Alien Backlash

by Maxine Millar

  “How long would the reprogramming take?

  “Weeks. Not many if each Okme center worked on one gene. We are a co-operative bunch and used to working together. It is the treatment that will take the time. Especially of the females. Hmm. Depending on how many genes need fixing, I’d guess an hour for males and maybe a bit more for females. Three billion that will need treatment. I’ll need my calculator but this will take years, decades. I would start with young females, in the twenty-to-thirty age group, then treat those from fifteen to twenty and from thirty-one to thirty-five and so forth. Of course, any older women with special genes, such as bloodlines that have nearly died out, will need to be treated too. And at the same time treat males in the same age groups. It will take decades to complete the task and as many Okme involved as possible.” He paused, pretending to think this out. “Then, of course, how many of these people with undamaged genes are there and where are they?” Kumenoprix chose his words carefully. He must not mention anything Cukudeopul had not told him! Once again he fervently thanked his long-dead parents for the genes which had conferred on him his eidetic memory. “Can they interbreed? That would speed the process up.”

  “Yes, it appears they can.” Cukudeopul was shocked. That fast? They could start to treat in weeks? “I thought it would take months to reprogram all the Healing Machines!”

  “Ordinarily, yes, but this will be a priority. The job will be split up and hundreds will work on it.”

  Kumenoprix was having fun, rubbing it in. “Interbreeding would speed the process up because the healthy genes would tend to fix the incomplete or switched-off genes in any half-breed children, especially girls. Most of the Y chromosome problems won’t be fixable but the reproduction genes on other chromosomes can be fixed. So, many but not all children would probably be fertile. And independently fertile. This is amazing — the Niseyen were looking like being a few generations from extinction. Cukudeopul, you’ve cheered up my day. I could do with some good news. You must be delighted. I know you still subsidize a lot of the medical treatment for the Niseyen. How wonderful that this happened in your lifetime.” Kumenoprix couldn’t resist that dig. Cukudeopul must have taken a tranquillizer. He was way too calm, when he must be spitting mad! And I can show all the joy and jubilation I want, he thought, without giving anything away. Absolutely in character. Serve him right! What a pity he will never know that it was me who created the program to speed this up and sent it on to Helkmid. Normally it would have taken months to complete the reprogramming.

  “What a pity I am so busy here. I could help with this. All the Okme will be delighted. It has been a great sorrow to us that we could do so little. Your medical help assisted them more than we did. Now we can cure them. And there are still billions of them so their Culture will remain intact. I wonder how many of these Terrans there are and where they came from. Do you know?”

  “No,” grunted Cukudeopul, “but some are on Torroxell and some on Petislay, plus wherever they come from.”

  “Well, that will cheer us up. Meanwhile, we still have some work to do here. I’m off,” and Kumenoprix exited, jubilant. His mood did not last. Within hours, Cukudeopul called him back.

  Kumenoprix wondered what Cukudeopul wanted now. It was hard to believe he did not know about the security breach. Only last night he had realized there probably would have been cameras. He thought Cukudeopul probably did know and would reveal the information when it suited him. When Kumenoprix’s services could be dispensed with. Which was not now. And not in the foreseeable future, either. This virus was not going anywhere in a hurry. And it was going to take years to get all the population immunized, even when an inoculation was developed.

  Why had he not remembered there were cameras? There were cameras everywhere. Except in his lab — he made sure of that. He would have been seen transmitting the data. He hadn’t thought of anything except the virus and getting his life’s work off to Helkmid.

  He walked in. All the security staff and medical staff were present. Kumenoprix took a seat. The air was grim. Now what?

  “It is now confirmed that the virus is on most of the Keulfyd worlds,” announced Cukudeopul, “plus many others where Keulfyd are a significant presence.”

