“She’s not bleeding,” I said. “Internal injuries?”
“I do not think you understand,” the Professor said, his mechanized voice only hinting at the emotion that seemed to hover beneath the surface of his chitinous skin. I’d spent enough time around mantes—and this mantis in particular—to know his body language. The Professor’s agitation was plainly spoken in the way he moved his forelimbs and rapidly swiveled his wedgelike head from side to side.
“No,” I said, “I guess I don’t. Unless she’s been hit somewhere I can’t see, I don’t understand what’s the matter with her.”
“Our carriages, or discs as you commonly call them, are integral to us from the moment we achieve consciousness. No mantis lives without one. They protect us and provide us with mobility, allow us to work and manipulate the world around us, they expand our senses as well as our consciousness, and without them we are worse than helpless. The mantis and the carriage are one.”
“Okay,” I said carefully. “But this can’t be the first time an adult has had her disc—her carriage—shot out from under her, right?”
“Of course not,” said the Professor. “But in those instances, death has either come quickly or medical aid has always been ready at hand.”
“So we can’t just pull her out of it?” I asked.
The Professor’s antennae shot upward, waved a bit, then curled into an expression of pronounced shock.
“That would surely prove lethal,” he said, acting as if I’d suggested the worst sort of obscenity.
“But you just told me leaving her in the dead disc is bad too,” I said, growing frustrated.
The Professor seemed to want to respond, but let his antennae fall to either side of his head, and turned back to speak to the Queen Mother in the indecipherable native language of the mantes. A language no human had ever learned, because no mantis had ever thought to teach it to us. Easier to use the translator and speaker in every disc.
Now it was the Queen Mother whose antennae gave a sign of shock. She stared intently at me—multi-faceted eyes cold and alien without the vocoder of her disc to give words to her thoughts—then she yammered something at the Professor in a rather rushed fashion, and slumped back into the center of her ruined disc.
“She says that while she was prepared to die in battle for our people, to commit helpless suicide in front of you humans is not to her liking.”
“If the Fleet finds us,” said Adanaho, surprising everyone as she finally looked up at us—her eyes puffy and red, “then the Queen Mother faces much worse than suicide. I’m with Intelligence and you can be certain that, with hostilities renewed, my comrades will spare no effort picking both of you apart in their quest for tactical and strategic information.”
“You assume humans will outlast the Queen Mother’s armada and reach our lifeboat first,” said the Professor, his wings rustling slightly with grim amusement. “Did not your warship fall before our own, despite your best attempt to replicate our defensive technology?”
“The flashes we’ve been seeing in the sky since planetfall tell me not everything has gone your way,” the captain said, also grimly. “The fighting continues. General Sakumora was rash and quick to shed blood, but he was also well-prepared. Our dreadnoughts are the finest in all of human space. Built using every lesson taught to us during the first war.”
I waved a finger in front of me, not looking at anyone in particular.
“The new war’s a nonstarter if the Queen Mother can convince the mantes to cease offensive operations,” I said.
More fluttering of wings.
“And why would she do that,” asked the Professor, “assuming she could regain contact with our forces?”
“Because Captain Adanaho saved both your lives when it would have been more expedient to let our marines fill you each full of bullets.”
The Professor had no answer to that. The Queen Mother snapped and chattered at him. He relayed to her what he’d heard. They proceeded to engage in a quick series of mantis exchanges.
“She says,” the Professor said delicately, “that the mercy shown by a single human does not translate to good will on the part of all humans. In fact, while we remain stranded here, events are doubtless in motion that are beyond recall for either side. If what the Queen Mother has told me is correct, her return to the armada was not expected—all they awaited was her signal, at which point the war plans would be put into effect. She is officially considered a casualty. And a successor has already been prepared to lead in her place. Doubtless our couriers are speeding back to join the rest of our ships, eager to relay news of this—and of the renewed offensive. Human planets will be under siege in a matter of weeks, if not days.”
