The Ice Warrior

Chapter 6

With a chill running down the whole length of her body Silv continued following the strange alien. After all, what was she supposed to do? She was unarmed and no match to the alien since she was physically weaker. Besides, potential danger sounded better to her than the sure danger of being murdered by a friend or slowly freezing to death.

Moreover, from the moment she met them, the aliens hadn't given her any reason to distrust them. Even though they were foreign to her and their father had destroyed her planet, Silv still couldn't help but trust Wir Eis. She had no choice.

At least the alien hadn't done anything to make her mistrust him, and following him was a risk she was willing to take. Especially having in mind that the aliens seemed to be the only allies available to her in the cold and unrelenting world that she lived in.

What kept her going more than anything else was the thought of their technology getting her back home, to warn her grandmother of the danger that hovered over their heads. But most of all, she wanted her dear grandmother to know that she was alive, that what she had taught her saved her life.

Encouraged by those and similar thoughts, Silv followed the alien without hesitating. It was clear that she had limited choices, and if they tried to attack her, she would do her best to find a way to escape. It was the best she could do in a given situation.

"Here we go," Wir Eis said as they came to the end of a long dark tunnel.

Then, he opened up a door that led further down and turned on the lights. The sudden ability to see came as a shock, but a positive one to Silv. Especially having in mind that it revealed that the alien was telling the truth and that they had found themselves in a huge underground hangar.

In the middle of it stood a huge, slick vessel that was undeniably alien. There was no way that human technology, even as advanced as it became after the eternal winter took over, could have made something as perfect as that.

The ship was slick and beautiful, with proportions more perfect than Silv could even begin to comprehend. Its general shape was what she expected, but the details were so flawless that she felt only admiration for the alien vessel.

Although it was made of firm materials and in the shape of what people of the past used to refer to flying saucers, there was something odd about the material itself. Besides obviously not being from the planet, it had a type of shifting ability that confused Silv.

"Is the ship sentient?" Silv asked the moment the idea occurred to her.

"Yes. Part. Part machine. Part sentient." Wir Eis said.

The moment he confirmed her suspicions, Silv could see that there was a consistency to its moving, the one that she classified as breathing. That made it clear that it was beyond anything humans had ever encountered or created.

The advancement of technology that succeeded the ruination of the world was very sudden and shocking but nothing was even close to what stood before Silv. Especially having in mind that no matter how advanced human technology was, it wasn't sentient.

At least, Silv thought it wasn't. After everything that had happened, she couldn't help but wonder what else she was lied about.

A thought occurred to her that troubled her more than anything else. It was the possibility that all those machines that were used and discarded without a second thought could have been sentient.

What if the humans who survived the initial wave did so by using alien technology? Or at least what they thought of as technology what could have been an alien being in symbiosis with other alien beings.

"Does it work for you, or are you in symbiosis?" Silv asked.

"Symbiosis. Not now. Something wrong when father die. Can't connect." Wir Eis said.

Silv didn't know a lot about biology but she guessed that when one creature was gone from the symbiosis, the other one died, or suffered the way it appeared the ship was suffering.

"The ship is in pain?" She asked to confirm that she wasn't going crazy.

"Yes. You feel?" Wir Eis asked.

"Yes. I don't know how to explain it, but I can feel that something is wrong with it. It's like when some humans are seriously ill, so ill that even the technology can't cure them, I can feel the life draining out of them. I don't know how to explain it, but it is not something that I feel with my five senses. It's like a sixth sense or something." Silv said.

"Sechster Sinn," Wir Eis said.

"What does that mean?" Silv asked.

"My people six senses. hear, see, taste, smell, touch, knowing without knowing how." Wir Eis said.

Even just by listening to his limited response, it was evident that they were talking about the same thing that humans called by different names but never considered as part of their basic senses. Some would call it a gut feeling, a hunch, but none would define it as a 'real' sensation. It only made sense that more developed species would be able to not only recognize it as an actual sense but use it as well.

"Have you tried reestablishing the symbiosis?" Silv asked.

"Yes. Nothing." Wir Eis said.

Silv thought that perhaps some conditions were necessary for the symbiosis to be adequately established. Without anyone being there to tell them what those conditions were, the aliens were as lost as Silv.

The only way to get any answers would be to take a close look at the ship, to try to figure out how it worked, what was required for a successful symbiosis.

"Can we go inside?" Silv asked.

"Yes. Technology part work well. Life support, too. Nothing else." Wir Eis said.

"Alright let's go in, then," Silv said.

She was trying to sound confident, like a warrior that she was trained to be, but the truth was that she felt terrified. She was all alone, with an alien about to take a step into an unknown vessel that could as well eat her alive as allow access.

After all, nothing in her training or her general knowledge could have prepared her for what she considered impossible. If aliens were real, then she couldn't help but wonder what else could be real. What rules applied in the new world she found herself in?

As Wir Eis pressed his hand to a panel, part of what appeared as a wall moved aside to reveal a door-like passage. The light illuminating the inside of the ship was pulsating red, which gave Silv a bit of a jolt as it was too strong, and disorienting.

"Should this be red? Is that normal?" She asked.

"Now yes. In the past no. Before it dark blue." Wir Eis explained.

It made sense to Silv since she was accustomed to living organisms bleeding red, however, Wir Eis seemed to be repulsed by it. For him, the color seemed to mean something more, something worse.

"Red death color," he explained.

Silv nodded her head solemnly, understanding that the same way her world considered black as the color of the dead, it made sense that aliens had another color symbolizing it, the more logical one in her mind. After all, it was the color of blood.

As they stepped inside the ship, Silv couldn't stop herself from gawking at the wonder that lay before her.