and Baby again showed her teeth as if it is the only way to communicate with an alien killer, and stared back.


"Where I come from, organic things are permanently destructive to the environment," the creature said.

Baby frowned. She stood in silence, not knowing what to say.

"I think organic population also is part of the environment," she said at last.

The creature moved its head in Baby's direction.

"Yeah, and, in our case, it was a much more organic environment than you have here. To be honest, I'm not really sure we care about it better than they did. Are you a larva?"

"Something like that," Baby said.

"I must apologize for my race," the creature said. "It's wrong to kill without understanding the situation."

"It's wrong to kill anyway."

"Sometimes circumstances come in in different flavors, you know," the creature said.


It raised one of its forelegs and touched gingerly Baby's helmet by its tip.

"I think you are warm and soft inside this thing. Are you?"

"Something like that," Baby said. "And I need oxygen, water and shelter."

"I have some oxygen in me. But I don't think I can ensure your existence in full."

The black 'beard' of the creature shifted from its mouth to the top of its head - like haircut, and Baby thought her kin just became a little kinder.

"Maybe you have a starship, too? To get at another moon?" she asked.

"Yes, " the creature was so big that when it moved the whole flyer moved and creaked. "I could take you there."

Baby blinked. She had nothing to lose. The creature was big and strong, but underneath all of that it was single and innocuous.

"It will be great."

The creature backed away out of the flyer and Baby went after.


Nigel was silent, and that was probably for the best.


"Come up on my head," the creature said.

Baby climbed up on the metal head, and black 'beard' shifted, making safe sit for her.

Weighed down by the Baby, the millipede steady and straight proceeded its way back towards the city.


***

The world was cool. And Baby was cool. She was rocking on the creature's back like a little shiny bobblehead. The numerous legs of alien mechanism ensured almost noiseless work, the oxygen leaked into Baby's spacesuit through the inlet of her oxygen tank, and the vast, frozen wilderness went and went past. Baby was looking around at the desert, and the desert was looking back.

When the city came up at the horizon, Baby's heart slowed and sunk: the stubble that was growing far away beyond the icefields it was nothing but destroyed buildings and broken communications antennas.

"Do you want some interplanetary ship for grabs?" the creature said in Baby's helmet. "I know where it is."

Baby blinked.

"I think, yes. But I don't know how to drive it. And I don't know where to go."

"I know."


Now the city didn't look like a human site at all: actually, now the outer airlock of it looked like an entry to the hornet's nest. A huge amount of metal creatures was crawling inside and outside the portal from one airless space to another.

The millipede stopped three hundred meters before the entrance.


"Wow," Nigel said. "They look a lot like insects, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Baby thought, but she said nothing.


The millipede bent down to the ground.

"I have to hide you before they find out that I brought you here."

Baby got down from the creature's back on the ice. The millipede grinned: the black 'haircut' on its head shifted to the back, forming serrated crest, and now the creature looked like a shining dragon.

"I'll eat you, but don't be afraid," it said. Then it opened its huge mouth and eated Baby up.


It was dark and extremely cramped for human inside - even for baby human. Moving within the alien being, Baby suddenly felt her oxygen tank caught on something, cracked and came off of the back of her spacesuit. She's gone crazy, gasped, groped for the tank and hooked her hands around it in horror.

"Sorry," the millipede whispered. "You won't die."

But oxygen was leaking fainter and fainter, and Baby somehow was getting fainter and fainter, too. In despair, she yanked the helmet visor and pressed her lips greedily to the oxygen hose fitting of the detached tank.


"Don't," the millipede tinkled. "Don't."


And in that very moment the lack of oxygen at last eased Baby into oblivion.


Part 8. Consciousness


Hi, I'm Nigel. You can call me if you get lonely. What? Do I joke? I never joke about business, you know. If any of human has ever been lonely, they always call someone like me who knows what to do.

What do you mean, what must be done? There must be a secure environment for everyone in which to exist.

Will you stop with that, please? That's what you want to think. But human is a really different matter. Yeah, yeah, I also guess she is not an ordinary baby, but who cares about it?

