The Course of Empire

by Eric Flint

  After that, the three humans crowded around the screen Yaut pulled down and peppered Caitlin Stockwell with questions and demands for translation. She bent her dark-gold head over the information and refined her answers until they were satisfied, or as nearly as they could be, considering this was the Ekhat they were studying.

  Finally, Tully came and stood beside Aille's command chair. "I do not understand."

  "Which aspect?" Aille's fingers flew over the controls, dampening, adjusting.

  "Their actions do not make sense."

  "Not to a human," Aille said.

  "Do they make sense to you?"

  "No. Though there are entire kochanata devoted to the study and interpretation of Ekhat research and lore. I was not assigned to any of them as flow indicated Ekhat were not expected in this location for quite some time to come."

  "How much longer is it going to take to get there?" Tully asked.

  "You mean in terms of Terran units, do you not?" Aille turned back to the control board.

  "Yes."

  "Jao do not chop time up into small divisions and then count them," Aille said. The readouts were soothing, red and amber and black, weaving back and forth, telling him where he was and how far yet he had to go. His eyes followed the lines almost without effort. "There is a flow to travel, just as there is to construction and study and interaction and every other activity in life. We will be there when our journey is complete, when flow has taken us to where and when we need to go."

  Tully's hands clenched in what Aille read as frustration. " 'Flow' means nothing to humans. You know that."

  "We will speak more on this later," Aille said. "If we survive what is to come, I may familiarize myself with these divisions you are so fond of. For now, I have more important things to consider."

  Tully's eyes glittered, green and challenging. There was strength there, if only Aille could learn to tap and direct it. Terrans did not give up easily. That could be of great use in what was to come.

  "Rest while you can," he said, letting the readouts wash over him. "We have to travel beyond the innermost planet of your system. As humans gauge these matters, I think it will not be 'soon.' "

  * * *

  Caitlin slept finally, curled up in her oversized seat, head pillowed on Kralik's shoulder, the thrum of the engines and the murmur of human and Jao conversation lulling her until she drifted off.

  Sometime later, she woke with a start, cheek pressed to the arm support, and looked up to see everyone crowded in behind Aille, staring up at a large oval viewscreen that had not been activated before. The picture displayed the yellow-orange maelstrom of the sun, swollen to fill the entire display. Her broken right arm twinged as she tried to pull herself back into a sitting position. Her cheek peeled away from the hard armrest, leaving an indentation in her flesh.

  "Subcommandant?" Her voice was dry and cracked. How long had she been asleep?

  "There," Yaut said, pointing upward. "It will emerge in that sector."

  Lines appeared over the display, bracketing an area in the center. Jao numbers flickered to one side, changing rapidly.

  She put a hand to her muzzy head, trying to wake up. "Is it the Ekhat ship?"

  "They haven't arrived yet," Kralik said without turning around, "but the readings from the gate—they call it a 'framepoint'—indicate it will come through soon."

  Slowly, a ball of flaming yellow-white plasma erupted from the surface of the sun, expanding toward them with measured grandness. "God Almighty!" Tully exclaimed.

  "Is that a solar flare?" Caitlin levered herself awkwardly onto her feet and went to join them.

  "No." Aille's experienced hands flew over the controls. His forehead wrinkled. "That is the Ekhat ship."

  "But—" She felt her jaw hanging slack, her ears ringing with shock. "—it's inside the sun."

  "The framepoint must be formed beneath the surface," Aille said, "in what your scientists call the 'photosphere.' "

  Kralik turned around and took her good arm to position her in front of him where she could see more clearly. "But that's not possible," she said lamely. "Inside the sun—they'd just burn up, wouldn't they?"

  "The forcefields protect the ship," Aille explained. "For a time, at least. But, no matter what the risk, the framepoint must be created under those precise conditions. Triangulating a point locus in open space does not work. It has been tried many times, and always failed."

  The fiery ball grew larger and they could see white-hot gases roiling around its shape.

