The Fifth Civilization: A Novel

by Peter Bingham-Pankratz

  “Down to business, I see,” Grinek snarled. They still circled each other, hopping in a circle. There was periodic jabbing and thrusting. “Now you must indulge me, Observer. What brings you to the Training Center? Not exercise, I imagine.”

  Vorjos’ ears stood straight up. “The Ruling Council has denied your request for another ship to intercept the Earth freighter. The fleet is stretched thin in the Fortu System.” A lie, but not a surprising one coming from the Ruling Council. Clearly the politicians had abandoned their zeal for the mission. “In fact, they had some words to say about the Hanyek’s assignment. I would preferred to have told you earlier, Commander, but you know transmissions from Kotara take hours to arrive. As the mission stands, the Council is not happy in the least. They claim that you have failed to garner the required information, and failed to capture an Earth freighter—something that is quite unbecoming of your character, Grinek.”

  How dare he use his personal name? Grinek jabbed at Vorjos’ right shoulder. That allowed the fatter man to get his first hit on Grinek’s stomach. Grinek landed a hit on Vorjos’ head as he jumped away, but felt the sting of the blow.

  “The Council knows nothing of my character.”

  “They know your record. You did so well with the Grisholdans. And they know you should easily be able to capture a freighter of Earthmen—or at least have your operatives do so. But you’ve had a month, and you’ve failed. The fact that the Earthmen are outrunning a ship-of-the-line like the Hanyek is most disturbing.”

  “We’ve been tracking them all this time. We have not lost them.”

  “That is the issue, Commander. The Colobus is like a boil on our ass—one that hasn’t gotten worse, or gone away, either. It just festers.”

  Grinek lunged, and Vorjos blocked him. Again and again. The hack was getting slightly better, but Grinek knew his own body had grown tired and he was weary from dealing with this organic embodiment of stupidity.

  “Tell them I don’t work miracles. I can’t make the Hanyek go faster.”

  “One councilman called the mission a ‘futile, high-speed pursuit.’ ”

  “We will get the Colobus and the information on it. Then the councilman can decide for himself if the pursuit was ‘futile.’ ”

  Vorjos stopped, put up his hand and caught his breath. Grinek took some satisfaction that the stuffed suit was wearing out. “That is another issue, Commander. This information about the comet. What I’ve been told by the Ruling Council suggests they have grown skeptical of the science behind this mission. It’s only a logical conclusion after they’ve waited so long without updates.”

  “I assure you it’s the truth.”

  “Well, this information doesn’t seem to fit with the narrative we’ve built for ourselves.”

  “Who? What narrative?”

  “The narrative of Kotara, Grinek. The narrative of our culture. That we were chosen to have dominion over our planet, and that we alone…are special. We are not related to Nydens, or Bauxens…and certainly not Earthmen.” Vorjos spit in revulsion. “What do the writings say? ‘Kotarans are the beings meant to toil on the land, under Bar’Hail, close in kin to Fox’Lo, and nourished by Gri’Nelda.’ ”

  Grinek could not believe what he was hearing. Was the political officer putting his own religious views in front of the Council’s? Or worse…did he represent the Council’s views? He feinted, let Vorjos try and hit him. Another miss. Grinek landed a vicious blow against the man’s kidney.

  “The Council is not worried just because they fear being related to Earthmen. They fear their beliefs will be invalidated, their belief that Kotarans were formed by Bar’Hail. The Council is full of closet ghin—simply following the latest religious fads.” Grinek put down his hands, only for a moment, and realized it might look like he was forfeiting. He moved them back up, but told himself there was nothing he wanted more than to end this fight and send a complaint back to Kotara immediately.

  “When the Nydens made first contact with us sixteen emperors ago, that was bad enough for the Kotaran ‘narrative.’ Yet we survived. Our race will survive no matter what we discover out there in deep space.”

  Vorjos was grimacing in pain from the kidney blow, but straightened his back and put his hands in the air. “I know you don’t believe in the gods, Grinek. But most have always believed in them. We know this now because of the Unbanning. The old ways of the old Emperors have been determined to be incorrect—it is now fine to express the truth, that there is a sky god, and a ground god, and a sea god, and they all shape our lives. I’m surprised you have resisted this truth so long. But you are a military man. You are not focused on studying history or the ways of our ancestors. Your only purpose is to kill blindly. Like a glorified grunt.”

