But Encrai barely noticed these. His attention centered on the 3-D display of fleet dispositions. Part of that display now detached itself, to expand for detailed analysis in the tactical viewer. A dense handful of numbered ellipses, the primate fleet, approached the dispersed center of Encrai’s fleet—approached Encrai’s flagship itself! Unbelievable!
Chief Assistant Mrech, a bright young strategist, glanced back at him. “Looks to me like Jirbri’s in position to pick them off fastest. Shall I punch it out?”
Encrai hissed. “No, it could be another pack of suicidal idiots. I’d better take care of them myself.” Besides, he needed something fun to do; the disaster at the primate Outbase still rankled.
As he punched out commands on his console, a handful of ships on the tactical screen broke from the Kalixi formation to swirl around the opposing clay pigeons. But the swirling was careful—no Kalixi ship approached the pigeons closely enough to be destroyed by the explosion of a primate’s main thrust chamber.
The battle was over at its beginning. A final blasting pass cooked the two biggest enemy ships; a handful of lifeboats scattered from them. Kalixi ships turned to mop up the lifeboats; but Encrai forbade it.
The chief assistant cocked his head. “You’re going to pick them up?”
Encrai swished his tail in acknowledgment. “Only if they agree to leave the lifeboats and get picked up in spacesuits. I don’t think a primate can be very dangerous with just the weapons he carries in his spacesuit, do you? And I need the information.” In particular, he needed to know why the stupid creatures were so eager to blow themselves up.
The admiral yawned. “Have Jirbri question them. When he’s done, buzz.” The assistant mrowed understanding; Encrai stretched forward from his console, and floated out of the room.
A burrstinger buzzed close to him, spinning around him, waiting for him to stop trying to track it, so it could land. His nose, his nose was the stinger’s target.
But his eyes were closed, and when he opened them he saw it was the intercom buzzing at him, and he himself was doing the spinning, tethered in the center of his room. Encrai touched his harness. “Yes?” he yawned.
“We found something interesting when we took the prisoners, Admiral.” The assistant’s voice almost purred.
“Something interesting with the primates?”
“One of the prisoners is special.” Encrai could almost see Mrech sniffing the high air.
“Very funny, Colonel. A special primate, indeed.”
“It’s true—apparently one of our guests is the creature that developed the primate defense strategy. He’s an admiral, of sorts. He seems quite eager to help us defeat him, since we pointed out how unpleasant his alternatives are.”
Encrai opened his mouth, then closed it. With a furious swish of his tail he bounded into the hall.
Soaring gracefully back into the Command/Control/ Communications room, Encrai watched marine guards manacle a primate to the prison chair, next to the admiral’s control station. Encrai frowned for a moment; the chair had been designed to immobilize all kinds of intelligent beings—but all kinds of intelligent beings generally meant felines, canines, and low-gravity arachnoids. The chair didn’t fit on the primate very well.
But then, these primates were weak little creatures, according to the pre-campaign analyses. The chair wouldn’t have to fit to hold him. Encrai smiled. Besides, what could a primate do, even if he got free, amidst full-grown, full-clawed Kalixi? The admiral turned to the psychmed accompanying the marines. “Ts this the primate,” he curled his lips, “who calls himself an admiral?”
The psychmed swished his tail. “Yes, sir. He seems to be the originator of the primate battle plans. The other prisoners support his statements under all forms of extraction.” The psychmed ruffled his fur. “Naturally, when we found out that this,” he tapped the primate with his tail, “was supposed to be an admiral, we examined his mind, such as it is, a bit more carefully. He has a number of implanted psychoblocks, presumably protecting important information.”
Encrai smiled. “No doubt he’s protecting top secret technological details.”
The psychmed laughed. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Anyway, his blocks are sophisticated enough so that he might be damaged if I try to penetrate them hastily. Whatever is inside those blocks will stay there ’til after the campaign. Unless he tells us willingly.”
Encrai raised an eyebow. “Willingly?”
“Yes, we gave him a drug that stimulates verbosity. He’ll probably be telling you a lot more than you ask for. I’m not sure it was necessary—all these creatures like to talk, it seems—but if you don’t ask a question just the right way, you’ll probably get the information you want anyway. Remember, though, it still won’t register on the lie-sniffer if he just answers the poorly worded question truthfully.”
