Imperative - eARC

by Steve White

  “Why?” Modelo-Vo asked.

  “I do not have a definitive answer to that question, since the commander of the Kaituni picket ship does not know. Their orders were simply to ensure that if any threat forces approached the Unity Three warp point to Franos, they were to send an alarm. And that if any further Arachnid forces showed up, they were to, well, show them the proper pathway.”

  “Madame Councilor, I do not understand what you mean by that last statement.” Yoshikuni’s hands were folded, her brows very low.

  “Admiral, the Kaituni are not in communication with the Arachnids, nor are they even allies. The Arachnids have no such concept. However, they seem amenable to the notion of following a trail of rich worlds while simultaneously avoiding chance contacts with the Kaituni who freed them—and who are now apparently following them.”

  “Or driving them in the desired direction,” murmured Wethermere.

  “Yes; that is, I believe, their intent,” Ankaht confirmed. “And it is hardly surprising that, once freed, many of the Arachnids moved directly toward Franos. This was the gateway system to enter the Star Union where, as your histories depict in gruesome detail, the Arachnids fed most lavishly during the war with them.”

  Modelo-Vo raised an unusually high-pitched voice. “So the Kaituni are driving their hounds—well, more like their undomesticated wolves—before them in an attempt to remove yet another potential obstacle to their conquest: the fleets of the Star Union.”

  Kiiraathra’ostakjo made a throaty sound of demurral. “I suspect they are more concerned with what the Star Union might become, rather than what it is currently. Living along the lengthy expanse between human space and our own, the various starfaring races of that loose polity have had little reason to spend lavishly on defense. Their formations have become small and have not been significantly modernized in the last ten years. But their industrial sector is, collectively, impressive. Given even two years, they could become a formidable force.”

  “I suspect that is the consideration that led the Kaituni to drive, or entice, many of the Arachnids in this direction. And the crew of the picket was to ensure that any stragglers of this deadly swarm did not go astray, but found the warp point to Franos immediately.”

  “That’s a role that sounds distressingly like ‘live bait,’” mumbled Wethermere.

  Ankaht smiled. “It is not entirely dissimilar, if that is how the Arachnids need to be guided to the warp point. Fortunately, so that the crew of the picket had some idea of the creatures which they might be dealing with, they were given very extensive data on what the Kaituni have learned about the Arachnids…and how they learned it.”

  “I’m surprised that data wasn’t heavily encrypted,” Modelo-Vo said testily.

  “With respect, Commander, why should it be? The Kaituni were quite aware that neither humans nor Orions understand selnarm recordings. And what was the likelihood that someone such as myself would be here, dozens of warp transits within the zone of destruction they have created? Besides, creating ciphers are properly the province of the Ixturshaz caste, and the Destoshaz are trying assiduously to reduce that caste’s importance.”

  “So they aren’t bothering to put ciphers on intelligence data?”

  “Let us say they are being selective about what warrants that measure of protection. And so far as I can tell, the Kaituni would not care that we have uncovered the means whereby they learned of the Arachnids. Judging from the role that ego plays in their new ‘society,’ I suspect they might derive considerable satisfaction from knowing that we learned of their extraordinary ingenuity—because, truly, their rediscovery of the Omnivoracity is a work of genius.”

  “C’mon, Councilor,” teased Wethermere, “you’re just dancing around the real core topic, and you know it.”

  “Which is?” Ankaht teased back.

  Wethermere rolled his eyes but smiled as he did it. “Just tell us: how did the Kaituni find and release the Bugs?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Ankaht rippled her smaller tendrils: the equivalent of a good-natured smile among her own people, but probably lost on aliens, even Ossian. “You might recall that when we finally deciphered the selnarm-data that had been carried on the automated couriers, I told you it resembled the forms in which selnarm transmits olfactory and tactile sensory information, but did not contain recognizable content.”

  The human frowned, then his brow raised, evidently along with the memories that provided his answer. “Yes, I do remember. You figured that out just as the subrelativistic barrage was hitting Amadeus.”