  "Nothing could live through that," Tully said. His head was bowed, but his eyes were riveted on the screen and his fingers gripped the back of Yaut's seat so hard, they were bloodless.

  "If that were true," Yaut said, "then the Jao would never have come to this system."

  "You use the same mechanics in star travel?" Caitlin said, with a sudden sense of how truly alien the Jao were. Every Jao presently on Earth must have traveled in just this same fashion. Thinking of being down there, inside the sun, surrounded by the hellish fires of creation themselves—the floor seemed to drop out from beneath her feet. She felt giddy and afraid.

  "Not exactly the same, but derived from the same technology," Aille said. "The Frame Network was developed originally by the Ekhat. It was later modified by another one of their subject races, the Lleix, and then eventually adopted by the Jao."

  Humans had always understood the Jao must have some form of faster-than-light travel, but their conquerors had never explained its exact nature. Whenever humans had asked, the Jao had put them off in much the same fashion as an English colonialist in Africa or India would have dismissed a native bearer's questions regarding the laws of thermodynamics.

  "Where are these Lleix now?" Caitlin asked, thinking that here perhaps was the first hint of a future ally, someone they could possibly seek out and apply to for help in ridding themselves of their conquerors.

  Aille's ears waggled with concentration. His hands hovered above the controls, changing settings, compensating here, altering balances there. "They were exterminated."

  The white-hot ball grew bigger, then its outer layers seemed to slowly explode. Streamers of flaming gases sheared away and for just a second, a dark shape was apparent within the hellglow, angular and unbalanced. Hideous.

  "These—Ekhat killed them?" she said as the burning plasma closed again around the alien vessel.

  Aille turned, looking up at her from the pilot's seat. His eyes scintillated green and his posture was strangely unreadable. "No," he said, "the Jao did, at Ekhat direction."

  "Oh." The blood drained from her face. Kralik's hands tightened on her shoulders as she swayed.

  "At one point during the attack, a faction of the Lleix contacted the Jao," Aille said, "and made certain proposals, offering to help if we wished to break free of the Ekhat."

  "You must have accepted," Kralik said, "or things wouldn't be as they are today."

  "Not right away," Yaut said. "But the Lleix did initiate the idea of separation, which filtered slowly through our culture as we examined it for usefulness. The Jao are not impulsive like humans. By the time flow had brought us to a decision, and then action, the Lleix were extinct."

  The ship in the viewscreen shed more fiery plasma, in measured bursts that resembled preconquest fireworks displays Caitlin had seen on old vids; and then again, each time becoming more clearly recognizable as a vessel, though one configured in a truly alien style. The Ekhat ship resembled two tetrahedrons oriented in opposition to one another, with an immense and lumpy almost-pyramid close to what would have been its center. A multitude of connecting girders or beams gave the whole ensemble a strangely delicate aspect.

  Caitlin could only begin to guess at the amount of heat being dissipated. She shuddered to think how it would vaporize living flesh.

  Finally, with a last stupendous burst of flames that winked out like dying embers against the blackness of space, the alien ship took up a new position, well inside the orbit of tiny
, barren Mercury. Aille studied the readouts, his hands busy as his own ship edged closer and the Ekhat ship grew in size until it occupied the entire viewscreen.

  At length, he stood, his body taut with determined-readiness. "They have activated a beacon," he said. "We must dock and listen to what they have to say."

  * * *

  Tully stared, cold fear in the pit of his stomach, unable to look away. "How big is that thing?"

  Yaut flicked an ear, considering, then stood and straightened his shoulder harness. "In your terms . . . about two miles in its greatest dimension."

  Tully's nerves crawled. "Are all of their ships this big?" he asked, as Yaut and Aille shed their side arms.

  "Yes," Yaut said. "None are smaller, and some are larger."

  "It looks incredibly fragile," Caitlin said, "like it's made out of Tinker Toys. I guess it was never meant to actually land on a planet."

  Following the Jao's lead, Kralik unbuckled his holster and laid it aside. "If they can't even land, why do they want Earth?"

  "Most likely, they do not," Aille said.