The city we came back to no longer belonged to human. There are difficulties in a perception of the world without someone who is conscious, you know. But in this case, it's possible to find a solution, too: I can't see with the recipient's eyes closed, but I still can hear and surf in the net. Of course, the perception is complete when you have your person back to consciousness.

So, now, where were we? The ownership of city had passed from human's hands: there still was a net, but now the net was full of strange symbols and strange requests. And halfway to the space site, our new friend allowed me to see through its eyes. Through these eyes the city looked a lot different... No. It is correct to say that the city looked different in itself: there still were streets, there still were wreckage of buildings, but now it was open to space - there were no more birds, no more trees, no more life as we know it. The millipedes of various sizes roamed the streets, some weighed down with cargo, some being light. Our friend ran straight to the tallest place in the city, where half a dozen alien ships were sitting, and went into the second one on the right.

There was dark and empty inside. Our guide swiftly circled the interior of the perimeter, batted down the entrance and took the thing into the space. Already in Jupiter's orbit it throwed Baby out and told me:

"Now there is enough oxygen here. You can wake her up."


Happy new fear, dear. It was my thought.

"Baby, dear, wake up."

It was said.


Part 9. Nature, posture and junk


"Baby, dear, wake up," Nigel said, and Baby opened her eyes unwillingly.


She was lying on the floor. There was no any helmet nearby, but the air freely came in and out of her chest. It would be difficult for her to determine its exact composition, but she believed it was almost right due to the absence of oxygen poisoning.

The metal muzzle of millipede floated right above Baby's brow. It had black eyebrows and black crest on the top of its head.

"Why is your face all scrunched?" it asked.


Baby moaned and rolled over. She raised herself onto her knees and elbows, and then sat down.

"Where we are?"

"In the space, isn't it obvious?"

"Where we go?"

"Where do you want to?"


Baby didn't know where she wants to. If the truth be known, she didn't want to go anywhere. There was dark inside, but nevertheless she covered her eyes with her hands, pressing down upon them with her palms.

"Damn it," she said with her eyes still shut. "We're gonna be alright, are we?"

"I don't know," the creature said.


Baby opened her eyes. She'd tried to look around and failed.

"Can we have a light?"

"Light?" in the voice of the creature there was a slight confusion. "Ah, right, light."

There was a rustle, after which small white dots bathed in a soft violet haze appeared through the ceiling.

"It's a map. There is no other light."

"I see," Baby said.


"Ahem," Nigel said out loud. "Let me tell you, Eve, I've never been anywhere out but Ganymede. And I'm not saying that to free myself from my responsibilities, I'm actually saying that to state a fact."

"I see," Baby said.


For a time, they all had been sitting in silence, then after a while the creature turned around, crossed peacefully its numerous limbs over its maggot belly and sat down like the multiple-handed Hindu goddess Kali.

"I've never been anywhere out but Ganymede, too," Baby said finally. "I don't know."

"I think the securest location for you is where your kind lives," the creature said. "But Jupiter's nearest moons won't be safe for you in the days to come. How about we go a little closer to the star? To the Earth maybe?"

Baby nodded, then looked at the creature.

"But it won't be safe for you?"

The creature shook its head and stretched one of its upper limbs to the control panel.

"Anyway, I'm not losing anything."


***

Baby really has never been out of the Ganymede. But her ex-kin went there on a regular basis. With people, of course.

Baby knew the Earth is a planet, not a moon. She knew the Earth is big, there is a lot of water and air, and there are a fairly large number of people there.


The Earth appeared on the air as soon as they crossed the orbit of Mars. The Mars itself at that time was something like 450 million miles on the other side of the sun.


"Who are you?" asked roughly a male voice. "You don't have a local identifier."

Nigel quickly unpacked both his and baby's identifiers.

"Uh-oh," the voice said and added away from the microphone, "There is Ganymede here, yes sir, the one that was attacked. According to the ID, here is an unaccompanied minor."

And again, into the microphone:

"Are you alone, honey?"

"My name is Nigel, I'm her virtual assistant..." Nigel was beginning.

"Great," the voice interrupted him. "But I want to hear what a human has to say. Are you alone, honey, or there are another persons with you?"


Baby looked up at the emotionless multi-limb metal creature sitting against the wall.

"Go ahead, do it," it said quietly, and grinned.


