“You have. I did not understand much of your explanation. But I did gather that the star’s radiation output can change greatly over periods of many millions of suncircuits.”
“It can, First Myrmidon. And we now appear to be very near the threshold of just such a change at the present moment.”
Another interior chill assaulted Gog’resssh; this one began making a slow ascent along the length of his backbone. “I thought that such a thing was highly unlikely.”
“It is. The odds always favor any particular Gorn generation coming and passing in the midst of one of Sazssgrerrn Prime’s eons-long periods of stability. But my measurements are incontrovertible: you and I both have the misfortune of being here when one of the star’s violent transitions is imminent. Our lives stand astride the boundary.”
Gog’resssh slowly shook his great head. “It seems an intractable problem, Doctor. What do you propose I do about it? Do you expect the warrior caste to intimidate the local star into better behavior?”
“Of course not, First Myrmidon,” the oldster said, finally beginning to sound nettled. It was gratifying to break his insufferable equanimity at last. “But I do expect you to inform the rest of your garrison. Very little time remains, and precautions must be taken. You and Second Myrmidon Zegrroz’rh must begin the process of relocating the eggs to the lower levels, where the solar shielding is strongest—”
Gog’resssh cut the oldster off with a wave of his claws. “Eggs are fragile things, even those of the warrior caste. You of all people should understand the risk involved in moving them from the incubation chamber, Doctor.”
The oldster’s weirdly mammalian-looking pupils narrowed even further, giving his eyes an even more disconcerting aspect than before. “I do not make this request lightly, First Myrmidon.”
“Why have you waited until so little time remains to inform me of this? Why have none of your colleagues mentioned anything about this earlier? Why have they not already begun moving the eggs?” Could it be, he thought, that none of them believes your measurements are quite so “incontrovertible” as you believe them to be?
The footbridge beneath their feet shook for a moment. The eggs arrayed across the floor below took no notice.
“Please,” Rreszsesrr said, a tone of pleading entering his voice. “I need your help now.”
“I would think that you would turn first to your people, Doctor. Where are they?”
“My colleagues have all gone to the stellar observatories. They are studying the latest evidence that I have collected, and are busy comparing it to their actual observations.”
“What evidence?” Gog’resssh growled.
“Evidence of a phenomenon that most of us have been denying for far too long.”
“Do you believe they will find this . . . latest evidence convincing?”
“Certainly. But probably not in time to allow us to do what must be done.”
Gog’resssh recalled an ancient tactical axiom that might have been as old as the Gorn Hegemony itself: An incoming blade is all the proof that a Gorn warrior needs that an enemy wishes him ill. But if he waits for such proof to come to him, then he has waited too long.
The footbridge shook again, this time considerably harder. It rattled loudly, as though an invisible hammer had struck it.
Gog’resssh placed a heavy claw upon the comm device on his uniform collar and activated the emergency channel. “Second Myrmidon Zegrroz’rh,” he said in his most guttural military tones. “Report to the central crèche immedia—”
A blinding flash of searing white light transformed the dome overhead into fire, immolating all sound, sight, and thought in a span of heartbeats.
“Where am I?” Gog’resssh said shortly after consciousness of a kind returned. His voice sounded alien in his own ears, distorted, processed. Though he knew he was awake, he nevertheless seemed to float in a lightless void; Gog’resssh felt more disoriented than he had as a hatchling during his first martial training sessions.
A voice spoke to him from the darkness. It, too, was slightly distorted, as though it had to pass through some viscous medium in order to reach him. But it was soothing nonetheless. Sibilant. Female.
“You are aboard the S’alath,” the voice said.
The S’alath. Despite Gog’resssh’s disorientation, he had no difficulty recognizing that name. S’alath was the Gorn captain whose heroism had driven the vile human K’irrk and his Federrazsh’n from Inner Eliar, one of the Far Edgeworlds, more than a hundred Gornar suncircuits ago. True, the Gorn political caste had subsequently agreed to share the planet with the primates, who eventually brought distant Inner Eliar into their Federrazsh’n under the human name “Cestus III.” But that unhappy result was no fault of S’alath’s; it came about because the policy-casters lacked the strength of will to resist the diktat of the Met’rr’onz.
