The Gentle Seduction

by Marc Stiegler

  "You've defeated them?"

  Encrai hissed. "We've destroyed them. The species who subjugated us are extinct, by our claws. Now we are the masters, and others are the slaves."

  "So you're continuing the system you despised."

  "It's a good system—the strong live and conquer, the weak serve and die." Encrai smiled. "You're lucky to be conquered by the Kalixi. We're the Destined Ones, fated to conquer the galaxy. Already we have over 600 solar systems and 150 slave species. No other single species has subjugated that many others for millions of years."

  The primate seemed shaken. "Don't you have any allies? What about your enemies? Why don't they form an alliance? I can't believe the universe is so devoid of cooperation. Even among us, at least hate is powerful enough to mold friendships."

  Encrai laughed. "Poor naive omnivore. I guess that with your background, it's understandable." Encrai looked the creature in the eye. "The universe is the domain of the carnivores, primate. Planetary evolution dictates it. With few, few exceptions, the carnivores develop intelligence first—and once a carnivore develops intelligence, no other species has a chance." He smiled; had he not become an Admiral, Encrai might well have been a university professor. "But regardless of how much our intelligence expands, still we retain our ancient instincts. We know the love of the good hunt, and the joy of the final kill." He spoke the words with relish. "And as we hunt and are hunted, our intelligence and instincts develop apace."

  The primate shook its head; water gathered in its eyes. "Dear God, no! Are all the other species really like yours?"

  Encrai swished his tail. "Of course not; they are much less sophisticated. From your point of view, though, they're similar." He rolled his eyes. "Actually, I've heard rumors of a group of omnivorous species that've united to protect themselves from the carnivores. But I doubt the rumors. How could omnivores survive long enough to find each other?"

  A funny expression spread over the primate's face; for some reason, it made the Admiral uneasy. "Perhaps they survive by being just a little bit insane."

  What did that mean? Encrai slitted his eyes. Oh well—at least it brought them to the topic of insanity; and that was the thing that interested Encrai. "Perhaps they have. Though it certainly didn't help the primates at the Uranus Outbase. Tell me, primate—why did that Outbase destroy itself?"

  The primate wrestled with the chair, trying to get more comfortable. "That's a long story. Have you ever heard the story of the Bully and the Crazy Boy?"

  The verbosity drug had definitely taken effect. "No, nor do I want to hear it now. Just tell me why they blew themselves up."

  The primate shrugged. "We struck at you through the only weakness we could find. "

  Encrai turned bright eyes to his captive. "Indeed!"

  The primate nodded.

  "Well, goodness! Don't keep me in suspense, primate, tell me. I'm always trying to correct my defects." He wondered if primates were able to recognize sarcasm.

  "Your flaw is that you're too rational."

  What a stupid thing to say! Faagh! Yet the Admiral's spine tingled.

  "Yes, that was the only flaw we could find," the primate continued, "aside from a tendency to overconfidence. I fear you never let your overconfidence influence important decisions."

  "Um. And, ah—just how did you figure out that we are, um, too rational?"

  "Well, that's a good story, too. I'm the one who realized you had this flaw—not because I'm the smartest Admiral we have, but because I've fought this fight before." He looked down at himself, then continued, "I'm a sort of small man, as you may have noticed, and—"

  Encrai saw a complete autobiography coming, which he wished to avoid. "From all this I gather that the rest of your ships will behave as suicidally and insanely as the Outbase did?"

  The shadow of a snarl passed over the primate's face. "With a vengeance, Admiral, with a vengeance."

  "I see." The Admiral adjusted his harness, and returned to his control station. The central battlescreen brightened to full vigor as he touched the pads. Two disjoint sections appeared, the left one filled with the shape of the Kalixi fleet, the right one containing Saturn and its many moons. To the far left of the right section, two tiny dots represented the advanced scouts recording the Saturn scene; to the right of Saturn, on the sunward side, a small group of large objects approached the planet and its system.

