by Selina Rosen
"If they don't like technology . . . Well, on this world, on most worlds actually, you don't get much more high-tech than an interstellar space ship," Levits said. "So if I were the slimy, tentacled bastards, I'd want to take this fucker out."
RJ nodded. "But they'd want to make sure that we couldn't retaliate, because they know we can kill them easily. Since they have a communal brain they'd all know exactly what we did and how." She fell silent again, looking thoughtful.
"All right, what are you thinking?"
"I'm wondering if they have missiles."
"Do they have missiles?" RJ asked the leader, Taral, in his own language.
"Yes," he answered.
"Well?" both Topaz and Levits demanded. Neither of them had even come close to mastering the most rudimentary words of the Abornie language. In fact, Topaz had gone so far as to say that when they spoke it sounded like gargling snot to him.
"He said yes," RJ informed them. She started to ask him another question, but Topaz jumped out of his seat and yelled, "Beautiful! Fucking beautiful!"
"Is he going to hurt me?" Taral asked, holding up his hands as if to shield himself from Topaz.
"No, he's just crazy," RJ explained. Then she turned to Topaz and said in the Reliance tongue. "Sit down and shut up, or leave. You aren't helping."
Topaz grumbled something that not even RJ could make out, then flopped back into his chair.
RJ smiled, momentarily amused because the sound Topaz had made sounded a whole lot like gargling snot. She sobered and looked at Taral again. "How big are their missiles?"
"What?" He obviously didn't understand her question.
"How much damage do they do?"
"You saw," he said, and made a loud noise and spread his hands to imitate the blasting apart of an object.
"That's not a missile," RJ said shaking her head. "That was just a plasma cannon." Well, she'd thought she knew their language pretty well until she was trying to explain something they might not even have words for.
"Well?" Topaz and Levits asked again.
"He thinks the plasma cannon is a missile," RJ said.
"Then they don't have missiles," Levits said in a relieved tone.
"No one said that." She flipped on the monitor on the wall and ran her fingers over the keyboard. A picture of a missile appeared, and then it flew through the air and blew up a mock ship. It was a training film. She turned to Taral. "Do they have something like that?"
Taral's eyes were large. "No," he said. "Nothing like that, but with something like that we could kill them."
RJ sighed, relieved but still troubled.
"What?" Levits and Topaz demanded.
"The Ocupods don't have missiles." She was speaking in the Reliance tongue. "This bloodthirsty bastard wants us to get him some missiles to blow them up."
"We don't have any missiles, just some lasers and the plasma cannons on the ship and on the skiff, and probably not nearly enough power to run them for long enough to fight a huge battalion of those horrid metal spider things," Levits said.
"I'm sure we could find the power, and build better weapons, given time. That's hardly the problem." RJ was upset, and she didn't try to hide it.
"What would the real problem be then, RJ? Those really creepy things could be grouping in the thousands to attack us even now. You said so yourself." Levits remained a bit confused by RJ's demeanor.
"Those really creepy things are the only thing that has kept the Abornie from going right back to destroying this planet. In all the books that I've read since I've been here, their books in their words, nowhere did they show any remorse over what they had done to their world. Nowhere did they take responsibility for what the Ocupods have become. It's as if they totally fail to realize that their actions and the actions of their ancestors are directly related to their lot in life today.
"I'm afraid that if we take away their only enemy they will go right back to doing what caused the problems of their world in the first place. It's the first real moral dilemma I've come across in battle since the day I decided I wasn't going to kill unarmed civilians and turned on the Reliance."
"We have to live here, RJ," Levits reminded. "Those things, they don't think or feel the way that we do, you said so yourself." He seemed to be hell-bent on reminding her of everything she'd said as if she had somehow forgotten, which RJ found more than a little annoying. "The Abornie . . . they're like us. They deserve to have something better than a minimal life, living in the jungles like primitives. Being hunted down and killed anytime they try to better their lives. The Ocupods are evil. You only have to look at them to know that." Levits shot Topaz a heated look, no doubt blaming him for RJ's dilemma.
"The Abornie created that evil, maybe they deserve to live under its rule," RJ said.
"I can't even believe you're suggesting that. You, who fought for human freedom. You, who put freedom above all else." Levits stood up and started pacing. "Do I even have to remind you that if we don't find compatible energy of some kind that we have no chance of leaving this planet? And then there's the added problem of finding our own space. The fate of these people—and let's call them people because that's what they are to us—is the same as ours. Whatever happens to them is ultimately going to happen to us. True, the slimy tentacled creeps haven't attacked the ship yet, but eventually you know that they will. Even if they don't, what happens the first time we try to do something on the surface? Go looking for an energy source . . . if we find one, what are they going to do then?"