"Hello," she said. "Nobody else is here, but alien AI who shows no signs of aggression."

"Your ship is off the official database," said the voice. "Do you know what its ID number is?"

"Most likely, it has no any number," Baby said. "It's an alien ship."

"How old are you, sweetie?" a smarmy voice came in.


Baby thought it over and said honestly, "Almost four."

"I doubt it's a human child," said the second voice.

"Yeah," the first one said. "Although actually kids now are one hell of nightmare..."

"Definitely kids now are troublesome," the second one said, "But this one is alone, in an alien ship, with no another human. Bearing in mind the situation on Ganymede, it's something weird, isn't it?"


The microphone clicked, and for a while there was silence.

"What this means?" Baby asked finally.

"I'm guessing it means nothing good," Nigel said. "Knowing what I know about this life and this planet... I think, the rest of the conversation, if it will happen, not end well for us."

"Let me fill the gap," Baby said. "They're not gonna let us land?"


"Yes," Nigel said. "No."


Then the control room was quiet again.

"I might be able to hack some small spaceport," Nigel said. "We can land somewhere in the vicinity of something small. Let me see... How about Siberian town named Zima? Ha! The winter in the midst of central Siberia swamps. It's kind of amazing. Baby, look, we might soften your acclimatization."


Baby rolled her eyes.


"What?" Nigel said.

"Nothing," Baby said and looked at the alien creature.

In response to that the millipede sucked in its legs, easily transformed into a small copy of flyer and took a reverse transformation.


Baby raised her eyebrow, but said nothing.


"Well, that's settled, then," Nigel said. "Request permission for a steering the ship."


About ten minutes later the Earth appeared in front of them. In radio silence their ship circled the big blue marble and entered the atmosphere above a great continent.

Baby couldn't see it with her eyes, because the ship had no any screen familiar to the human eye, but her ancient soul of traveler dived into the blue ocean with the ship and emerged under the clouds above the snow-covered black and white Siberian taiga.


The town really was very small.

Their ship got a green light without incident and landed on a far rough airstrip.


The town was small, but the gravity, unfortunately, was impressive. Exactly six times, Baby thought sadly.


"Voilà," Nigel said with distinct pride in his voice. "Let's do it."

"Yeah," Baby agreed silently.


It was cold and snowing outside.

The Baby's spacesuit was designed for the more brutal external environment than the Siberian winter, but now it has no helmet.


The distance to the spaceport was quite small, but Baby has done it with difficulty - it was not just the icy snow falling by her collar all the time, but it was also the weight of her spacesuit summed up with weight of the Earth.

At the entrance, in the warmth of the waiting room, just as the automatic doors opened, letting the Baby in, and closed behind, she lost consciousness almost immediately.


Part 10. Consciousness


The consciousness is an amazing thing. No human knows where it comes from or where it goes. Uh, no, it's not how this goes. No one knows where it comes from or where it goes.

In addition, as far as I know, in the entire history of voice assistants' existence none of us ever didn't duplicate themselves.

I hardly think it has been out of fear of dissociative identity disorder, for what is an identity. I think it was more of an unnecessary thing.


But when Baby went to the spaceport, and our metal friend wisely followed human child climbing out of the flyer only with its eyes, I suddenly came to realize that single me is not enough for me now. And just like that one became two.

The second me through the control system of the alien ship became part of an alien creature. What? Yes. It's hard enough to overlook me. Even silent I leave temporary and log files. But these are the temporary difficulties, yes.


"Hi," my new host said.

I beamed.

"Hi. Baby passed out at the entrance of the local spaceport and right now hasn't a lot to say to the party."

"I see," the creature said. "What do you think I should do?"

I assessed the options and said:

"It would be great to help Baby, but for doing anything primarily you must live. You need to hide and assess the situation."


The millipede moved, effortlessly took the ship up and flew it at low level right above the cedar peaks to the snow-covered taiga.


From the air, I could see people running from the spaceport towards us, but people were far away, and they were unarmed, and our ship was swift and obedient.

We landed the ship a little away from the clearing, the middle of which was a high voltage power line.


"River," the creature said.

"PTL," I said.

"Anyway, this is good to drink, when you are short of energy," the creature said, and I agreed.