  "Tell me, primate, what are those clumsy objects moving toward Saturn?" A pointer appeared on the screen and drew the skeleton of a sphere around the spots of light.

  "They're the battle stations from Earth, I imagine. Admiral Springrain deduced that you'd come from this direction. It's the obvious line of approach, if you plan to take the planets one at a time. When we realized that we'd have to meet you at Titan, the Terran Federate sent its battle stations to help defend Titan." The primate smiled. "Actually, I should thank you, after a manner. You're the first thing that's united mankind since the beginning of history."

  "That's right, I'd forgotten. Your species wars against itself, doesn't it?" Amazing. At least they'd make a fascinating study for the xenologists. Evolution had been short-circuited here. Lessons could be learned.

  Another thought struck Encrai. "So you anticipated our coming this way. I'm impressed."

  "We assumed you'd take the simplest route. That destroys the element of surprise, but you can beat us without surprise. Your technology and tactics should beat us regardless."

  Encrai appreciated that; it was exactly the conclusion he'd come to, of course. "You admit we'll win?"

  Water collected in the primate's eyes. "How can you lose! You have more people, more resources, better technology. You're certainly more vicious, and . . . if the handful of prisoners we took from your exploratory group are any indication, you're even, . . . you're even," the primate's voice choked on a sob. "You're even smarter than we are." The primate's face contorted with bright dogged anger. "And we intend to beat your damned tails down your throats, and stomp you into pulp and spit on you when we're done."

  The Admiral smiled broadly. "Good for you." So they were realistic—but spunky. "Tell me, where are your fleets, and where are they going to be, in order to carry out this commendable operation?"

  The primate told him, expansively. He described the details of the designs of the ships in each fleet. He explained their tactical theory upon entering the conflict.

  Returning to his console, Encrai set up a new scene on the display, a close-up of Titan and its neighbors, and started the games. Fleets entered the 3-D playing area and splintered into ships. The ships in turn branched into sets of potentialities, vectors for their possible action. Then, one by one, inferior potentiality branches dissolved, and optimal ones solidified. The scene commanded all of Encrai's attention; this was one of the parts of war he enjoyed most.

  The battle's dance slowed as primate ships winked out of existence in the midst of their optimal paths; none escaped the Kalixi guns. "You know, it s almost a shame your species hasn't learned to compensate for acceleration without locking everybody in a stasis box. This could be a pleasant battle, if your ships could maneuver."

  The primate just floated in his chair.

  Encrai took careful note of a flaw in the design of the primate strategy, and played out a second scenario. The new game ran quickly to completion, as Encrai had predicted. "Why commit your fleets in such a loosely coupled fashion? There're large gaps in the pattern."

  The primate nodded. "Yeah, we left some openings for the research ships to watch through."

  "Research ships?"

  Again the primate nodded. "Assuming we survive this time, we'll have to know a lot more to survive again. The Martian Republic donated its research fleet. We hope to get detailed pictures of your ships in the instants before they explode, after our missiles strike. By putting enough of those fragments together, along with the remains of the destroyed ships, maybe the next time you come to the solar system, you'll be facing ships just like your
own."

  Encrai snorted. "Fools! You think you can understand our technology? Just by taking pictures and collecting debris?" He searched his memory for an analogy, something out of the alien's own history. "Could a medieval primate build an airplane just by looking at the construction diagrams? It's absurd."

  The primate winced. "I don't know. Certainly no ordinary medieval man could have done it. But a medieval man who knew the scientific method might be able to, given time. The scientific method is our greatest strength. It's the best method for learning there is." A look of—horror? Yes, a look of horror passed over the primate's face. "Unless you've found something better than the scientific method. If you've learned a better way to learn, we're lost." His eyes held a plea. "You don't have anything better than science, do you?"

  The great cat hissed; Captain Taress turned to look at him with puzzlement.

  The alien was right. Science was the key, and the Kalixi had nothing better. For the first time, a chill of fear ran along his spine—a chill he very quickly suppressed.