“I don’t doubt it,” I said. “But assuming we could contact the mantis hierarchy—prove that the Queen Mother, our Queen Mother, was alive—could she broker a cease-fire on your side of the battle lines?”
The Professor communicated my question to the Queen Mother, who stared at me a moment, then replied.
“Yes,” said the Professor. “It might be possible.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” I said. “We’ve got to find a way to get her back in touch with your people.”
“Chief Barlow,” Captain Adanaho said, “I appreciate that you might still feel obligated to accomplish the mission, as originally assigned. But events have clearly wiped all previous considerations off the table. Our first objective is to alert Fleet to our presence. Intelligence will want otherwise, but I can argue from historical precedent that the Professor and the Queen Mother should be processed as prisoners of war. As such, they’d each be entitled to certain rights. Perhaps with her safely in our custody—unharmed and unmolested—we can bargain our way to a new armistice?”
“You sound too much like your old boss,” I said. Then thought better of my tone and added a respectful, “ma’am.”
Adanaho raised an eyebrow.
“Believe me, Chief,” she said, “I didn’t intend for any of this to happen, either. Nobody wanted a war.”
“But the Fleet bosses were obviously prepared for it,” I snapped.
“And why not?” she said. “your own records from the original armistice state the matter plainly—the Fourth Expansion would have wiped humanity from the face of the galaxy. We were up against the wall, one way or another. It would have been foolish to count on the cease-fire to last indefinitely. Even though you and the Professor had managed to achieve some measure of mutual understanding.”
A digital chime suddenly sounded through the speakers in the lifeboat.
Adanaho got up and checked the lifeboat’s computer.
“Our emergency beacon’s been spotted,” she said. “We’re getting telemetry from a Fleet rescue team in orbit. Looks like they’ll be here in a few hours, once they’ve picked up other survivors.”
“Do they know we have the Queen Mother with us?” I said, alarmed.
“If they knew,” the captain said, “we’d be their topmost priority. That we’re not tells me they think we’re just another lifeboat filled with survivors—one of many, from the looks of it.”
I would have been lying if I said I didn’t feel some degree of satisfaction in that news. A human rescue team meant that not only were we holding our own against the mantes, we were doing well enough to be able to afford search missions for the retrieval of survivors from lost ships. Not exactly the actions of an overwhelmed and beaten species.
The Professor shrank in on himself, just as he had while aboard the Calysta.
“Prisoners of war,” he said. And none too happily.
“It could be worse,” I said to my old friend. “I survived the experience for years. You will too, if Captain Adanaho is right about being able to secure your POW status under Fleet protocol.”
He chitter-scratched with the Queen Mother, whose deflated body language grew even more so.
“Of course,” I said, thinking pessimistically, “if the captain can’t secure
your status as POWs, then you’re meat—subject to the total spectrum of our interrogation techniques.”
Adanaho didn’t meet my gaze as I looked at her.
I snapped my fingers, then turned to face the Professor.
“Tell the Queen Mother that if she can promise us safety among the mantes, we’ll help her escape.”
Adanaho opened her mouth to object, but I held up a hand, not wanting to get into an argument with my superior—at least not yet.
“Impossible,” said the Professor. “With her carriage nonfunctional the Queen Mother is trapped here.”
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “There’s no contingency mode?”
The Professor hesitated, then he and the Queen Mother conversed for several minutes, their heads shifting back and forth and their mandibles rattling, clacking, snapping and stuttering. If Adanaho picked up on the fact that the Professor was straining to remain respectfully persistent, she didn’t show it. But I could see what he was trying to do. Doubtless, like me, he was required to display deference to a superior, lest he forfeit his position. Or worse. But in the Queen Mother’s current state, she was dependent on him totally. And might be forced to acquiesce to whatever he suggested.
