Assured (Envoys Book 2)

by Peter J Aldin

  “That won’t be necessary,” Vren interrupted. “The Humans have created quite comfortable accommodations for us. And we brought only one warrior.”

  Chlalloun’s eyes flicked to Councillor Pi who gestured agreement with the foreign dignitary’s claim. Buoun translated a summary of all of this for the Human, interested that Chlalloun seemed to be avoiding looking at them. Was he scared of them? Disturbed?

  “Excellent ones,” the scientist said, “would you like to examine our ship?”

  “We have seen the inside of ships before,” said Naat.

  “Of course, shining one. May I ask, when shall we expect resupply from the … Human ship?”

  “We are eager to see the Qesh. Following that, the next Human shuttle will have supplies for you, including tanks of fresh water.”

  “Very grateful,” Chlalloun murmured with a bow. Buoun thought the bow might have been intended to cover his disappointment and impatience. “Have you studied the files on the Qesh?”

  “Yes,” Pi replied. “We received two transmissions from you before departing in the Human ship.”

  “There are no Qesh onboard, Councillors. If you are intending to enter the Qesh station, we would recommend the wearing of environment suits. You will not need helmets—unless the odors offend you. The air is safe—their filtration system is quite ingenious especially for something so ancient. However, in some places the walls and floors are cracked and broken, creating sharp and abrasive patches. You will want to protect your hands and legs from those.”

  “Legs?” Gregory asked after the translation.

  Chlalloun gazed finally switched to the Humans. For a time, he stared open-mouthed at the ambassador, quite rudely in Buoun’s opinion. The scientist’s expression made it seem that he had witnessed an animal speaking. His reply, when it finally came, was abrupt in tone, so that Buoun had to soften and extend the language to make it polite for Human ears. “The Qesh don’t share our sense of which way a passageway should run. Nor of how wide and high it should be. If you go into their area, be prepared to do some climbing and squeezing.”

  “Sounds like fun,” said Colonel Fowler in what Buoun expected was an example of Human “sarcasm.”

  “We have laid artificial gravity mats in the pathways we use frequently. The station has no gravity of its own.”

  “A suit won’t be necessary for me,” said Naat. “Councillor Pi will visit the artifact in my place. I will visit your records area in the meantime. Councillor Vren, do you desire the trip into the artifact?”

  “Sahss,” Vren confirmed. She asked Buoun, “Did the Humans load our environment suits aboard the shuttle?”

  “They did, Councillor.”

  “Very kind,” she told Gregory.

  “Before I usher you all aboard,” Chlalloun said, “I believe you would like to see our captive? I am eager to show it to you.”

  Naat’s throat coloring betrayed a poorly hidden irritation. Buoun assumed he wanted the Humans off this ship quickly, leaving him to free study its databanks unobserved. But he inflected politeness into his tone when he said, “Please, Scientist-Overseer, lead the way.”

  If Ana had thought the air in the docking corridor was bad, it was way worse down here in the cargo hold. And that was due totally to the critter living in it.

  The Tluaanto had put the thing in a cage. Or a kind of cage. The wired-off area of the hold was probably the equivalent of a janitor’s room. The floor on this deck was tiled, unlike the worn carpeting of the upper level they’d come from. The caged area had a drainage hole in one corner. A pile of rags in another corner must have been intended as bedding for the prisoner.

  She and Westermann remained far enough back to catch a little relief from the stink because of a nearby ventilation duct, but close enough to see inside the cage.

  Ana wished she couldn’t.

  “Isang pangit na hayop,” she muttered in Filipino.

  “Say what?” Westermann asked.

  “He’s one ugly little beast.”

  “Copy that. Looks kinda like the lobsters you see in rich people restaurants.”

  And there might be a whole fleet of these things nearby. Ana shuddered at the prospect. “You wanna cook him up and eat him, go for it. I’ll watch.”

  Westermann sniggered. “I reckon the goddamn thing’s dead already. Hasn’t moved since we got here.”

  She was right. It hadn’t.