  Encrai punched in a new set of orders for his fleet, modifying their battle plan. "You shall pay dearly for the opportunity to learn from the Kalixi," he muttered grimly. The new orders detailed a massive incursion into the gaps between the alien fleets, breaking their flanks and splintering them in chaos.

  Encrai yawned, and stretched. He turned to Chief Assistant Mrech. "Colonel, watch after things, will you?" With a look at the timetable, he turned to the alien. "Ill be back in about six hours. We'll watch the battle together." He smiled. "May the best minds win."

  The burrstinger closed, closed, and—Encrai opened his eyes with a start; his whole body was bent with tension, ready to pounce.

  It was wrong—something was wrong in this campaign, but he didn't know what it was. And his hunches seldom erred.

  But until his hunch blossomed into understanding, he could do nothing. And soon it would be irrelevant, anyway. The battle was starting. It was time to go see the show.

  Encrai hurtled through the air at terrifying velocity, snagging the edge of his webcradle with outstretched claws as he passed. Back at his console, he created a new display upon the holoscreen; now the two scenes, one of Titan and the other of his fleet, coalesced. Saturn lay dead center, straddled by two opposing armadas. The humans far outnumbered the Kalixi. They looked quite imposing on the screen, but it was only an illusion. In the first conflict, between a Kalixi Class J fleet and the Martian Second Fleet, twenty-five Kalixi vessels knocked off one hundred and eighty primate ships before the primates pegged their first Kalixi ship; even after that, the Kalixi lost only three more ships, while the humans lost another forty-six. Armor alloy and fusion missiles just couldn't contest the clean power of gammaxers and grav- shields. For the upcoming battle, the High Command anticipated the destruction of eleven human ships for every Kalixi; considering the weakness Encrai had found in the alien strategy, newer figures suggested a ratio of seventeen to one. And the human's suicidal tendency made no difference—insanity worked once, but only once.

  Then why did Encrai's intuition disagree?

  Encrai turned to the prisoner. "I wish to compliment you on the accuracy of your reporting. The fleets are indeed arriving just as you said they would, in just the disposition you described. Thank you.''

  "Yeah." Shadows hung under the prisoner's eyes, and stubble darkened his chin. The Kalixi Admiral chose not to notice.

  Instead he turned back to the holoscreen. It was all so beautiful. Simple and elegant. There was, he told himself, nothing to fear.

  Then the outer edge broke away from the battlescreen, forming a set of new displays far removed from the battle. These new sections held no fleets, just scattered ships—but the ships were moving at incredible speeds. The Kalixi advance scouts had just detected them. And though they were far away, they were unquestionably heading for the battle zone, and they were accelerating at the fastest pace that the best of the alien stasis boxes could handle and still keep the occupants alive. Encrai played with the controls, and potentialities expanded from those ships in narrow, senseless patterns.

  To get to the battle in time, they'd have to continue to accelerate, and when they arrived they'd be going so fast they'd only be in the battle for a few seconds before they flashed past, hopelessly out of control, to speed beyond the limits of the solar system and die—for the aliens had no interstellar jumpdrive, nothing that could get those ships home again. It was truly suicidal, and in that sense at least it seemed typical of these primates.

  "Where did those ships come from?" Encrai asked in tense bewilderment. "Where are they going?"

  Somehow, the prisoner's silence seemed ominous. Encrai turned to the alien, and saw that he was no longer haggard and tired. His eyes were bright with a new emotion—was it pride? Could a primate feel pride? "Tell me, primate Admiral, what are those ships doing out there?"

  The man smiled broadly, and Encrai's gnawing tension leaped in his throat. Instantly he swung over the human, claws extended, ready for the killing stroke. "Tell me," he spat.

  The man leaned back, squirming away from the claws. "Where'd they come from? They came from the far side of the sun, beyond the bounds of the solar system. They've been accelerating since we figured out your timetable." He paused, and Encrai came closer with his claws. "They're on their way to the battle, obviously. They're on their way to win."