  "Then what exactly do they want?" asked Tully.

  "Nothing we will be able to understand clearly," Yaut said. "This faction, the Interdict, believes contact with other species is polluting."

  "Then why are they seeking parley?" Caitlin asked.

  "I do not know what is behind this request," Aille said. "And I doubt any of us will, even after it is concluded. Despite their antipathy toward lower life-forms, the Interdict is prone to such requests, so it is reasonable to conclude they extract something of use to them during the experience, though Jao rarely do. Still, there is always the hope one may come away with useful information of some sort. And, in the meantime, while they are parleying, they never attack."

  The ship lurched sideways to their present orientation, unbalancing Yaut. The Jao stumbled against Tully and knocked him into the wall. A moment later, Tully squeezed out from under him, scowling slightly. Being "stumbled against" by a Jao was a bit like being stumbled against by a small, furry tank.

  "Be warned: there may be more sudden moves. I have surrendered control of this vessel to their systems," Aille said. "That is a requirement in this situation."

  Caitlin Stockwell returned to her oversized seat, buckled herself in, and then stared at her clenched hands. In jeans and a white shirt, short hair combed back with her fingers, she looked even younger than her twenty-four years.

  The view in the screen changed inexorably until the lumpy pyramidal structure was all they could see. A door in its most proximate side didn't so much open as fade, providing access to an immense docking bay.

  Their ship, minute in comparison, drifted into the aperture, which was much larger than Tully had first thought. An aircraft carrier could have sailed through that hole, he realized numbly.

  Inside, lights flared in measured red and blue bursts, so bright he blinked in pain. His arm came up to shield his eyes before the viewscreen dampened the intensity. Ghost images danced on his retinas wherever he looked. He blinked hard, trying to clear his vision. "Is that normal?"

  "I have studied fifty-two accounts of similar situations involving the Interdict," Aille said. "This effect has never been noted, but every account contains unique elements."

  "You mean they never act the same way twice," Tully said, "so that business about them not attacking while we're here, or not killing us on sight, doesn't hold water."

  Aille keyed the ship's lock to cycle open. "They are unpredictable, if that is what you mean."

  "Will we be able to breathe?" Kralik asked. Tully detected a trace of nervousness in the general's normally stoic military bearing.

  "Most likely," Aille said, "although I examined several accounts where the Ekhat either forgot to provide a breathable atmosphere, or deemed it unnecessary."

  Caitlin got to her feet and shivered. "What did the envoys do?"

  "They died," Aille said.

  Yaut nodded him curtly into the front. Tully realized with a start that, following Jao protocol, the three humans would have to go through that damn hatch first. He closed his eyes and reached for composure. No matter what it took, he wasn't going to look weak in front of the Jao.

  "Like this," a soft voice whispered in his ear. He looked sideways to see Caitlin Stockwell canting her head just so, shifting her weight to a back leg that was straight while her front was bent, her unbroken arm curved with the fingers extended at precise angles. "Calm-assurance," she said, then turned to Kralik on her other side. "Try it. You'll look better, even if you don't really feel it."

  Tully exhaled and tried to emulate her stance, head, arms, legs positioned as she demonstrated. The wild beating of his heart eased, but the sickening thrill of adrenaline still rocketed through his body.

  Instead of opening, the outer lock simply disappeared in a little yellow flash. The interior of the little ship was flooded with blue so intense, Tully could taste it as a raw bitterness. The air, though breathable, was suffocatingly hot and reeked of oils and tortured bearings.

  "Now," Yaut said, "we exit."

  There was sound too, like a whole chorus of machines grinding metal against metal. Tully stepped into the open hatch and looked out. Suspended globules of red light played throughout the cavernous space while in the distance dim shapes flitted here and there. He swallowed, trying to orient himself.

  "Go!" Yaut said. "Firsts are critical. We must not show fear."

  Chapter 31

  Tully stepped through, Caitlin following, Kralik at her side. The overheated air was so torrid, it was like walking into a wall of heat. By his estimate, the temperature was at least 120 degrees Fahrenheit, maybe higher.