  “I don’t know if I want it to move. Creepy enough as is.” Ana leaned forward and tried to listen to the conversation happening over by the cage.

  Scientist Chlalloun hadn’t stopped talking the entire elevator ride down here, reveling in the opportunity to showcase his discoveries; when they’d reached the prisoner’s cage, his rate of speaking had only increased. Standing so close to the creature now, Buoun was struggling to focus on forming correct English syntax and meaning to keep up with his translating.

  Monster is an apt description for this being! he thought.

  He had soaked up many broadcast plays in his adolescence. The captured Xenthracr pilot was very much like the fictional alien monsters in those. Its body was colored the leaden gray of a cheap pflehjoc stew, and encased by a carapace of overlapping scaly plates. With long and flaccid forearms, four stubby back legs and a bank of four eyes above its curled-over snout, the pilot was a stark contrast from the elegant design of Humans and Tluaanto. It lay across a bed of rags, facing them, with its flat, fan-shaped tail raised against the wall. It did not blink; those four eyes did not appear capable of it. Most unsettling were the front arms or appendages which Chlalloun was currently pointing out.

  When the babbling scientist finally paused for breath, Buoun told him, “It would help if you spoke more slowly.”

  Chlalloun sighed unhappily at the interruption, unimpressed with Buoun’s status or person. But he consented, forcing pauses between phrases. “While the back legs lack feet or toes, these longer forearms have two fingers and a thumb, as you can see. What you can’t see is that these fingers can harden or relax and even stretch, depending on the creature’s needs.”

  “Tool-makers’ fingers,” the Human doctor Nkembe said. “Tool-users’ fingers.”

  “We tried hard to communicate with it early on, wanting details of its scientific knowledge—in case it had any knowledge of a stardrive.” A warning gesture from Pi stopped Buoun translating the last part of that sentence. “We wanted it to tell its commanders to stop their attacks, to leave us alone! But the stupid thing does not communicate! And more of its filthy brood will soon be on their way!”

  The scientist’s volume and pace was increasing, his throat and cheek fur turning pink with his elevated blood pressure. Buoun was about to ask him to slow down again when Pi interrupted for him.

  “Calm yourself, Scientist. There are no medtechs present to help you if you give yourself a stroke. Stick to a calm account of the facts.”

  Buoun was glad to see Chlalloun take a moment to breathe his way back into emotional control.

  From beside Gregory, the Human doctor took advantage of the pause to mumble, “It’s a magnificent specimen.”

  “Beauty must be in the eye of the observer,” said Colonel Fowler. “Envoy Buoun, can you ask the scientist if he’s sure he captured the right creature? Is he sure he didn’t pull a Xenthracr’s lunch out of that fighter?”

  “I don’t understand the request.”

  “This thing doesn’t look capable of climbing a ladder, let alone operating a complex vehicle. Why is it lying there like that? Doesn’t it move? Interact?”

  “They’re good questions,” Gregory added.

  Buoun had to agree. When he’d first laid eyes on the “prisoner”, he’d suspected this to be some kind of Domain Space hoax to further manipulate the Humans.

  In response to these questions, Chlalloun replied, “The prisoner shows no reaction to anything but pain or food. As I said, it has attempted no communication nor responded to it. When we pried it from its broken figh
ter, it did not resist. It seems healthy. But it lies there doing nothing, unless it needs to eat or to defecate in the drain hole.”

  “Well, it’s smart enough for that, at least,” Fowler interjected.

  “We can even clean its environment without provoking a response.”

  “It has never tried to attack you?” Pi asked.

  “Never. Not even when we broke open its fighter.”

  “A kind of catatonia,” murmured Nkembe. Buoun had never heard the word, but thought he could guess its meaning. “But I think it has the potential to be a pilot. Physically, at least.”

  “What do you feed it?” Gregory asked.

  Buoun had to consult his dictionary this time. He told the Ambassador, “Mashed up animals the expedition brought as food. They occupy the niche in our diet I believe chickens do in yours.”

  “Chicken mash,” Fowler said. “Yum, yum.”

  “Why is it mashed, Buoun?”