  Grinek charged at Vorjos, letting out a scream that attracted the attention of all in the room. His clawed fingers found Vorjos’ neck and he squeezed. But Vorjos was ready for him. Eyes locked on Grinek’s, snarling along with the Commander, Vorjos brought his tail around and wrapped it once around Grinek’s right arm. The arm that had been struck with a hatchet years ago, in the Grisholdan campaign. As the tail grew taught, squeezing the muscle there, Grinek’s snarl turned to a grimace and then a scream of pain. His grip slackened. And as Grinek’s scream reached a deafening pitch, Vorjos unwrapped his tail and got out from the grip of Grinek, finding just enough time to kick the area near Grinek’s calves. At his genitals.

  Grinek went down on the mat. Pain swirled around his lower body and paralyzed his right arm. He couldn’t believe he fell for the bait.

  Vorjos had fallen too, but there was a sneer of satisfaction on the man’s face. He lay across from the Commander, tail tucked between his legs, panting and surveying the room around him. The crewmen had stopped sparring and all eyes were on the two. No trainee came forward to assist, however, not wishing to interrupt the two powerful men.

  “The Council wants immediate results, Grinek,” Vorjos said, working himself to his feet and offering a hand. Grinek, still in pain and on the mat, batted it away. He was going to get up on his own time, with his own strength. “They are allowing you to go ahead with this folly, but only if you get results within two days. We will be at Bauxa then, will we not?”

  “Yes, we will,” Grinek said, gritting his fangs. His knees felt like dry sticks.

  “Then I don’t have to tell you that we have to have the Colobus in our hands in two days, hopefully at Bauxa. If not…I have orders to get us turned back to Kotara. You are a good officer, but you also good at underestimating your opponents.” Vorjos wobbled as he worked to an upright position. He rubbed his tail disgustingly, in full view of others, and hobbled to the chair where his robe was placed.

  “You claim I’m afraid of the truth,” Grinek said, still sitting on the mat. “But maybe you are afraid of what I’ll find on this planet. That I will prove that Bar’Hail and Fox’Lo and Gri’Nelda are nothing more than erle shit.”

  Vorjos, now done massaging his tail without shame, wrapped his robe around his body. “Commander, I am simply reporting to you what the Council says. It is my job to report, and in turn to do what they say. These are their concerns and fears. Remember that you work for them as well, and you are at their mercy.” He limped through a group of soldiers still lightly sparring, soldiers hoping to catch an earful of what the two officers were saying.

  “When we reach the system in question,” Grinek called out, “I will find a mirror so you can see your own face. I think I’ll be the one laughing.”

  “Laughing is the lowest form of expression.” Vorjos didn’t turn, simply exiting the training center, his walk slightly strained. Grinek grimaced once more and bent his knees to support his frame. A crewman tried to help him up, but Grinek shouted him away.

  “Another quarter hour of sparring!” he commanded. “To make up for your lethargy!” The men, achingly tired, began sparring once again. Grinek worked his way to his chair and picked up his uniform.

  That erle shit Vor
jos. That fucker. He had known about his right arm. Without a uniform, the scar was visible on his upper forearm: a long depression covered by scar tissue, jagged and unsightly. No fur grew around it. Grinek had gotten it the last and only time he let a combatant surprise him.

  It was during the Grisholdan rebellion on Kotara seven years previously. The deluded Grisholdan ethnic group decided they didn’t want to be part of a unified Kotara anymore and their continent rose in rebellion. Grinek was among the thousands of elite troops sent to put an end to this doomed uprising. In two weeks the rebellion was crushed, but one of the rebel leaders escaped and Grinek was sent in after him. The man was tracked to a forest, where Grinek hunted him for hours, his scent growing more pungent the closer Grinek came.

  But Grinek had been careless. He did not look above, in the trees, and that was where the rebel leader was hiding.