“As if he had any secrets that could hurt us.”
“Indeed.”
Encrai’s lips pulled back in a ferocious grin, exposing a vast collection of murderous teeth. “This is great! I’ve never planned a battle with the enemy admiral giving me advice before. Such a shame it couldn’t have happened in the battle with Valesh and his damned Crusairs.”
The psychmed saluted. “Maybe next time, sir.” He turned to leave, then turned back again. “Oh, one last thing. Two of the primate’s teeth are filled with a chemical—a stimulant of some kind, leaking slowly into his mouth. The primate said the chemical keeps him alive, so we left it. It seems harmless enough.”
“Fine. Let’s hope he lives long enough to be useful.”
The psychmed pushed toward the doorway.
Floating in his webcradle, Encrai examined the prisoner. He seemed small, even for a primate. Black hair and ashen skin seemed his dominant features. Frail was the best one-word descriptor. But the jaw was set in determination, even though the eyes stayed downcast. For a moment the primate reminded Encrai of a pouting kitten.
The Kalixi admiral tapped his webcradle and drifted toward the prisoner, into the gentle breeze from behind the prison chair that made it possible for the great cat to be downwind of the primate. He closed his eyes to focus on the primate’s scents: the bitter organic staleness of its soft body wrapping, the sweet saltiness of its perspiration, the flavor of its most recent meal—an almost fruity flavor it was, mixed with acidic digestive juices. How strange that fruitiness was! Encrai had never met an intelligent omnivore before. Not even a semi-intelligent one.
He tapped the pad on the translator. “I understand you’re the admiral of the primate fleet,” Encrai said. The translator repeated the words in the local barbarism of a language.
The creature just nodded its head up and down.
Encrai swished his tail. “Well, are you or are you not the admiral of the primate fleet?”
The primate looked at him with big eyes, then broke into laughter. “When I nod my head that means ‘yes’ in our language. Yes, my name is Craig Thearsporn, and I’m the Campaign Admiral for the Fleet of Interplanetary Alliance.” He looked Admiral Encrai over. “Are you the admiral for the Kalixi fleet?”
“Who do you think is doing the questioning here?”
The prisoner shrugged his shoulders. Gestures and expressions seemed to be important methods of communication with the creatures; Encrai decided to watch more closely. It wouldn’t be difficult to infer the meanings; Encrai had a knack for such empathic intuitions.
The admiral touched the lock button on his harness, to prevent any drifting while he questioned the primate. “What were you doing out here?”
The prisoner shrugged again. “The Kalixi we captured from your exploratory fleet told us that an admiral always hangs far back, if possible. So we came to get you.”
“Did you really expect to destroy me and my flagship?”
The primate turned his eyes down again, heaved a sob. “No, not really.”
Encrai swished his tail. “And why’d you let us take you alive?”
The primate sm
iled. “For one thing, I wanted to live.”
Encrai mrowed understanding.
The liesniffer’s requirements were fulfilled, but the primate went on. “Besides, I wanted to meet you.” He shook his head back and forth. “Ever since that first exploratory hunting party slaughtered every person on the first space city it found, I’ve known something’s terribly wrong with the universe. So wrong. Why are you so vicious, so cruel, so determined to destroy and conquer? Why not come as traders, benefitting us both?”
Encrai snorted, then laughed. He shouldn’t have bothered to answer, but he was vain about his species, and proud of his vanity. “Why don’t we trade? Because, primate, the Kalixi are conquerors, not traders.” His claws extended, retracted, extended. “For a thousand years we were slaves, as you’ll be. We were declawed. We, the Kalixi!” The claws extended one last time. “But we were patient, learning in secret, as our masters weakened and waned and were replaced by other masters.” His paw raked through the air, tearing the throat from an ephemeral opponent. “And under the terrible oppression, those of us who were weak died, and those of us who were strong gained strength. Now our enemies know us in our power and glory.”
“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 eye. 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 altogether 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.”
“Urn. And, ah—just how did you figure out that we are, urn, 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 set
s of potentialities, vectors for their possible actions. 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?”
War and Peace Page 34