“The carriage’s engineering has changed little in hundreds of your years,” the Professor said. “It is one of the all-time outstanding technical achievements of the great forbearers of mantis civilization—the first ones to meld mantis biology with mantis cyber-technology. There is an emergency release procedure, though it is seldom used. And I have never seen it done.”
“Good,” I said. “The sooner she’s out of that thing, the sooner we can get moving. No doubt your own carriage has been sending out coded mantis distress signals, ever since we landed.”
“You guess correctly,” the Professor said.
“Then it’s a race against time—the further we are from humans, the safer we’ll be. We’ll have to hope that your people have started dispatching rescue missions of their own.”
“But where will we go?” the Professor asked.
“Anywhere but here,” I said, raising my arms out and indicating the walls of the lifeboat with my open palms.
“Very well,” said the Professor. “But you and the female must wait outside. The extraction from the carriage will be even more humiliating for the Queen Mother than remaining bound to it. This is not a thing for human eyes to see. Gather your human survival equipment and supplies and be gone. We will come out in time.”
The captain and I quietly collected what we could, slung the frames of the emergency packs on our backs, and climbed out of the lifeboat and walked up to the top of the bluff, pebbles and sand swamping over the tops of our boots with each step.
“You realize I could order us all to stay put,” she said, her short-cropped hair ruffling slightly in the cool, dry breeze. The sun—a star smaller and yet brighter than that which Purgatory circled—was still high up in the sky, but sinking almost imperceptibly towards the horizon.
“Ma’am,” I said, “if you meant it when you told me you didn’t want a war, then there’s no way you can turn these two over to Fleet in their present circumstances. We might as well stuff apples in their mouths and shove them into the oven. They’ll be picked apart like frogs in a biology class. First their minds, then their bodies.”
“Are you forgetting that you have a duty, Chief?” she said sternly, turning to face me fully, with hands clutching the straps of her pack, elbows thrust just slightly out.
Our uniforms were barely keeping the cold at bay, and I suspected we’d have to use the emergency jackets in our packs if we didn’t start hiking soon.
“What good’s that duty going to do if we still lose? C’mon, Captain, you know the odds. The mantes own thousands of planets, and even with the years of the armistice taken into consideration, I can’t believe humanity has caught up much. Have those colonies crucified in the first war even fully recovered yet? What about Earth? No, ma’am, if the mantes want us dead, it will happen eventually. The only difference now is we can actually put up a fight, whereas last time they cut us down like lambs.”
My superior officer didn’t appear convinced.
“When you got deployed against Purgatory, you lost,” Adanaho said. “No doubt that’s left a big, wide scar on your faith in the ability of the Fleet to effectively prosecute a war, or erect an effective defense. Believe me when I tell you, we’ve come a long way since you were taken prisoner. You talk as if we’ve already lost, when the fact is, we’ve got a new roll of the dice, Chief. A new chance to prevail.”
I opened my mouth to speak, then shut it. Maybe she was right. I’d spent so long living under mantis rule, maybe I’d unconsciously absorbed the idea that once beaten, humanity would always be beaten.
Still, the fresh fighting seemed atrociously unnecessary. Not when there were people like the Professor who could call on the better angels of mantis nature. Especially if the Queen Mother could be made to serve as the Professor’s surrogate in this regard. Otherwise, even if humanity did stand a better chance, was the ensuing bloodshed worth our pride in the matter? How many worlds might be gained or lost for the sake of ego?
I breathed deeply, collected my thoughts, and spoke again.
“Look, I’ve never been a great one for protocol and going along with orders at all costs. In some ways, the absence of Fleet rules and regulations from Purgatory life was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it made me realize what kind of man I am. I’m not a very good soldier. I don’t like being told what to do. And if I’d had a choice in the matter I’d have thrown my nonstandard commission back in Fleet’s face.
“Chaplain Thomas gave me a job once, and I did all I could to carry it out. For his sake. Now I have a new job, and until that job’s been done—the resumption of peace between the mantes’ race and our own—I won’t rest.”