  The three emerged at the top of the courier ship's extended ramp and were engulfed in a stinking miasma. Skunk marinated in rotten eggs, Tully thought. His eyes watered until he could hardly see. At least this ship had artificial gravity, though it was much less than Earth standard. His foot seemed to float back down to the ramp each time he picked it up so that he felt like he was moving in slow motion and on the constant edge of losing his balance. "Where do I go?" he asked without turning around.

  Two of the shapes in the distance oriented on the Jao ship and moved toward it. "Stop at the bottom of the ramp," Aille said from behind. "There is no need to go farther. They will probably come and speak to us, though there is the possibility they will not."

  "And if they don't?" asked Kralik.

  "Then protocol suggests we wait," Aille said. "Communication has still been known to occur when flow was slower than expected, though sometimes it does not happen at all. There has been conjecture in those instances that the envoy was unable to properly judge the flow of that particular moment."

  On Tully's other side, Caitlin was performing calm-assurance again. It was an alien ritual, but . . . Tully shrugged, and did his best to copy her. Curve the fingers, he told himself, distribute weight between the front and back feet, arch the neck.

  The creatures continued to approach and he began to appreciate how very large they were and how truly immense this landing bay was, too. If an aircraft carrier could have fit through the aperture, a destroyer escort on either side would fit in this central chamber. It must have taken up a good portion of the entire ship. Floating spheres hovered overhead, flashing brighter and more intense with every passing moment. Tully's head was reeling.

  Calm-assurance. He concentrated on the stance, holding to it, letting his eyes unfocus, choosing not to see, or at least, not to lose himself in, the visual fireworks. Sweat drenched his blue jinau uniform, plastering the fabric to his back.

  "Are those the Ekhat?" Caitlin asked, her voice almost lost in the escalating noise.

  "Yes," Aille said.

  "But there's only two," she said. "On such a large ship, I thought there would be more."

  "No doubt there are," Aille said, "but these are the only two they have chosen to debase through contact with us. Perhaps they would sacrifice only one, except t
heir minds function in pairs. It has never been possible to speak to only one Ekhat, as you would a Jao or human."

  "The Interdict seemed to regard all other species as 'unclean,' as nearly as I could tell from the records," Kralik said, "though I admit my knowledge of Jao script is only so-so."

  "Very perceptive," Yaut said. " 'Unclean' would be a reasonable translation, or perhaps 'tainting.' "

  "How long has it been since the Jao escaped Ekhat enslavement?" Tully asked.

  The two Jao shifted uneasily, but did not answer.

  Caitlin sighed. Sweat was pouring down her face. Grime was rapidly accumulating on what had once been an expensive frilly white shirt, and she did not look like anyone's cherished daughter. "Jao do not perceive time in the same way we do," she said. "They were enslaved until the flow of that particular situation was complete and no longer, as nearly as I understand it, and I admit that I really don't. I doubt any human ever can."

  The bursts of light from the hovering globes intensified into a strobelike effect. Inside the pulsating flashes, two immense creatures loomed, their bodies striding toward them on many legs, all of which appeared too fragile to hold their weight. Tully blinked hard, trying to focus.

  "I think I count six legs," Kralik shouted over the noise, which was growing louder, "but it's hard to tell with all these special effects."

  "Six is common for Ekhat," Aille said, "although many variations on the type have been observed. They are not really a species. More in the way of what your human biologists would call a 'genus,' or even a 'family.' "

  The two aliens stopped about a hundred feet away. They had segmented torsos somewhat rectangular in shape. Tully could now make out a row of lidless white eyes circling the immense heads, spaced about a hand's breadth apart. They seemed to shimmer red and blue, which might just be a reflection of the light show. A fringe of what looked to be moss covered their pates and necks. One pair of limbs positioned on the sides of the torso evidently doubled as arms. "Is this display supposed to impress us?" he asked.

  "Ekhat do not concern themselves with other species' opinions," Yaut said. "They simply are impressive. They do not need to make us believe so."