  “Many more of them?” asked Kumenoprix. “How convenient. I do not believe this is a coincidence. This is being spread deliberately. The speed of the spread is going to make countering it very difficult. It is also going to make the Keulfyd a target. You are vulnerable now and whoever your enemies are, they know it. Whoever is doing this is very resourceful.”

  “Neither do we believe it is coincidence,” said Cukudeopul. “This is enemy action.”

  “But why was it not released like this at first? Releasing a little bit first, twice, doesn’t make sense.”

  “Unless we were meant to think that.” added one of the security staff. “This way, it looks as if it could have spread naturally.”

  “Or,” said Kumenoprix, “it was tried out first then released.” He looked at Cukudeopul. “Have you passed on to the other planets what we have learnt here?”

  “I have.”

  “Who do you think is doing this?”

  “I don’t know, but it started on Torroxell.”

  Kumenoprix turned to the security staff. “What dispatches arrived, or left, five days before the first outbreak here? Brought by which Races? Physical contact will have been needed.”

  “We looked. Nineteen Races arrived or left on that day.”

  Kumenoprix sighed. Torroxell. Helkmid is there and he hates the Keulfyd. Surely not! He wouldn’t do something like this. The Okme could, but they wouldn’t. But the Okme all now know what I discovered here, that the Keulfyd are engaging in genocide. Have they discovered other Races being targeted? I am out of contact with the beliefs and attitudes of my own Race, yet this is against all their principles. The Keulfyd Race are not to blame for what their leaders are doing. No. The Okme wouldn’t do this. He looked up. “What can I do?”

  “Can you develop a vaccine, a treatment, an antiviral, a synthetic inoculation?”

  “I may be able to develop a vaccine. I think I would have more success with that option. Would you like me to work full-time on that now? I could then hand that on to your labs. And I could try it out first.”

  “Yes. You will save more lives that way.” He looked at the little Okme. “You could save billions of lives.”

  After Kumenoprix left Cukudeopul motioned for the security staff to stay. They broke into small groups and started talking among themselves. The rest of the medical staff had left. Good, it didn’t matter if he was overheard. He made a few calls.

  An hour or so later, his military leaders started trickling in, along with the waiters with a late lunch. Each one looked exhausted and grim, many looked sick, and all had lost weight, their clothes loose and untidy. Just like his before he had ordered all new clothes in different sizes! At least the recent flowing styles were comfortable and he liked the more mellow colors of this year’s fashions. Gold, creams, and pale yellow looked good against his brown/beige skin. The fabrics were softer too, and didn’t itch.

  Hungry, he looked at the food being loaded onto the table and reluctantly headed for the soups. He vowed that when his stomachs recovered, he would ban soup from the menu. On principle. He tasted one. He had to admit it was delicious. But it just wasn’t filling — it was all taste and no substance. Well, at least he could taste until he could eat something with some substance.

  He sat down and summed up. “You all know about the attack on Torroxell and that the attackers were Keulfyd. Questions, comments?”

  “Had the attackers known about this biological warfare?” one asked. “Was that the reason for the attack? Was it pirates or sanctioned?”

  He grunted. “Good questions. I know nothing about biological warfare capability on Torroxell. But it is cheap, would be easy to hide and Torroxell is remote and was sparsely populated, so it would have been a good site. It was a pirate attack bu
t resourced by the military.” He had no need to lie. All here were in the know. “You were ordered to investigate who did this and how, how to counter it and what to do about it in terms of revenge. You were told to research, devise, scheme, strategize, formulate a plan, and generally figure out what to do and how to do it.” He eyeballed them all slowly. “Who did this? What have you found out?”

  One by one, the various military staff summed up what they learnt. “We traced the earliest known cases of this variant to Torroxell. Cases have occurred over the ages of this virus, and recently, but not this variant.”

  “So this started on Torroxell,” Cukudeopul said. “Who knew we were going there?”