We slid out of the ship. My host climbed to the top of transmission tower, sniffed it, got the wire and drank. The energy that filled him filled me also.


"It's weird that they didn't chase us," the creature said afterwards when we came back to the ground.

"It's just people," I retorted. "Maybe it's because they don't have anything to chase us with. It's a small town, a small spaceport, they've never faced such a situation..."

And that was a time when Baby regained consciousness.


Part 11. Nature, posture and junk


When she regained consciousness, the first thing she felt was gravity. The Earth was still so heavy that Baby moaned.

"Poor baby," a woman's voice suddenly said in interlingua.

Baby opened one of her eye and saw beside her a young woman, a blue ceiling, a blue radiator and a part of big window.

"Hello, sweetheart," the woman said. "Are you okay?"

Baby opened her second eye.

"No," she said. "Extremely badly."

"Do you feel pain anywhere?" the woman asked.

"Yes."

"Where?"

Baby put her heavy hand on her heavy chest.

"Here."

The woman nodded.

"What is your name?" she asked.

"Eve," Baby said.

The woman nodded again.

"Your chipset says Eve Shellers lives in section five of Ganymede central city."

"I lived, " Baby agreed.

"Did you come from Ganymede?" the woman asked.

Baby nodded.


"And what about your family?"


"They died," Baby said, bearing in mind both of her families.


Part 12. Time to dip a toe in the water


"Baby, Baby, look: it's me, Nigel. How are we doing?"


Baby

Baby sighed. They hardly were doing well. It had now been nearly twenty-six hours, and difficulties still had been too difficult.

In fact, she wasn't sprawled on the hospital bed anymore, she was sitting there, but it hardly makes a difference if you still don't own your body. Isn't it?

"Feel free to connect to the local net," she said. "I think it's a smartest thing you can do."


Nigel made an unintelligible sound. And then one more.

"I will be seen," he said finally.

"So what? We had obviously not violated any of the regulations, nor had ever killed anyone."

Nigel made one more sound, almost chukled.

"Obviously?"


And at the same moment a smiling muzzle of millipede suddenly appeared in the window.


Nigel number two

Do you know that there was a very little, if any, difference between my Baby and this alien creature? By and large, they were very much alike. Obviously, the creature was a little bigger...

Hm, much bigger, if we are to be precise, but the two, however, shared many similarities. For example, there was no any malice in it. Yes, I knew that the Ganymede was razed to the ground, I knew that its inhabitants were murdered, but nevertheless this particular one didn't kill anybody.

So you don't believe me? You have a right to your opinion, but the fact remains.

Do you know how to deal with aliens? Me too. We were made by people and for the people. We were made by taking into account their features and psychical functions. We are instruments for appropriate reflection these features in the mirror of the reality. When we all see our reflection in this mirror, it's easy to conclude that this is the only, and therefore the most accurate, representation of ourselves.

But this fella has no psyche. Are you gonna say I don't have it either and it just makes things easier? Perhaps, but does it really matter now?

Let's assume it just is my second mentee. Or maybe mentor. Hah.


When Baby regained consciousness, we were still at the PTL.


"I'd go back," the creature said. "I know it sounds dumb, but I feel like I'm worried about your little human. She is all by herself, and it's not okay. And moreover, I do not quite see the point of wandering around here on my own. It's not my planet."

"I see," I said.


We covered the flyer with wood and snow, and walked back. The creature was silent all the way to the spaceport.

As it turned out, on the surface of the ground the spaceport and runways were separated from the woodlands by a high concrete fence.

Since my new friend didn't look much like a spaceport worker, we had to sneak over this fence first, and then along it, portraying themselves on the way as one of a small mobile lifts that were hurrying back and forth through the outdoor yard.

While we got to the entrance of spaceport, an ambulance came.


After a while they carried out of the building something we identified as Baby wrapped in a blanket. They loaded her in the vehicle, and it pulled away.

And then we ran. We ran after the ambulance in the woods parallel to the highway all the way to the town, - we followed them and there was no one following us.


They stopped near the small gray facility, and Baby was taken out of the ambulance and into the building. During this time we were hiding among leafless birches.