The captain considered at great length, her eyes evaluating my expression while her mind evaluated the wisdom of my plea. It hadn’t been a very persuasive one, but it was the only one I had to make. Either she went with it, or I’d be forced to mutiny. Definitely not something I’d prefer doing. But I’d do it just the same. And I think she knew it too.
Adanaho drew in a long, gradual breath through her nostrils, then let it out just as gradually, tilting her head to one side.
“You’re right,” she said. “You’re not a very good soldier. You’ve been two steps from dereliction ever since I met you. But you’ve got guts, Padre. And I respect that. Okay, just so things are official, I am ordering us to escort the Professor and the Queen Mother until we can make contact with mantis forces, at which time we will parlay for a cease-fire, and pray that things get rolling positively from there.”
“And if the Fleet finds us before the mantes do?”
“Then let me do the talking, while you do the praying.”
There was a noise behind us. We turned to see the Professor slowly levitating upward, out of the lifeboat’s hatch. He had the Queen Mother balanced on the front of his disc—his forelimbs wrapped under her insectlike shoulder joints while the rest of her body rested on the front of the disc proper. Her lower thorax was pale and shone with dampness, its chitin looking soft, and mantis blood trailing from several holes.
Adanaho and I rushed over to them.
“Does she need first aid?” I asked.
“What can be done, I have done,” said the Professor, who seemed visibly shaken by what had just transpired inside. “She will heal. In time. The Queen Mother is severed from her carriage, and I do not know if she can ever be mated to another—such things being almost unheard of among adults of her great age. Her pain is terrible, but she is conscious, and she bade me tell you that we are in your care now. I have no weapons—as you well know—and would not use them to coerce you, even if I did. The Queen Mother rides with me, and I will follow wherever you choose to go. I can signal for mantis help with my own carriage—for several of your months, depending on
how long my carriage’s fuel cells last.”
“May fortune favor the foolish,” I said.
The Professor’s antennae made a questioning expression.
“Old Earth literature,” the captain said, in reply. “Come on, let’s go. Padre? Since this is your idea, you’re on point.”
“Roger that, ma’am,” I said, tugging down on the straps of my pack to tighten them into my shoulders.
CHAPTER 22
Earth, 2153 A.D.
THE FIRST DAY OF ACTUAL INDUCTION SERVICE TRAINING TURNED out to be little different from the first day of Reception. Screaming and profanity from the drill sergeants was had by the bucketful. Everyone’s carefully packed duffels were upended and dumped onto the cement—despite the fact that virtually everything that could be taken as contraband had already been taken. Each recruit was personally insulted, demeaned, or otherwise cut down by a sprinkler system of sarcastic comments, and there was far too little time given in which to get far too many things done, which resulted in a lot of smoking, which resulted in some very tired recruits at the end of the night.
I lay in my new bunk—identical to the old one, save for the fact that I was on the bottom now, and not the top—and stared into the relative dark. Gentle snoring around the bay—which was also identical to the one which I’d just departed, save for the new motivational mosaic in the Dead Zone—told me that I ought to be asleep. Only, I couldn’t. My body was hurting, my mind was hurting, and I couldn’t relax enough to drift off. Because not only had Batbayar Thukhan been assigned to the same IST company as me, he’d even wound up in the same platoon.
I turned on my side and stared down the rows of bunks to where I knew Thukhan was. The dim glow from the emergency exit sign illuminated my enemy’s face just enough for me to see that he was staring right back at me. I quickly flipped over to the other side, and shivered. We’d barely interacted with one another since that initial showdown in Reception, but I had a sure feeling that Thukhan was always watching me. Closely. The glance across the bay seemed to confirm that. It made me nervous, though I couldn’t be sure why. I’d been fairly sure at the time of the initial showdown that Batbayar was a talker, not a fighter. But the way in which the man had switched from hot to cold—like a machine—left me particularly unsettled.
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