“The Gorn Hegemony warship S’alath,” Gog’resssh said, relieved to learn he was in the claws of his caste-peers, at least nominally. “And who . . . who are you?”
“I am Z’shezhira.”
“Technological caste?” Gog’resssh said.
“Yes. Communications specialist.”
“Communications. You would seem to have strayed from your specialty.”
“The fight against the machine-mammals has cost the S’alath dearly in terms of personnel. The threat has now passed, but the crew shortages remain acute. I have also had medical training, so my captain has posted me here.”
Gog’resssh noted the apparent defeat of the machine-mammals without comment; he looked forward to reading the official reports from his caste’s hierarchy. Not wishing to shine a light on his feelings of disappointment for having missed the opportunity to defend the Hegemony, he decided to steer well clear of the subject.
“You saved my life?” he said.
“I assisted, First Myrmidon,” Z’shezhira said, the distortion in her voice doing nothing to filter out the self-deprecating tone. “The medical team nearly lost you.”
Gog’resssh felt a surge of gratitude toward her for his survival. Then despair as black as space descended. “I cannot see. A blind warrior is a liability. You must euthanize me.”
“No, First Myrmidon. Your head is bandaged. But we expect you will recover your vision soon.”
That was fortunate, but was not in itself a justification for continuing to live as a weakling to be cared for by others. And that was precisely the fate he feared lay ahead. “Why do I not feel my body?”
“You are floating in a regeneration tank, First Myrmidon. The gel that surrounds you has dulled your nerve endings while your hide heals.”
Gel tank. That explained the muffled quality of Z’shezhira’s voice. He suddenly became aware of a strange, crowded sensation in his skull’s maxillary region. A breathing tube, no doubt, probably attached to an amphibious microphone.
“From what am I healing?” he asked.
“Severe radiation burns, sustained during the mishap on Sazssgrerrn.”
“Mishap?” Why couldn’t he remember what had happened?
“I am told it was an extremely large solar-mass ejection, First Myrmidon. It occurs when the balance of forces within a star’s photosphere becomes—”
“Such things are known to me, Z’shezhira.” Gog’resssh had never had any patience for tech-caste lecturing. “What, precisely, was the outcome of this ‘mishap’?”
Silence followed, irritating Gog’resssh further.
“I regret to inform you,” Z’shezhira said at length, “that Warrior-Caste Hatchery Crèche P152 was destroyed.”
“My soldiers?”
“We extracted nineteen warrior-caste survivors and twenty-two from the technological and artisan subcastes. All survivors immediately underwent treatment. Several have since died. The prognosis appears good for the rest, if guarded. Still, the neurological damage was ext—”
This was too much to get his mind around. “What of the eggs?” he said, interrupting.
&n
bsp; “Gone.”
“All of them?”
“I fear so. Sazssgrerrn itself is now uninhabitable.”
My mission was to defend those eggs. And if Dr. Rreszsesrr—the ancient scientist who had probably been reduced to a clawful of ashes by the Sazssgrerrn “mishap”—was to be believed, those eggs had represented the entirety of his own caste’s hopes for the future. Not to mention the future of the Gorn Hegemony itself. The black pit of despair into which Gog’resssh had narrowly avoided plummeting moments earlier suddenly returned with a vengeance.
This time he tumbled headlong into it.
Intermittent voices reached across the sedative-saturated void in which Gog’resssh floated. Tech-casters speaking in their uniquely opaque argot.
He heard something about severe radiation exposure. And burns. And “radiogenic damage” to someone’s genes. Were they discussing his officers and troops? Or were they talking solely about Gog’resssh himself? He decided it probably didn’t much matter.