  “Correct. Well, now I know why the selnarmic data had that particular structure: because Arachnid communication is apparently partially pheromone based. It is an additional channel of information, much as vocalization and the written word is for us. And that was how the Kaituni field operatives packaged the Arachnid data they found and secretly transferred back to their linguists: in our own analogous format.”

  Yoshikuni brow was pinched with the effort of recollection. “I seem to remember reading that we were aware that there was a pheromonic dimension to the Bugs’ communications, but had never learned what it communicated or how.”

  “Yes, Admiral, your postwar forensics found the scent organs and receptors on Arachnid corpses, and found some limited presence of pheromone inputting devices on the wreckage of the larger ships. But your experts hypothesized that these systems were simply behavior control mechanisms, following the analogs they noted in many earth insects, which transmit commands for basic actions through just such methods.” Ankaht paused. “As it turned out, your experts’ reliance on terrestrial analogs could not have been more ill-advised. In the Arachnids, pheromones are only secondarily used for behavior modification; that is primarily determined by coded gestures, including ripple-patterns in mandibular cilia. Pheromones were reserved for a far more rare, but also, more nuance-rich, communicational purpose: cognitive exchange and recording.”

  Admiral Yoshikuni leaned back, crossed her arms. “Unless I’ve forgotten all my history—and I haven’t—the Bugs had a crude form of writing as their primary means of exchanging data. That’s what we found in their computers.”

  “My statement does not contradict what you read, Admiral. Rather, it expands upon it. You are indeed correct when you assert that Arachnid computers used a binary code that also extended into whole numbers and composite sigils. That was how they exchanged raw data and basic orders.

  “But that is not an adequate language for reflective or speculative thought. It is a language of charts, graphs, performance metrics: it is a mechanistic means of communicating largely mechanistic and quantitative information. But when the Arachnids needed to exchange ideas, concepts, alternative plans, they added on the pheromonic component. The subtle distinctions and multiple, simultaneous impressions and qualifications possible in layered scents—or more properly, varied chemical interactions—were only needed by a small number of Arachnids who constituted a kind of ‘higher leader’ caste. This is what caused the paucity of pheromone-related mechanical systems—which in turn led your postwar researchers to conclude that it was, at best, a secondary method of communication.”

  Jennifer Pietchkov saw the connection to Arduan communication first. “So because both your people and the Bugs employ special nonverbal and nonphysical communication methods, the Kaituni were looking at possibilities that would not occur to humans.”

  Kiiraathra’ostakjo’s ruff fluffed out. “And this answers the mystery of the dead and missing prospectors that were implicated in your investigations.”

  “Yes,” answered Ankaht. “From what I can determine, Amunsit’s researchers became keenly interested in the Arachnids’ pheromonic inputs when they learned that, during the early battles between our own peoples, you humans were similarly puzzled by our selnarmic repeaters. To you, they were systems that served no discernible purpose. The Kaituni conjectured that the pheromone receptors might have been similarly overlooked and underappr
eciated.

  “On further investigation, Amunsit’s researchers discovered another similarity in the way we Arduans and the Arachnids annotate or attach qualitative commentary to our data exchanges or ‘physical language.’ Namely, that just as we have sigils which denote either a reference to a selnarmic thread or which signify a commonplace selnarmic aphorism or observation, the Arachnid binary-coding had similar unprecedented characters which seemed inherently allusive, as if they were pointing to meanings that existed outside the data being presented. This prompted Amunsit’s researchers to explore if we Arduans might have success deciphering the Arachnid communication schema where the various races of the PSU failed. But in order to conduct that research, they needed evidentiary materials.”

  Wethermere smiled. “And so Amunsit authorized some of the factors and consular liaisons she sent to the Amadeus system to commission human prospectors to collect promising Arachnid debris and wreckage.”

  “Yes,” confirmed Ankaht, “all of whom were logically drawn to those systems that were particularly rich in the derelict Arachnid hulks left over from their war with you. And, who—being security liabilities once their task had been completed—were summarily, if gradually, liquidated.