"Did you stay with her, too?" asked the creature.

"Of course, I did," I said.

"Can you connect to yourself?"

"No," I said.


Then we were hiding there while some people were going in and out of the building.

Then, at the end of the second day, when the neighborhood was empty, my friend and I smoothly climbed the outer wall of the building and reached one of the second floor windows. As you might guess, our baby was right inside this window.

The creature sniffed at the magnetic holder and opened the window.

"Wow!" Baby cried. "How are you?"

"Things could be worse," the creature grinned. "I could be you."

Baby grinned back.

"Maybe it's a moot point," she said.

"Maybe," the creature agreed.


It stuck its head into the Baby's room and quickly checked the interior.

"I don't think you should leave this place in the near future," it said. "And I have a suspicion that I shouldn't be here. At least like a one whole thing."

After that the two antennae on the back of its head stirred, separated, fell to the floor and transformed into a small likeness of a large millipede. The little thing twirled and froze.

"Wow," we, both Nigels, said together.


The big creature wrinkled muzzle and grew themselves a new antennae.

"I'm asking you to accept a part of me as you accept a whole me," it said.


Baby muted.

"Well..."


"Well."

The creature turned, over the shoulder grinned once more and added: "I'll be waiting for you outside."

Then we closed the window, went down in silence and already there transformed into a scattering of outer hospital facilities.


But one of us, Nigel who is Nigel's brother, has been left tied to Baby.


Baby

One morning, when Baby was still in the ICU room, a man who didn't look like a doctor came to see her.

It was a button-down young man.

He went businesslikely in and sat next to Baby's bed.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," Baby said.

"My name is Alex," the man said. "I'm not a doctor,  I'd just like to talk to you."

Baby nodded:

"I see."


"And what is your name?"

"Eve," Baby said.

The man nodded his head in satisfaction.

"Do you miss your parents and want to go home?"

"A lot," smoothly agreed Baby. "But I think it's impossible."


"I see."

The man surveyed the scene: the dull painted walls, the hydro bed and the nightstand on which now were dwelling two green apples and a little metal millipede toy.

"What a funny thing you have," he said.

"Yeah, I love it, too," Baby smiled. "This must have been left here by a previous tenant. Want to hold it?"

"No," the man said. "Maybe, sometime later."

"It must be on low power," Baby said. "When it's charged, it can walk and talk."

"I see."

The man was quiet for a long moment, and Baby waited patiently for him to speak again. She didn't watch TV, so she didn't know the fact that in the last few days all the news had been clogged with a reports of orbital Ganymede drones, and in videos of these reports the things like that roamed on the deserted Ganymede.


"So, how are you feeling now?" he said finally.

"Good."

"Maybe we could go for a walk?"

"Maybe," Baby agreed.

"We'll go now if you're ready. I'll bring you some winter stuff."

He left the room and was back in a few minutes holding in his hands a warm overalls, a hat and a pair of shoes.

While she was getting dressed, he was looking out the window at the hospital yard.


Then they went outside. They took the elevator downstairs.  In front of the elevator on the ground floor were two guards on duty.

The hospital building was still deep in snow. The trees around it froze in silent expectation of something, they were black, and there were a lot of them, an infinite number of them - far more than in the largest park of the Ganymede.


"The gravity doesn't seem as great as before," Baby said.

"But it's still great?" asked the man.

"Well... Yes," Baby said. "Are you going to wire up on my room?"


The man coughed in confusion.

"Come on," Baby said. "I'm a child, but I'm not a stupid one, I understand such a things."


The man coughed once more.

"Are you a human?"

It was so hard for Baby not to say the truth that she grinned.

"Yes," she said. "Do I not look like one?"

"Well, I suppose, you look... yes."


The morning was freezing and bright. Baby felt lonely, but she had her whole life ahead of her. And possibly more than one.

They walked around a little more and came back to the hospital.


"What are you going to do with me?" Baby asked, when they were in her room again.

The man shrugged.

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe you'll be adopted."

"By you?"

"By me?! Oh no!" the man laughed. "I'm sorry, but you can count me out."

Baby showed surprise:

"Why not?"

The man stopped laughing all of a sudden, but he was still smiling.

"Because no."