  "How? They'll only be in the battle for a few seconds before they leave again, as swiftly as they came. They'll hardly have time to fire, much less time to aim."

  The prisoner raised an eyebrow. "Well, in one sense you're even more right than you realize—many won't get to fire at all. By the time they get to the battle, they'll be traveling at almost a third of the speed of light. Many of those ships'll be dead hulls even before they get to the battle."

  Encrai cocked his head, questioning.

  "Don't you see? At one-third the speed of light, every dust particle in the solar system is their enemy— because in their reference frame, those particles are traveling at a third of the speed of light. Those dust particles, then, are slow—but incredibly massive—cosmic rays."

  Encrai's eyes widened in dawning horror as he leaped to the console. He trembled as he composed the fleet's evacuation orders.

  And as he worked, the prisoner's words taunted him, telling him what he already knew. "Of course, that works both ways. Those ships, those ships, Admiral, are the biggest damn cosmic rays in the universe right now. They won't have to aim their missiles—they aren't even going to try. Their warheads are just hunks of lead, with enough deuterium to vaporize. They'll explode way in front of your ships, leaving clouds of lead nuclei cosmic rays to blast through your damn grav-shields. How long can your gravshields take that, Admiral?"

  The evacuation orders sped from the Admiral's console. He finished, looked at an instrument display, and sagged in his cradle in agony. "Too late," he sobbed in a cracked voice. "I'm too far away. My beam'll take half an hour to get to Saturn from here. The suiciders will arrive before my message does."

  The man broke into hysterical laughter. "We didn't have a chance, not a chance in the world. But we tried, goddammit, we had to try, and we won!"

  Encrai was too numb to respond. He looked dully at the display, saw a small mystery resolved. "Those gaps between your fleets—they're for the suiciders, aren't they?" The gaps into which Encrai had sent so many Kalixi ships.

  The human Admiral nodded. "They're really for the research ships, but they're tunnels for the suiciders as well."

  Burning, paralyzing terror fought with cold, penetrating thought in Encrai's mind; but he was Kalixi, and thought won over terror. He set his teeth in determination. "That still won't destroy my fleet, Admiral. You'll hurt us, terribly, but we'll win anyway. We're warriors, Admiral. Even this can't bring you victory."

  The human Admiral shook his head again. "You've missed the most important part of the attack. We aren't counting on a single pass to destroy you—bec
ause those ships won't ever get to pass. Look at the trajectories and the timings on those ships. Go ahead and look, Admiral."

  Encrai turned to the holoscreen. Under his direction, the senseless patterns branched again—then, far faster than anything he'd ever seen before, the branches fell away and a handful of single solid certainties locked into place. The certainties emanated from a single point in the center of the Kalixi formation, radiating out in a cone to the suiciders' ships. Encrai gasped. "Spiders in web! They're going to collide with each other!"

  The human—what was his name! Thearsporn? Thear- sporn nodded again—an awful custom, this nodding was. "We hope to get ten to fifteen of them to ram together within five nanoseconds of each other. The explosion won't be as bright as a star, but it'll be pretty close."

  New waves of shock washed through Encrai's brain, waning as his mind froze, waxing each time a coherent thought tried to form. "My fleet. The center of my fleet." He shuddered. "But your own ships! That star will destroy your own ships as well!"

  Thearsporn turned sober. "Yes, it will. Only the farthest research vessels will survive."

  Encrai ripped deep tears in his web, unbelieving, incapable of believing. "Why? How?"

  The Admiral's voice answered gently. "Let me tell you the story of the Bully and the Crazy Boy."

  Encrai had no answer.

  "Once there was a crazy boy who always walked home from school. One day a bully confronted him, and dared the boy to get around him. The boy tried to cajole the bully, but failed. So they fought. And the bully beat the boy unmercifully. But in the course of the fighting the boy got in one good blow, and bloodied the bully's nose."