  “But before that occurred, they had to relay the information they were gathering in the field, since Amunsit did not wish to create a situation in which her operatives might be intercepted returning to Zarzuela with Arachnid artifacts. That would have potentially led to a more accurate conjecture regarding her clandestine researches and their underlying motives. So the information the Kaituni operatives gathered in the field was added to the courier drones that would ultimately make their way to Amadeus, where Amunsit’s handlers received the messages as part of routine selnarmic communiqués which were further protected by a variety of trapdoor encryption protocols.”

  Yoshikuni shook her head. “So the entire suspicion of a Destoshaz-as-sulhaji fifth column operating within the Rim Federation—and even Republic space—was merely an artifact of our misperceiving what they were up to.”

  “Not entirely, Admiral. Amunsit had agents pursuing covert and potentially subversive ends, as well. But even there, much of it was just pointless communications—possibly to create the coded traffic expected of a fifth column, which in turn became a reasonable explanation for the mysteries we had at hand. Had Amunsit not provided that stalking horse for us to follow, we might have sooner come to reject that alternative and perceive others.”

  Kiiraathra’ostakjo shook his head slightly. “Even so, it is not fair to expect that you, or any other investigators, would have ever conjectured such a plot as the one which has now unfolded before us. To have hypothesized the continued existence of the Arachnids would not have been the logical outgrowth of any avenue of reasonable analysis: it would have always seemed a phantasmagoria of past horrors, not present clues. About which: although the Kaituni learned to translate Arachnid communication, how did that lead them to believe that the extermination of the Arachnids had been incomplete? The first condition in no way suggests the second.”

  Ankaht’s clusters expanded briefly in a single pulse; she wondered if even Wethermere would recognize it as her species’ gesture for launching into a new topic that was intensely interesting. “This is an excellent question, Least Fang, and it begs one even more fundamental, and for which I have no answer: why did Amunsit—either on her own initiative or at the behest of the new Destoshaz’at—commence her researches into the Omnivoracity at all? Alas, that information is not the kind which will be included in the data banks of a humble picket ship. However, their information did include an explanatory précis of how the Arachnids were discovered—provided to them as a means of familiarizing the ship’s commanders with the events which led to their mission.

  “Specifically, early in Amunsit’s research project, the linguistic analysts detected that high-level pheromonic exchanges between the leadership of the different Home Hives was generally infrequent and terse. However, as the tide of the war turned against them, there was a marked increase in this traffic. This upswing was, in itself, not particularly surprising: a species fearing that its own extinction was imminent would exert every effort to coordinate all its energies against such an outcome.

  “However, it was within this fragmentary body of information that the Kaituni first detected signs that, in the very last weeks of the war, this rising trend mysteriously reversed: pheromone communication diminished sharply. And yet, even as the Home Hives were losing touch with each other, there was no longer so absolute a presumption of impending extinction. Indeed, it seemed as if that most dire of all outcomes had been collectively dismissed as a concern.”

  “Suicidal resolve?” offered Modelo-Vo.

  Ankaht wondered how this young human had risen to his current station. “No. Quite the contrary: although Kaituni translation of the Omnivoracity communiqués remains imperfect, it was fairly clear that its leadership had evidently become convinced that this problem was solved. This was when Amunsit’s interest in the Omnivoracity’s end-of-war activities was piqued and she began sending out more operatives with, necessarily, fewer precautions. This change in her methods and narrowed focus of research dates back three years, shortly before we were briefed about the impending need to mount the investigation that we did.

  “Amunsit’s research also turned toward a detailed inspection of the standard, and more plentiful, binary data that remained in the computer banks. And there it was discovered that, in the last months of the war, there had been a modest ‘siphoning’ of equipment and resources from Hive Two’s war production output. Yet, none that materiel ever appeared anywhere else, and there was no evidence that it had been shipped outsystem as cargo or, in some cases, whole combat units. It was as if all this output was swallowed up by the Hive Two system itself.