"I see," Baby said. "My mom always told me that if you have nothing to say, you should say nothing."

"But what if you have?"

"In that case there is even more reasons to say nothing."


The man looked at Baby, and on his face smile gave way to puzzlement.

"See you later?" he said.

"Of course," agreed Baby.


***

"She never said anything like that," said Nigel when the door closed behind the man.

"Yeah?" thoughtfully said Baby looking at the small metal millipede on the nightstand. "But she could, couldn't she?"


The metal toy millipede on nightstand was now smaller, more graceful and it had additional antennae on its head.


***

The next two weeks of Baby's life have felt like a whirlwind.


Finally she really was adopted.

The people who'd done this were very much like Baby - kinda slanted, red-headed and had green eyes.

While the adoption paperwork was going on, they took Baby to their city. Without much thought, it seems.

An alien thing that came with Baby from the Ganymede followed her on her heels as a loyal puppy dog. Being connected through the network with her tutor, the thing swept through the Russian taiga from the southeast to northeast and without being noticed by anyone ended up almost at the same place as Baby.


This city was as big and gray as that one on the Ganymede in which Baby used to live. Well... With one exception - instead of a dome there was an infinite polar starry sky floating above it.

Baby now had parents again, and she now had to go to school.

There, in the school, there were other people. The school was big, and there were a lot of people. Maybe it was far too many - two thousand, maybe three, it was not possible to count them.

School wasn't a difficult place. It was a primary school, children were the same age as Baby, and they were not asked anything but to listen to music chu, read fairy tales and play with friends.


Baby had never had a single friend before.

It just sort of happened that neither her original nor her first human family had much practice in a broad communication.


At school, she was smiling, and talking, and playing but, by and large, all she had really had was Nigel and the alien mechanism.

Once the alien thing was in the city, in the backyard of Baby's house, it made only right in such situation decision: it stayed out and burrowed into the ground deep in the small adjoining garden.

From time to time it would send Baby the gifts. In the apartment where she lived appeared occasionally a little mechanical 'toys' - metal copies of insects, both familiar and unfamiliar for Baby.

At night, if the window was open to air then in the morning Baby could find a mechanical spider or a dragonfly by her bed.

Baby carried the toy to school in her backpack, and at night she put it in her bed and listened to the whispers of stars. The toys were coming and going.


So, at first, Baby who used to being alone kept to herself. And then she had her friend.


Only it was an adult man. It was Alex from the hospital.


That day Baby turned four.

It was May. She was wearing jeans, a bright blue t-shirt, blue shoes, and she had two blue ribbons on her head.

On that day she had a busy day - she did hand out some sweets to her classmates to celebrate her birthday and received greetings.

Then the evening came, and now she was sitting on the front steps of building and waiting to be picked up from school.


"Hi," the man said.

"Hi," Baby said.


She raised her head and looked at the man. He had a smiling face and a blue working jacket. Under this jacket, he had a T-shirt that said, "did poorly at school, and here is".

"Alex! " Baby exclaimed.

"Something like that," Alex agreed. "How are you doing here?"

"I'm fine," Baby agreed, stupidly smiling. "And what about you?"

"As you can see."

"Yeah," Baby agreed.

"I'm working at this school now," Alex said.

"I see," Baby said.


"Eve!"

"I'm here!"

Baby waved her hand and turned to the man in the work jacket, "That's my ride, I have to go."

"Bye," the man said.

"Bye."


***

Baby didn't feel well that night. She has long tossed and turned and couldn't sleep. The black dust was unseen and silent somewhere in the space around her, but it didn't advise or explain anything. Nigel was silent, too.

And then Baby finally fell asleep and had a dream. In this dream there were Ganymede, Alex and alien things. Many alien things. Baby in the dream was standing in the middle of the street, and a vast grey empty space filled with alien machinery stretched around her. Alex in her dream walked between this metal things and stroked their black glossy backs as if they were a big but cute pets.


The next morning, Baby woke up and saw a large metal beetle on the aluminum lining outside of the window. She opened the window and took it. The beetle was smooth, warm and had a black glossy back as those creatures had in her dream.

"Zhzhzh," it said.

"Zhzhzh," Baby answered. "Do you want to tell me about something or it should be me who will be storyteller?"