"If they attack the ship, what are the chances that they'd be able to get in? The solar cells seem to be running at full efficiency here. Our power cells are charged . . . at least enough to run our weapons. If we fired in short, well-targeted bursts we could probably hold back a massive attack," RJ said. "I'm sure our shields would hold."
"I can't believe that there's something to fight and you don't want to fight it!" Levits turned on Topaz and trumpeted accusingly, "This is all your fault, old man, you put this crap into her head."
Topaz laughed. "Oh yes, because of course I've always had such sway with her."
"Why is everyone yelling?" Taral asked, holding his hands over his ears.
"What did he say?" Levits and Topaz asked RJ.
"He said if you spent as much time learning his language as you did bitching at me and each other maybe you wouldn't have to ask so many stupid questions," RJ said with a crooked grin.
"We don't all have genetically superior brains," Levits said hotly.
"Or even sufficient ones," Topaz said, looking at Levits with meaning.
"That's it. I'm kicking your ass, old man," Levits jumped up and punched Topaz, who fell out of his chair and got up swinging. Soon the two men were rolling around on the floor.
"What's wrong?" Taral asked, getting out of his chair and moving away from the fight and towards the door.
"Two men of the same race can't get along, and yet I think I can make some sort of truce between two different species," RJ said in his language as she rose from her chair and physically pulled the two men apart. She held them each at arm's length. "That's enough!" she yelled at them.
They grumbled, but each went back to his chair.
RJ glared at Levits. "This isn't our world, what right do we have to meddle here? Maybe the Abornie deserve the life they have . . ."
"And maybe the work units deserved the life they had under the Reliance. I don't really see what the difference is between this and that," Levits said, wiping some blood from his lip.
"As much as it pains me to say this, he's right, RJ. Like it or not, this is our world now. The Abornie made mistakes, similar to the ones humans made. They created a monster to help them out of a problem, and now the monster controls them. Perhaps we can free the Abornie and keep them from falling into the same traps as their ancestors. We could tell them what they did wrong, how to advance without destroying their planet. Maybe we really can keep history from repeating itself."
"You we
re the one who kept saying that maybe the Ocupods weren't the bad guys, that maybe these people were, and you were right. Don't you get it? They don't understand that what they did was wrong. They want to return to a time when they overran the planet like rats. When they polluted the water and the air, and abused every other lifeform on this world. They didn't learn from their mistakes, and if we remove the problem their carelessness caused then they'll never learn . . ."
"RJ, these Abornie never lived in that world. They didn't sin against the planet. They didn't create those things in the ocean. They didn't pollute their world. Maybe they have no remorse because they didn't do anything wrong. You want to punish them for mistakes made by people who died hundreds of years ago," Levits said, in an unusually (for him) calm voice. "The only thing that Taral here and the others are guilty of is trying to make a little better life for themselves. Just trying to live. Maybe it didn't start out that way, but those things are now the aggressors, and I think your first instincts were right. They're slimy and icky and they need to be destroyed." He took a breath before continuing. "The Abornie built these genetically engineered freaks to serve them, and now they are causing problems. It's time for them to go."
Topaz leaned forward, buried his face in his hands and mumbled, "And he was doing so well right up till then."
Levits still wasn't aware that he'd said anything wrong. He really thought the old man was just having one of his insane moments till he heard a low, throaty growl emanating from the throat of his beloved. He gave her a curious look and then quickly went over what he had just said. He swallowed hard and must have looked as horrified as he felt, because RJ quit growling, glared at him with eyes that were almost glowing with rage, and then she got up and stomped out of the room. He got up and ran after her.
"Now, RJ . . . you know I didn't mean it that way . . ."
Topaz ran his hands down his face and raised his head to look at the confused native he shared the room with. "You see, the real problem is that no one is ever really happy with things the way they are, so they start trying to make them better." The native said some snot gargling thing, and Topaz continued as if they understood one another. "That's right, Taral, exactly, it's all about wanting what you don't have. Food, shelter, sex, it ought to be enough, but invariably it's not. People start out wanting simple things like better food and better sex, and wind up making multileveled attachment dildos that sing and roll and vibrate, and buildings that touch the clouds, and hand-held hair dryers, because of course your hair will never dry otherwise." Taral said something else. "Call me crazy all you like, but you know it's true. You could get along just fine with these creatures if you would just stop wanting so much. And RJ and the Ocupods wouldn't be here at all if people would have been happy with creatures the way they had evolved, and hadn't decided to play God."
RJ wasn't talking to Levits, as much because she had more important things on her mind as the fact that he could be so clumsily insensitive and she wanted to punish him.