  “The prisoner feeds via a tube underneath the head,” Chlalloun told them. The Tlu rubbed his own stomach distractedly and Buoun wondered just how hungry he was.

  Chris Gregory scratched his nose, wanting desperately to pull up his collar to filter out the stink. There came a long and troubled silence as humans and Tluaanto processed what they were hearing and seeing.

  Fowler spoke next. “Looks like one of my planet’s quillipedes. Except it’s thicker, shorter and has no quills. Our new enemies are big bugs, basically.”

  Nkembe made a pff noise.

  “You have something to say, Lieutenant?” Fowler said.

  “If you weren’t a visiting delegate, sir, I’d accuse you of speciesism.”

  “How’s that? ” Fowler asked with a wry glance to Gregory.

  “Judging the worth and nature of an organism by its appearance. That kind of thing.”

  “It’s an arthropod, though, yes?”

  “Arthropoid. Arthropods or arthropoda were technically Earth creatures.”

  “We’re a millennium free of Earth. I think we can use whatever terms we like.”

  The doctor sniffed. “If you want to be scientifically inaccurate, sure.” She crouched and pointed a finger between the wires of the cage. “You’ll note, as my Tluaan colleague said, the differentiation between front and back pereiopods. Limbs. The rear pereiopods are thicker, more powerful, as they are in many species, built for locomotion rather than manipulating the environment. The forward pair function as our ‘arms’ do, but the tips of those fingers appear porous. Envoy Buoun, can you ask the scientist if he thinks the fingers have taste-scent organs or receptors in them?”

  Chlalloun agreed that they did.

  Gregory said, “They’re arthropoid but have no antennae. I gather that’s made up for by the four eyes and the smell-taste receptors in the hands?”

  “Very good, Ambassador,” Nkembe nodded. “My theory exactly. Large head size allows for a large brain. And those four eyes seem to be at least as developed as human eyes, with a wider range of vision. Were it not for its apparent catatonia, the Xenthracr prisoner seems well-capable of complex tasks: engineering, design, operating machinery, agriculture … and,” she continued, rising to her feet with a groan, “it shouldn’t be a surprise to find a race of technologically advanced arthropoids. Arthropoidal life-forms are abundant throughout the galaxy—far more prevalent than quasi-mammalian or reptilian life. A thousand years ago, Earth scientists noted the social and engineering genius of many kinds of invertebrates: ants that farmed aphids; termites that maintained perfect temperatures and airflow throughout massive hives. Nine hundred years ago, we declared the Anachromites on Anticus to be sentient. That was first contact, yes, though they remain decidedly difficulty to communicate with. What should be a true surprise to us is that that we haven’t encountered more species like the Xenthracr. And I do hope we can come up with a better name than a Tluaan insult for them. No offence, your Excellencies.”

  Naat cleared his throat, disinterested in the doctor’s meandering monologue and cutting Buoun’s translation short. “Can we return to an important point our scientist made earlier? These Xenthracr have ships. They have taken over the Qesh world. They may well have a star drive. This is why Domain Space and our friends Domain Ocean need a star drive too: to defend ourselves from creatures like these. Ambassador, do you think now that your leaders will trade us FTL travel?”

  Not going to pressure me into anything, buddy. “Upon our return, my leaders will certainly have a lot of things to discuss.”

  Naat said nothing, retreating into thought.

  Nkembe tapped the wire with a finger. “I’d be grateful for access to any bio-data you have on this individual. And any biological material? Feces would be fine.”

  Gregory exchanged a glance with Fowler. “There’s a phrase I didn’t expect to hear today.”

  Fowler grinned that harsh grin of his. “Everyone needs a hobby, I guess.”

  Westermann had moved off to the end of the hold to pace and stretch. Ana realized abruptly that someone else had taken her place. The bridge comms officer Sintopas stood beside her, hands clasped at his waist, watching the conversation by the cage. His recording device—a thumb-sized hovercam—floated above Gregory and Nkembe’s heads, pointed at the prisoner.