  “Only the top staff of those involved. The target is always known only as ‘Destination’ to everyone except them. On the ships, only the Commander, Captain, Navigator and Communication Officers know where we are going and sometimes not even all of them. They are all Keulfyd. And most of the top people went with the Force and are now dead or missing.”

  Cukudeopul nodded slowly. This restriction of knowledge was as normal. “So we have three possibilities. We were deliberately targeted and someone betrayed us, it was terrorism, or someone on Torroxell just happened to have a biological warfare laboratory and a virus waiting for us. I rather think the former,” he said wryly. “So the someone was part of the Attack Force or knew where it was going and got there first or, much more likely, someone paid a great deal of money for the information. So who is it likely to be, what Race, and where is that person or Race now? That’s one question.

  “The second question is, do we assume that the creator of this virus has the antidote?”

  The Senior Military Officer replied, “We have had no communication to that effect. No one is asking for billions in exchange for the anti-viral. Which leads me to conclude that this was not done for money. And the distribution is well beyond the capabilities of a person or group. This is being done by a big organization. Probably a planet or a Race. The virus, as of this morning, is suspected to be on eighteen of our planets, and twenty-seven planets in total. Confirmation will follow tonight. This has taken a huge amount of organization. It appears to have hit six planets simultaneously seven days ago and another four planets three days before that. This was co-ordinated. My suspicion is that within a few days, it will be on the rest of our planets.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Cukudeopul was holding on to his temper and distress with difficulty. How could this have happened? According to the most hopeful estimates, one quarter of the Keulfyd Race could die. And that was a best-case scenario. He had to stop this. “Suggestions?” he asked.

  “The doctors and researchers are doing all they can. They are hampered by the lack of an anti-viral. It seems reasonable to assume that the best place to find this would be on Torroxell, where it all started. We have checked thoroughly. Torroxell is suspected of having up to three facilities that could be biological warfare laboratories. And the Ridianit have hated us since we beat them and got three of their planets four centuries ago.”

  Cukudeopul had thought the Ridianit were one of the more likely candidates. “What do your Tacticians think? Is this likely to be the Ridianit?”

  Daklidifisk, acting military leader since the deaths or incapacity of two of his superiors, summed up. “They have the knowledge for this, they are reported as being very good at biological and chemical warfare, and medical science too. But they lack the resources to beat us financially or through military means. And our cyber teams are among the best. So this would be their best weapon. It makes sense. They are not particular allies of anyone else who would be likely to do this. They do have political allies but none powerful, and not enough in combination to be a threat to us. They are enemies of the Nashi. But they are not included in this Torroxell Treaty. That is a puzzle. It could be deliberate. They could well have tricked these other Races or worked in secrecy. But it is a strong possibility that they gave these Races the virus.” He paused to think. “It is possible that happened. Some Races would have got warning.

  “The Okme do not like the Ridianit and nor do the Priskya, who especially have good reason not to trust them. My bet would be that the Ridianit used this opportunity and worked in secret. Maybe these other Races did not know what caused the illnesses and just used the opportunity. However, they could have collaborated. Maybe they were complicit but left the Ridianit out of the Treaty to protect them, or maybe because the Okme and Priskya vetoed them. I don’t know. We have no communication with Torroxell except by open channel and no one is answering that. If any of our spies are left they have no way to contact us or they would have tried. And I can’t see Okme or Niseyen using biological or chemical weapons. Both have banned them for centuries. I don’t know the other Races. Cats and Terrans — does anyone know who they are?”

  Cukudeopul replied, “I have found no one who knows who or what the Cats are, but the Terrans are supposed to be an offshoot of the Niseyen. A group from another planet, not one of their home worlds.”

  Daklidifisk continued, “There is a worse combination of problems. It has been fairly well reported that we were behind the attack on Torroxell and got beaten. And that we have this virus raging is also well known, although we are unsure if Races other than us know how bad it is. We could be attacked through a myriad of means if seen as weak and vulnerable. The Niseyen are popular as Races go. The Okme are not exactly popular but are not seen as aggressive and so, I understand, people think it is hilarious that those two were involved. They are celebrating our defeat particularly because of who beat us. I don’t need to tell you all that this is very bad for us.