Not that she wasn't enjoying making him feel at least as badly as he'd made her feel. It seemed to bother him no end that she walked out of any room he walked into, and when she told him she didn't want to talk about it she could feel the waves of frustration coming off of him like heat. He kept saying he was sorry, and she would say, "It's all right. Forget about it." But her tone was very dismissive, and his head would all but explode. She'd let him roast in his own juices until she wanted to have sex, and then she'd suddenly forgive him, knowing damn good and well that he'd say something just as insensitive in another day or two.
Human nature, humanoid nature, you couldn't get away from it. Sentient beings did thoughtless things.
"The suits are the problem," RJ said to Poley as she walked away from the viewing port she'd been standing at. "Take away the suits and the Ocupods can't attack the Abornie, or us for that matter. Take away the suit and they become just another genetically engineered freak on this planet, swimming happily in the ocean until the Abornie totally overrun the planet and decide to enslave them again. Vicious cycle."
"Do you think they have the ability to make new suits?" Poley asked.
"I don't know, but I don't see how. To make metal you have to smelt ore and it's damn hard to keep a decent fire going under the water. If they were doing it on the surface surely the ship would have detected the activity. They at least have the technology to repair them though, or after all these hundreds of years they would be dysfunctional. I wish we could have brought one back to the ship."
"That would have been most useful."
"If they aren't capable of making the suits, then how many could they have? No matter how well you maintain something, there are certain things that go wrong that can't be fixed. Over several hundred years how many would have had to be parted out to keep the others going?" RJ turned to look back out the viewport again. Frionia was a beautiful world. Reclaimed by plant life, the air was clean and rich. The planet was covered with crystal clear rivers and streams. "Poley."
"Yes, RJ."
"If we get rid of the Ocupods, or at least stop them from attacking the Abornie, how long before that stream is running in sewage and toxic waste?"
He walked up behind her and looked at the stream in question. "There's no way of knowing, perhaps never."
"What, no long stream of numbers, Tin Pants?"
"Where people are involved you can make no accurate numeric predictions. Perhaps knowing the mistakes of their forefathers they will curb their destructive natures, and . . ."
"You've been talking to Topaz," RJ said with a laugh.
"That doesn't make me wrong," Poley said.
"No it doesn't." RJ turned and kissed his check. "Thanks, Poley."
Poley smiled, pleased with her praise. "Are you really angry with Levits?"
"I'm more angry at what he said than I am at him," RJ explained.
"He doesn't think of you that way. That's why he said it, RJ, because he doesn't think of you as a GSH, just like you don't think of me as a robot."
She had noticed before that it distressed him when any of them fought, but he'd never actually tried to intervene before.
"I love you, Tin Pants." She patted his shoulder and moved around him towards the door. She turned in the door and looked at his back; he was still looking out the window at the jungle. He was a machine, but he was so much more to her. He had been given an artificial intelligence, and he had as far as she was concerned become sentient. But to the Ocupods he'd just be another machine. He was a machine, but he was her brother, and those things would take him completely apart if given half a chance.
Dilemma over.
As she had calculated, the Ocupods appeared one day in full force, but she had prepared carefully for the day and they were as ready as they could be.
In the weeks it had taken the Ocupods to put an army of this size together RJ had worked up a defensive strike plan that would very quickly turn defender into aggressor.
She had armed as many of the Abornie as she could with the Reliance weapons on the ship, then she'd taught them to use the laser sidearms.
With Levits ready at the weapons console and watching the scanners carefully for any activity, RJ, Poley and Topaz had taken teams of the Abornie out onto the surface to make traps and primitive weapons with which to supplement the ship's weapons. The ship's power supply needed to last throughout the duration of the battle, and the only way to make sure of that was to use its weapons as little as possible.
RJ had been sure they were fully prepared for an attack, but now . . . There were just so damn many of them. RJ looked at the scanner as hundreds of spider shaped images started crawling across it. She ran her hands down her face.
"Well?" Levits asked.
"Fire at the ones on the front line when they come into range . . . No, wait." RJ looked thoughtful for a minute and mumbled the word cannon fodder and then started calculating again. She smiled when she was done. "Wait till the ones in the middle come into range.
"
"RJ . . . By the time that happens the ones in the front will be on top of us."
"No, because we're going to go out to fight them. Don't you see, Levits?" She was excited now. She was going to do battle. She wasn't afraid; this was where everything she was came into play. Only in battle was her full potential ever put to the test. "Cannon fodder. These things have probably employed every viable suit they have. I'm sure they can't make the suits themselves, and they've been parting them out for hundreds of years. Some of those suits, maybe most, are in varying states of decay, and if I'm right the worst of those will be in the front lines. Cannon fodder. The damaged ones will be easier for us to take out. We take out the strong ones in the middle and the back, and maybe we won't run out of power before we run out of big metal spiders."
