Ram-Jack

Chapter Seven

The machines all appeared to be on, with tall vertical screens full of alien symbols that looked like a cross between Kanji and Arabic.

I muttered, "What the hell?"

"Testing begins now."

Sixteen green dots of light appeared on the ceiling above the space window. The one on the far right blinked then went out. A timer. How convenient.

I stepped up to the transparent wall, the alien on the other side did the same. Its face had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, all in roughly the same positions as a human. Its eyes were very small and black with no whites. Its mouth as well appeared very small while its nose was a slight nub with two upturned nostrils.

It appeared as naked as I was. Correction, she. She had rounded breasts, with nipples high on their curves, and a cleft between her legs. Her skin tinged from pale yellow across her belly to mahogany on her back and narrow shoulders. She appeared hairless with the same elongated skull and extra joins in her arms and legs that I had seen in silhouette. The extra joint bent in the opposite direction of the elbows and knees, giving her limbs a peculiar kink. Her feet had two toes each and her hands had a thumb and two thin fingers of equal length.

My head came up to her shoulders.

"You people are going to love basketball."

She cocked her head. Her ears were small and tucked tight against her head, with fewer nooks and crannies than those of a human. She appeared very streamlined. Was this a normal trait, or the result of genetic manipulation?

"You'll make great swimmers too, if you can plug those nostrils."

Her nostrils squeezed shut then opened again. Not only could she hear me, she understood. She raised one arm then swept it about the room behind her, then let it fall to her side. Her chamber mirrored mine completely, including the countdown timer.

Were they testing her too? I thought she was my observer at first, but that made no sense when they could undoubtedly observe me through their black walls. Would she die as well if I failed? Did they think to test me for compassion? Sorry boys and girls, I have no problem about the whole lot of you dying beside me, except for the part where I would die.

She repeated the gesture toward the machinery in her chamber, then gestured to the machines in mine. Alright, I admit that sometimes I can be thick. The truth of the test dawned on me with all the grace of a lead brick landing on my head. They wanted me to build a means of surviving their tests. I'd bragged about designing advanced Ram-Jacks. They were calling me on it.

Food and water would be accessible behind one of the walls. I had to build a means of tearing down a wall before I could eat. I had no doubt these tests would escalate to the point where I would have to build a complete fighting machine. Did they really just unleash me in a chamber where I could build a means of escape? No, they were smarter than that. There would be safeguards. They wanted to see what humans were capable of.

I stepped to the nearest machine, a squat affair of dull grey metal illuminated with screens covered in green symbols. I looked back toward the female, she stood before the mirror of my machine, facing me.

Would she answer me if I asked her how it worked or what it did? I rather doubted it. All it would do is make me look stupid. Sure, I can decipher and alien language and learn to use advanced alien technology in no time at all. I am just that good—that's me being a smartass, by the way.

There were a dozen machines easy, I went from one to the next looking for similarities in their controls. They'd all be designed for the alien hands, which were nearly human. I had to hope they had interfaces I could piece together. The machines stood alone, without any stockpiles of materials. Each had similar narrow black screens with green writing.

I was no stranger to a machine shop. We were responsible for repairs on our Ram-Jacks. Every machine, unless it were fed by computer instructions alone, had measurements—dials and gauges where measurements could be entered. That's what I began looking for on each machine. There should be sequences of numbers, measurements, pressures, timings, and angles. I also examined the working surface for each machine.

One, the largest, had to be a press. Its two large horizontal planes, one above the other, were polished mirror smooth and held a gap of at least ten feet between them. The simplest machine in any shop. It had one button, illuminated in green, and a single screen of symbols. It also had three jointed arms extending from the side above a flat table the same size as the press bed. I raised one and found it moved freely, but held position where I released it. An arc appeared on the screen that traced the motion of the end of the arm. Two symbols began blinking, one in green and one in yellow as soon as I released the arm. I touched the yellow symbol and the arc vanished.

I looked back at the female alien. The arms of her machine hung in positions identical to mine. She had copied me.

I moved the same arm again, this time watching the screen of alien symbols. Three sets of symbols shifted as the arm moved. Coordinates in three dimensional space. I had my numbers. Ten distinct symbols that rotated and grew in the same sequence. The damned aliens used decimal. What, did they count their fingers and toes together to make ten? Did they calibrate the machines for me already? I felt a grin pull at my lips.