  “The fish are celebrating because it is the first war that a marine Race has been a victor in. The Amphibian planets also are celebrating as these Terrans are supposed to be amphibian. That’s not doing our credibility any good, either. The Niseyen are adamant the fish are in the Treaty because they made a significant contribution. I can’t see how.” He paused, baffled. “I can’t think of anything a fish could do. And the Priskya are pacifists. I can’t see any reason any decent Race would acknowledge anything if the fish did assist. Who would believe it? It’s rubbish! Fish can’t fight. And including them in the Treaty means the Priskya keep their money, which is a not insignificant amount. This makes no sense on any level. Did they include them for propaganda purposes? If so, it was a shrewd move. It worked. But the worst point is that we are no longer seen as invulnerable. We can be beaten in open warfare. That is intolerable.”

  There was another uncomfortable silence. Cukudeopul said softly, “So we should attack Torroxell? Which now has a Defense System. That will be costly.”

  “Not so much. We know exactly what it will take to defeat it.”

  Cukudeopul nodded, not surprised. “Anyone object? Anyone with a better idea, a more likely target? Anyone see a problem other than the obvious?”

  “Personnel that aren’t sick?”

  “All of the military have been ordered to stay in their ships or in isolation since this began due to the perceived vulnerability of the Prime planet. They are well, but vulnerable to illness if any virus gets near them. Only those on infected planets have been inoculated.”

  “How long will it take to get there?”

  “About eight weeks. We are ready to go.”

  Cukudeopul didn’t know what else to do. He could always order them to turn back if it turned out not to be necessary. If the doctors found a cure. If Kumenoprix managed to make an inoculation. If the virus didn’t mutate. If there were no more carriers. If there was no slow-onset stage. If the virus went back to what it had been historically, which was losing virulence with every generation instead of gaining it. Which it was doing. Which it shouldn’t be.

  So many ifs. He felt overwhelmed. And now he had to attack a planet. Openly and obviously. Not a good thing to have to do but biological warfare was a good excuse in anyone’s book.

  Chapter Twenty

  By the time Defiance was a
month away from Torroxell, Sarah had sent seven more Niseyen ships on to Terra: four military, one patrol and two civilian. Dai was well ahead of her with many ships rerouted even from other planets. He was up to forty-seven and counting. That made nearly sixty ships heading for Terra to collect anyone they could get on board; some were already on their way back. There were more than that number, although some were smaller ships, on their way from Niseyen worlds.

  But now trouble was on its way in the form of a large fleet of fifty-plus ships — with Keulfyd ID and unfriendly, she had been told: “Heading your way and nothing else is out there.” The half-expected Attack Force, now about six weeks out. And she could do nothing. Mathew, their military strategist, was no longer here.

  Sarah and Dai worked flat out communicating this to all incoming ships. They warned them of the danger, but few changed course. Later that day, a Loridsyl came to see Sarah as she was sitting with Dai, Ludmilla, Mahmoud and Odie. It introduced itself as Kasjeindid and explained, “We considered your questions carefully and decided there was an inherent danger that the existing Defense System could be inadequate to cope with the present potential danger. It might even be sabotaged, although we considered this to be a remote possibility. That is why our management decided to replace the system with a better and more powerful system. For no charge. Would you please inform the Priskya and ask them to withdraw their complaint. We have taken it very seriously although, of course, we were not at any fault. They soon will have more than three times what they paid for. Our political analysts thought that appropriate under the circumstances. The new Shield has more than twice the capacity of the existing system and will arrive in three weeks. We will install it and test it, well in advance of the suspicious oncoming ships. We will slave the original system to the new one. Please keep this information secret.” The creature left, leaving behind an amused and very relieved group.