  “Noting the simultaneity of these various irregularities, and then tell-tale signs that the siphoning itself stopped as the human fleets closed in on Hive Two, the Kaituni correctly hypothesized that the Bugs had discovered a new warp point in the system and were establishing a new Hive. And of course, for it to remain hidden, there had to be absolutely no evidence of transits to or from that warp point once the humans began drawing close.”

  “Damn, but Amunsit is smart,” grumbled Yoshikuni. “It seems obvious when you have all the pieces in front of you to look at, but given that she started from a blank slate…”

  “It may be her researchers that deserve most of the credit, Admiral,” Ankaht suggested. “There is much in Amunsit’s own handling of her fleets that suggests she may be somewhat rash. Or at least uncommonly bold.” Terms that have both been used to characterize you, as well, Admiral Yoshikuni, Ankaht added where the vocoder could not read it. She chastised herself for the uncharitable, yet not wholly inaccurate, thought before she continued. “Amunsit’s subsequent acquisitions of naval and navigation records of anomolous phenomena in the Hive Two system indicated that, over the past thirty years, local patrols have salvaged some unusual Arachnid artifacts there, and intercepted some odd signals. On the one hand, this was hardly noteworthy. Given the many ‘sleeper devices’ left behind by the Omivoracity, most of its former star systems are plagued by just such automated remainders awakening—disastrously—when patrol or salvage craft pass close enough. Also, it was not uncommon that semi-functional wreckage swept into long-period cometary orbits periodically came close enough to the inner system to reveal itself. However, the Kaituni noted with particular interest that, on two occasions, this Arachnid debris in the Hive Two system was reported as being of ‘atypical manufacture’ and exhibiting surprisingly light wear.

  “To human clerks processing these reports, this was simply a mildly interesting anomaly, which was suggestive of the vagaries of the Arachnids themselves: their artifacture was not always uniform, particularly when they began employing new systems, and some equipment was no doubt lost or disabled before it saw much use. However, to Amunsit’s analysts, these reports w
ere perceived as tantalizing suggestions that an unseen colony of the Omnivoracity might indeed be bordering the Hive Two system and was, periodically, cautiously probing its old haunts.

  “Shortly after, the Kaituni undertook a covert mission, staffed almost entirely by Destoshaz defectors still in the Arduan community, so that none of the operatives would be detected and trailed emerging from the Zarzuela system to carry it out. The mission was to locate the warp point into this new Home Hive and then tumble a large enough asteroid through it to trigger a transit.”

  “All that would prove is that a big rock went through a warp point,” Jennifer said with a frown.

  “Yes,” Ankaht replied, “but the asteroid had been specially prepared. Specifically, the Kaituni operatives had embedded a biologically sustained cell chamber it. In that chamber was a very sizable colony of short-lived creatures—those employing what we call protoselnarm—which are similar to the ones we use in what you call our ‘stick-hive’ minesweepers. The rock’s transit to the other system terminated the colony’s selnarmic link with the selnarshaz operator who was still back in Hive Two and, in consequence, the creatures did what they had been bred to do: they released the equivalent of an intense ‘selnarmic scream.’ Immediately after doing so, they expired and deliquesced into organic compounds that mimicked those found in the normative interstellar medium.

  “At the same time, an immense—well, I suppose you might call it a ‘dispersed array’—of Selnarshaz sensitives both in Zarzuela and throughout the approaching Dispersates waited to detect that ‘selnarmic scream’ and, by having a vague sense of its directionality, discerned its real-space location by triangulating upon the source.”

  Wethermere’s eyebrows rose. “Whoever thought that up is—well, I wish they were on our side.”

  “I agree,” answered Ankaht, “it was a stroke of genius. Having thus fixed the real-space position of the hidden colony of the Omnivoracity, the closest-approaching Dispersate dispatched a Desai-drive probe to lurk well beyond that system and examine it for signs of life—specifically, for a burgeoning Arachnid Hive. Which is exactly what they found, and on a scale that dwarfed everything they had ever imagined. It also defined the hidden masterstroke upon which the Kaituni would base many of their strategic plans: to reach and release the Arachnids once again, and, evidently shepherd them against the forces of the PSU.”