Then he heard one of the male doctors say “study them all, then euthanize them all” before going on to explain to somebody—Z’shezhira, perhaps?—that genetically-damaged Gorn soldiers could never be permitted to pollute what remained of the warrior caste’s gene pool.
“After all,” the voice continued, “we cannot compromise the Gorn Hegemony’s health and safety.”
Consciousness returned more easily the next time, and the time after that. Gog’resssh was pleased to be out of the tank, though he could have done without the pain that the cessation of neutral buoyancy had brought him as he began getting used to Gorn-standard shipboard gravity. His recovery continued apace over the next several diurnal cycles, despite the awful knowledge that had settled upon him like a heavy shelf of granite sitting on his chest.
My caste’s next generation has been burned to a cinder, along with any prospect of replacing it. And these tech-casters will probably put us all down without a thought once they’ve extracted whatever useful data our suffering may generate.
Though Gog’resssh studiously avoided giving voice to those thoughts—particularly when paying a supervised visit to Second Myrmidon Zegrroz’rh or any of the seventeen other officers and men who had survived the Sazssgrerrn “mishap”—he knew he could never be rid of his self-immolating misgivings.
Not until he found a way out of here, preferably for both himself and his troops, and began trying to secure a new crècheworld for his caste.
It wasn’t until his sixth diurnal cycle aboard the S’alath, during one of Z’shezhira’s infirmary visits, that Gog’resssh dared hope that his dream might be realized.
“You say the search for a new warrior hatchery planet is among this vessel’s mission objectives?” he said after Z’shezhira had mentioned the topic in passing while moving a scanner over the steadily healing scales of his back and shoulders.
“It’s one of several,” she said, her vertical pupils riveted to the readout on her medical scanner. “But it has been a high priority for this vessel for many Gornar suncircuits. Since the events at Sazssgrerrn, the political, technological, and labor castes now regard it as a matter of the highest priority.”
Of course they do, Gog’resssh thought bitterly. Now that it is too late to save any part of the Sazssgrerrn Crèche. Now that it is too late to cleanse me of my shame, my failure.
“Does this mean that you have identified some candidate replacements for Sazssgrerrn?” he asked.
Her scaled, heavy brow ridges crumpled into a thoughtful posture. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
Gog’resssh bared his teeth to convey his impatience with that answer. “I do not understand.”
“It is difficult to explain.”
“You tech-casters appear to enjoy explaining things. Please, allow me to indulge you.”
She answered with a good-natured snort. “Very well, First Myrmidon. First, do you understand the rarity of worlds capable of supporting large-scale warrior-caste reproduction?”
“I understand the fact, if not the reason.” Such subjects had never been included in Gog’resssh’s training. All he had ever known was the highly structured life of a combat soldier, the uncompromising discipline and relentless chaos of warfare, and the extensive, all but ceaseless preparation that such a martial existence required.
“Then we are equals in this matter, First Myrmidon. Despite the extensive study my caste has lavished on this matter we cannot yet satisfactorily explain why so far only Sazssgrerrn, out of all the worlds in Gorn space, has nurtured the eggs of our warrior caste.”
“That is interesting, I suppose. But it doesn’t answer my question: have you found any worlds as yet that might take Sazssgrerrn’s place?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. We must conduct experiments first before we can answer that question definitively.”
“What sort of experiments?”
Z’shezhira looked down uncomfortably at the metal grillwork of the deck beneath her bare footclaws. “Perhaps I have said too much.”
“Nonsense. You were merely giving a recuperating patient a measure of hope. Please, tell me of these experiments.”
Z’shezhira’s head bobbed forward and back in a gesture of assent. “All right. Before the machine-mammal crisis diverted us, the S’alath’s crew had discovered a number of ancient technological artifacts. Items that may provide the key to a technological solution to the Sazssgrerrn dilemma.”
“What sort of technological solution?”
“Worldsculpting. Ecoshaping. The wholesale changing of a planetary biosphere. The idea is to find the world that represents the closest analog to Sazssgrerrn, and then apply this technology to it.”