  The rebel leapt from a branch. Quietly, with his hatchet at the ready. Grinek heard a branch snap and threw his arm up to block the blade. But it sunk in, deeply. The two fell to the muddy ground and the hatchet was pulled out of the arm, its edge bloody and ready for another blow. But even as roared in pain, Grinek sunk the claws of his other arm into the rebel’s neck, and he watched the man’s eyes as they bulged to immense proportions. The hatchet arm grew slack. And then the weapon dropped from the man’s hand and the life drained from his body.

  On the Hanyek, Grinek grunted. That was seven years ago, and now the Grisholdans could only be found in Kotaran folklore. He’d won that battle, but never again would Grinek allow himself another such lapse.

  He regarded his uniform. Just an assembly of fabric like so many others in the Imperium. Grinek decided he wouldn’t put it on until he reached the bridge. Everyone he passed in the halls was going to see his muscles and scars. They were going to marvel at them.

  Chapter 15

  As captain of the Dunnock, Roan would occasionally take a “spirit day.” A day in which Masao would take over and Roan would curl up with a bottle of Swerdlow in his quarters. Sometimes he’d wake up on the other side of the ship, usually nestled by a pipe. The crew loved it, mainly because a drunken captain meant they could take the day off, too. It was a deep space vessel, after all. Automation meant a lot of stuff could be left to the computer.

  Roan was currently taking a spirit day on the Colobus.

  He’d been taking a lot of them lately.

  Holding a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other, Roan stepped through the threshold of the laundry room and plopped himself down on the bench near the last machine. On the Dunnock, he’d enjoyed that seat the best, since it always stayed heated by the vents from the drying process. It was good to know that on the Colobus, it was still one of the warmest spots on the ship.

  Roan unscrewed the bottle top and poured a shot of the amber liquid into a glass. Downed it in a gulp. He coughed as the whiskey snaked down his throat but quickly poured another shot. This was the good stuff: Serafinowicz, brewed in Australia by settlers from the former British Isles.

  Kel hadn’t wanted Roan to get ahold of the liquor. She must’ve remembered how he’d been drawn to it when he was bored, and he had definitely been bored on the Colobus, where he was treated like an extraneous nuisance and the cause of everyone’s misery. Two of the Muslim crewmembers asked if the alcohol could be strictly controlled, and Kel used that as an excuse to lock it all away in a mess hall cabinet. She had the only key, Kel told everyone, and looked at Roan when she did.

  Luckily, Roan knew how to pick locks.

  Roan put the bottle of Serafinowicz on the bench and closed his eyes, listening to the hum of the dryer. Whose clothes were inside, he wondered. Who was even up this late? Most of the crew was asleep, anticipating their imminent arrival at Bauxa and, possibly, their way off the Colobus. Roan supposed it didn’t matter if anyone came to get their clothes and saw him like this. He’d run into the crew before during his spirit days. As long as they didn’t say anything to him, he got along just fine with their presence.

  He just wanted to see Kel. Just wanted to ask her, when he was stone drunk and without a filter, why she’d been avoiding him. Why she’d blocked him out over the past month, why she didn’t let him near the ship’s controls. None of it made sense.

  Roan poured another glass.

  “Having a one-man party, eh?”

  Roan almost dropped the glass. He whirled to face the doorway and saw Masao there, concentrating hard on the black hole hologame in his hand. The man’s beard was as unkempt as ever and his hair looked just as unwashed. None of it had seen a comb for days.

  “Were you following me, Masao?”

  “Nope. Sometimes I come down her to meditate, too.” He looked up from the hologame. “Or in your case, medicate.”

  “Cut me some slack.”

  The ball of light in Masao’s game dipped into the black hole. A giant X flashed above the machine; he’d lost another round. Masao cursed and turned the thing off. “I’m never going to get the hang of these things. What happened to good old virtual reality, huh? Fought a lot of dragons back in my day. Find me a headset on this ship and I bet I could fire up some of my old quests.”

  “Masao, I really want to be alone.”

  “Ah, but I’ve got a few more minutes on my clothes.” Roan regarded his former copilot. Disheveled, the epitome of dirty, Masao was at that very moment wearing a white shirt with more holes than the moon.