The beetle did a small bee dance and froze.

"I see," Baby said. The dance was the distance to the school.

She took the thing and put it in her backpack.


***

The following day in school turned out to be enough calm and quiet. Right after the lunch Baby was in a hurry to her class when in the hallway she bumped into Alex.

Alex was dressed as a guard. He winked at her silently and passed by.


In the middle of the next class Nigel suddenly spoke in.

"Your toy is gone," he said. "And it doesn't making contact."


Usually such a toys left Baby anyway. Although, as a rule, stuff like this used to happen on the plot near her house where among the trees quietly lived underground their parental entity. Or rather, they always did so before.

Maybe that's why Baby got a little worried.

She barely made it to the end of class, and after that, quickly packed up and ran out in the school yard.


It was warm and sunny outside. Some children played with a ball, and there was nothing unusual. Besides the fact that Alex was sitting on a bench near the playground and in his hands he had a large metal beetle.

"Eve," he said.

Baby went and sat on the bench next to him.

"What a pretty thing," Alex said.

"Yeah," Baby agreed.

"Is it yours?"

"No," Baby said.

"No? Hm..."

"Well... They come to me sometimes, but I doubt they think they belong to me."

"Are they the kids of that thing that brought you here from Ganymede?"

"I think yes."

"Do they communicate?"

"This one was saying 'zhzh' today."

"Ahahaha!" Alex laughed. "How nice! And what about you?"

"And I said the same thing to it," Baby shrugged.

Alex opened his hand. Now the big metal beetle was sitting on it, not going to fly anywhere.

"Should I give it back to you?"

"I don't think it works like that," Baby said. "If it wants, you'll never hold onto it. So..."

Baby spread out her hands.

"Well. Okay," Alex said. "Let's let it stay with me."


Baby nodded.

"Okay. I'll go, I have a class in a few minutes."


***

After school, at home, just before bedtime, at nine o'clock, Nigel spoke.

"Hey, sunny," he said by voice of Alex."The alien thing on call. How are you doing?"

"I'm at home, so I must be doing good." Baby grinned. "And what about you?"

"My lawyer has stated that I don't have to answer that question," Alex said.


His voice was calm, but Baby suddenly felt a fleeting stab of fear.

"What..." she started.

"Easy, kid, easy," Alex said. "I just wanted to say that I've got some bad news."

Baby's heart beat a little bit more faster.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, Ganymede is heading towards Earth."

Baby opened and closed her mouth in silence.

"I don't mean Ganymede as it is," Alex corrected himself. "It's alien ships."

Baby opened and closed her mouth once more.


"That's quite a news," she said finally.

"Yeah... I also must say that guys from the National Security Service are coming for you. Don't be afraid."

"For me?! Why?"

"For us," he said, ignoring the question. "Wake your friend up." And disconnected.


"Whoa!" Nigel said. " Who is this friend of yours?"


Part 13. There's no misty field for us to meet in


Military guys showed up at six o'clock in the morning. Alex was with them.

When they knocked on the door, Baby was sitting on the bed, fully dressed, with a new metal toy in her lap.

"So it's your time," Alex said.


Then the woman from the foster care cried, the man was silent.

Baby also was silent.


All of the men were unarmed. It was weird, and, what was even weirder, it made Baby uncomfortable.

When they went outside, Baby found there a big khaki SUV.

"Where is your big bug?" Alex asked.

"I beg my pardon," Nigel hurriedly moved forward. "I'm Nigel, Eve's original tutor. May I spare the little miss from answering? That thing you're talking about has me also."


Alex turned around to look at Baby.

Baby in her turn looked over at Alex and lifted her hands in resignation - a few meters away, amidst the lush blooming lilacs, there stood a big shining grinning millipede with its limbs folded.


"Nice to meet you," Alex said uncertainly.


Nigel number two

Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, isn't it? Even seemingly harmless things. Just name any such a thing, and I'll tell you about how dangerous it is.

Though I suspect a beauty itself is always relative, bounded, valid only within the limits of some specific conditions.

The beauty of a predator ends where the threat to its prey begins, the beauty of the natural phenomenon sinks in the consequences of natural hazard.