  What the hell do you want, Mr. Poker Player? Ana thought. Something about the guy was setting off red flags in her gut, and it wasn’t just the flat tune he was humming or how close he was standing.

  Out the corner of his mouth, he said, “Weird shit, huh?” The expletive sounded wrong coming out of his mouth, like some Confed dad trying to build rapport with a teenager.

  “You talking about the alien, or the Tluaanto?”

  He turned to her, blinking. “Er ...”

  “Coz either way, weird is a derogatory term, Ensign. Wouldn’t let your captain or XO hear you using it.”

  Gathering himself, Sintopas sidled even closer, dropping his voice. “Funny you say that. You know what else they shouldn’t hear about?”

  “What would that be?” she asked. Not because she was interested. More because she wanted to get his conversation over and done with.

  “A Xerxian using a Peacekeeper’s message code two weeks back at Pollyanna system. To send a suspicious message to an unknown third party.”

  She faced him, feeling the blood rush to her face, feeling her hands clench into fists. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me. And I heard you. I have a recording of what you sent.”

  “That’s illegal.” As soon as she’d said it, she realized it was a mistake, her acknowledging her misdemeanor. And Chipper’s.

  “I have proof that you and he misused Confederation protocols and breached security—”

  She cut him off by sticking a finger in his face, then withdrew it before other people could notice. Turning side-on to him, she rolled her shoulders, taking a breath. “You need to back off right now, asshole.”

  “You need to take me seriously. And consider how much it’s worth to keep me quiet.”

  “I have other ways of keeping assholes quiet. Trust me.”

  “That won’t work. You kill me and the recording gets instantly uploaded to several senior officers’ inboxes.”

  “Oh, I don’t have to kill you. If you’re gonna get me in trouble anyway, I may as well have some fun, yeah?”

  “Fun?”

  “I could stop you ever having children, for example.”

  He snorted. “What the hell’s that mean?”

  She checked no one was looking their way, then ran a finger around the muzzle of her rifle. “Well, you know I have this bad habit of accidently stunning people, like Sgt. Wepps last month. I heard if you stun someone in the wrong place …” She let her gaze drop toward his pants. “You get the idea.”

  He didn’t blanch as she expected. Didn’t tremble. He simply said, “Think over what I’ve said, Silver.” Then he headed back to the main group.

  And it was Ana who found herself trembling once h
e was gone.

  While the Tluaanto gathered to confer somewhere on the frigate’s main deck, the human members of the party returned to the skiff to grab a snack. After donning e-suits.

  Sitting in one of the “racks” and wearing the uncomfortable gear, Chris Gregory hurried through a light meal of tomato juice, carrot sticks and soy sausage. Beside him, Fowler held a tab for them both, displaying a live feed from Captain Pan along with a text-stream of data. Much of the information was from a Tluaan engineering report about the captured Xenthracr fighter. In the up-close photographs, the craft looked like a ten-meter-long arrowhead rendered in concrete or dipped in wax.

  Fowler asked Pan, “The starfighter has no comms?”

  “No comms, radio or otherwise. A simple but workable set of controls which allows for maneuverability and bursts of high acceleration. A plasma-based propulsion system like the Tluaanto use.”

  “And like many human non-FTL ships still use within their own star systems,” Fowler added for Gregory’s benefit.

  “Crude but effective laser emitters for weapons,” Pan continued. “The Tluaanto believe the lasers are Qesh-built, for some reason. But after a long trip out here, this fighter had enough battery power for only a few volleys of fire. And it didn’t have enough fuel to make it back to Kh’het3.”

  “Suicide mission,” Gregory said.

  “Well, this data says the fighters might’ve made it back eventually if they sling-shotted around Kh’het4,” said Fowler. “But they wouldn’t get back quickly enough to stay alive during the journey.”

  “Except that the two we came across in dead space had been alive for a potentially long time,” Gregory said. “Can Xenthracr hibernate? Enter some form of medical coma or stasis?”

  “Only if the ability is biological. There’s nothing on the fighter to help them with that,” Pan replied. “Maybe Lt. Nkembe can help us there.”