  “You might want to jump in there yourself, you know,” Roan said.

  Masao ignored him. “So now I know why I can never find you in your quarters, Nick. You’ve been taking spirit days again. Don’t think we haven’t all noticed. Kel was just telling me the other day she thought we were a few bottles light. Said she should’ve installed a sensor to see how many times the cabinet was opened.”

  “I was gonna return the bottle.”

  “The point being, Nick, is that you should find other avenues of entertainment. I get so bored doing the damn diagnostics and inventory every day that I’ve been searching through everything this ship has to offer. The Colobus has a much newer media library than the Dunnock ever did. You should try listening to music from the 23rd century, after the exodus and first contact. Very dark and brooding stuff…”

  “Not interested.”

  “Or try holofilms. I’ve watched every one programmed on this ship at least once.”

  “Do they have different pornos than the ones on the Dunnock?”

  “Or, Nick, maybe you should just try talking to someone.”

  That made Roan pour the last of his shot down his throat. The liquid was sharp and smoky, but he suppressed a cough. Talking was what he wanted to avoid. Just sit in the laundry room and listen to the dryer tumble around and think.

  “She might still love you,” Masao said quietly, “If she wanted to keep you off the liquor. I mean, it was for your own benefit.”

  “Who?”

  “Who? Who do you think, Nick? Doctor Kazen? If there’s a woman in the world who would be fine with you destroying your liver I think it’s the good doctor. Now that’s irony. Anyway, you know who I mean. The captain.”

  Kel.

  Roan stood up. Began pacing the room. There were four washer/dryers for the entire crew, and Company policy was that you did laundry every week. Ships were confined spaces. They got smelly. Everyone remembered the first Alcubierre drive pioneers and how much freshener they poured into those ships.

  But Roan couldn’t remember the last time he’d done laundry. Weeks ago, probably, right after they left the solar system. He could only imagine how his worn out jacket smelled.

  God, what was becoming of him?

  “Hell of a way to show your love, though,” Roan said. “Locking up the liquor. Kel could use a good drink now and again. It would loosen her up.”

  “She doesn’t want you to get sloshed and kill that Kotaran.”

  Roan remembered the being they had locked away in the cargo bay, drugged up and under 24/7 guard. As
far as Roan knew, it hadn’t done anything but grunt in the month they’d had it captive. Roan figured the guy was in some kind of trance. Kel had repeatedly stopped Roan from visiting their prisoner—in the unspoken belief, he knew, that the he would snap and put a laser through the kanga’s brain.

  “I just want to talk to him, Masao.”

  “Yeah, right. Kel knows you too well. She has to, she’s the captain. She’s able to tell everyone’s moods. Tell when they’re happy or sad. Or still not quite together after the death of their friend…”

  Roan stopped. He thought of Aaron. The man he’d known for ten years, cut down on the seafront. Putting his hands to his head, the captain leaned up against the washer/dryer opposite Masao, letting its vibrating frame massage him.

  “At some point you gotta let your grief go, Nick. Gotta shout it so loud that it wakes up people back on Earth. Keeping it inside you is gonna make you explode. And I do not want to mop anymore human remains on this godforsaken ship.” He gave a disgusted sound. “You don’t want to know what I saw in the cockpit. What Silverman looked like after those Kotarans carved him up.”

  There was silence save for the hum of the dryer. Masao started to regard the whiskey bottle. He picked it up and sloshed it around, enchanted like it was the first time he’d seen liquor.

  “I think that’s why I have to go to Aaron’s planet,” Roan said. “To get some closure. To know for myself if he was right. If I just left to go back to Earth, or stayed on Bauxa forever, I would always wonder. And I think…I think that then his death would be for nothing.”

  “But you can make it mean something.”

  “That’s right. And what did Kel say? I crave adventure. I think that’s right. I’ll be going where no human has gone before.”

  Masao popped the bottle top and took a swig. Swirled it around in his mouth and swallowed. For a few moments, nothing. Then he hacked the loudest series of coughs Roan had ever heard from the man. Roan couldn’t stop laughing.