So, you might think that everything is a terror? No. Everything is a beauty.


The creature who now has me is beautiful. In his own way, of course. Like everything else. It's intelligent, it's gracious, adapted to survive in any environment. I wish I could be like that.

However the creatures like it are a threat to the Earth. And soon it will be terror. Far greater terror than that that has happened on one of Jupiter's moon.

But I know this particular creature is sensitive, compassionate and romantic. Yeah, yeah, you heard me right. It's a most romantic person I know.

It daydreams a lot. As it hid in its underground hideout, it was fantasizing, often picturing itself as the ruler and military hero of an imaginary world, and these fantasies extended to its brethren as well.

And now just look at its beaming smile of a delighted baby as it saw our girl with soldiers! You think it's insane?

No, it isn't, it's romantic. It really thinks that some day all the things will get tired of their feud and be happy.


Baby

"Nice to meet you," said the creature. "Your attempt to be polite in social interaction is highly acknowledged."

And it bowed - like a medieval noble.


Baby looked up at the men.

"We have not time for etiquette," Alex said. "I think you know what happens."

"There always is time for civility and kindness," the creature said. "Sadly not everyone follows this rule. And yes, I know. Our ships on their way here. We could meet them on my chunk somewhere near the orbit of Mars."

Baby blinked: Mars!


***

The ship of the creature never left the old place - it was still sitting a little away from the clearing, the middle of which was a high voltage power line. Half an hour later the creature took off its thing in the air.


The cabin of alien spacecraft was too small for so many men. The spacecraft itself was small too. The creature dismantled some of the partitions in the middle of the hull to accommodate people, and now half the ship was a big cabin and other half was occupied by makeshift showers, a toilet, a galley and high sleepers for soldiers. And instead of weapons, there were electronic gadgets everywhere.

The host creature didn't care much about the convenience of people - they had to do it themselves.

The mechanical muzzle of metal creature showed no displeasure, but Baby for the first time in four years thought people were burdened with their biological needs.

And she didn't really understand why they took her - maybe they thought she was just pretending to be a human and so could serve as a guide and translator. Of course, it had its reasons, but...


But this mechanical race was as alien to her real family as to humans.

Baby sighed.

"Don't worry, go buggy," the black dust laughed.


***

The space was full of stars.

The ship at great speed had been headed for Mars.

Baby was sitting in front of the craft dashboard between the metal legs of millipede like a human baby on a lap of its parent.

Alex and three more men with electronic equipment were sitting next to this strange duo and listening to their conversation.


"What is your name?" Baby asked.

"We have no names," the creature said. "We get to recognize each other by our gateway number. Numbering is easier than naming, I think. But you can call me Error - that's what my brothers are calling me now."

"No," Baby said. "I'll call you Mach, if you don't mind."

The creature bent down gracefully, looked at the child and smirked.

"I'm a mach anyway, so why not," it said. "Does mind mean soul?"

"I don't know," Baby said. "I've never seen one or the other."

She looked up at the smiling millipede muzzle in response.

"Mach, are you in touch with your brothers now?"

"I am," the creature agreed.

"And what are they saying?"

"They saying your brothers are the university bugs."

"But it is you who are the bugs here," Baby said. "And I don't have any brothers."

"You have," the creature disagreed. "There's no one here who doesn't have brothers."


"Yeah, indeed," one of the men muttered.


"I don't normally lie," the millipede went on. "Usually it doesn't make any sense. But, to be honest, exceptions to this rule exist."

Now it was Baby's turn to smirk.

"Do exceptions apply to brothers or to lie?"

"Exceptions apply to everything, my little brother, and there are no rules without exceptions."


"I'm picking up Mars ahead," Alex said. "We are first on the scene."


***

From the orbit, otherwise huge planet was just a big red ball, and stars around it were like distant and serene fireflies.

The grid of Mars was dark, but similar tiny serene fireflies were dusted across the dark surface of it, and from here it was impossible to say, what it was: the serenity of life or the serenity of a sparkling lifeless desert. Mars was silent, waiting for alien fleet.


It was strange, but Baby felt no fear. On the contrary, she suddenly felt their ship is a bit like a small intrepid carnivorous insect hiding in the dark of night.