“You sound as though you believe you have tamed the power of the Egg Bringer S’Yahazah herself,” Gog’resssh said with an awed growl.
The scales from Z’shezhira’s snout to the crests between her wide-set golden eyes reddened, as though the praise embarrassed her. “I would not go quite that far, First Myrmidon. But the technology does hold great promise. Hopes are high throughout the technological and political castes.”
The political caste, Gog’resssh thought with distaste as she explained some of the technical particulars at too great a depth for his tastes. Politics. The vice of the bloodless weaklings who saw fit to diversify the crècheworld holdings of every caste save the only one that is indispensable to the Hegemony’s security. S’Yahazah’s cloaca, even the lowly laborer caste has incubation facilities on at least a half-dozen worlds.
The political caste obviously feared the warrior caste. That had been so ever since the warriors of the Black Crest had attempted—and failed—to seize the reins of power within the Hegemony almost eight Gornar suncircuits ago. Those would-be insurrectionists had failed, and now the political caste had finally exacted its patient vengeance by keeping the warrior caste vulnerable to a single calamitous extinction event. Gog’resssh’s mind had hearkened back to the one and only time he’d met the legendary Captain S’alath, this vessel’s namesake. S’alath had told him that while he stood vigil at one of the first Gorn-human territory negotiations that had followed his initial encounter with K’irrk, he had picked up a human aphorism: “Don’t put all your eggs in a single basket.”
The political caste had allowed all the warrior caste’s eggs to remain in one basket. And catastrophe had been the result.
Banishing those thoughts lest he grow visibly angry enough to frighten Z’shezhira out of the infirmary, Gog’resssh tried instead to concentrate on what the female was telling him, in her caste’s typical loquacious fashion. According to her, the warrior caste’s future might not be so bleak as he had feared. Hope sparked within Gog’resssh’s belly; it was his first experience with hope since he’d learned of his abysmal failure at Sazssgrerrn.
“Your captain must take this vessel to your best candidate world now,” Gog’resssh said. “He must apply this new technology there immediately. He must use it to pull my caste back from the brink of oblivion.”
The spark of hope quickly fanned itself into white-hot impatience. “How long a wait do you foresee?”
She made a noncommittal gesture with both sets of claws. “Adequate testing could require a good many Gornar suncircuits. Especially if we experience setbacks during the simulations.”
“The Hegemony cannot continue to defend itself if the supply of new Gorn warriors remains interrupted for suncircuit after fallow suncircuit.” Not that you expect me or my warriors to be around long enough to observe that sad outcome.
“I understand the drawbacks of caution as well as those of haste. But it really doesn’t matter what I think. Such decisions are the province of the political caste.”
Perhaps. But perhaps not.
Z’shezhira put the scanner on a tray with a number of other obscure-looking medical instruments. Apparently satisfied that he was mending satisfactorily, she bid him farewell.
He called out to her as she reached the threshold, stopping her. “May I speak to Second Myrmidon Zegrroz’rh?” he asked.
After pausing to look into the adjacent healing bay, she turned toward Gog’resssh and dipped her head in a gesture of assent. “He is conscious, though he still requires somewhat more healing than you do. Please do not tire him.”
“I understand,” he said.
After Z’shezhira departed, Gog’resssh rose from the steeply inclined resting board and walked across the infirmary toward the other healing bay. Since the other injured officers and enlisted troopers were recovering elsewhere, he and his lieutenant were all alone but for one another’s company.
“First Myrmidon,” Zegrroz’rh said as he tried to stand, his pain evident. Gog’resssh needed no special medical expertise to see that his Second had suffered more extensive burns than he had.
Gog’resssh gestured for Zegrroz’rh to stay down, and the injured Gorn sagged gratefully back onto the inclined resting board where he’d been recuperating. “The tech-casters aboard this ship have made plans to kill us all,” Gog’resssh said without preamble.
Star Trek: Typhon Pact 02: Seize the Fire Page 2
