“Private Capacha?
“Worst way I know of getting promoted. But Fleet figures that any recruit who dies on the job ought to deserve full membership honors. To include burial at a Fleet cemetery back on Earth if the Capacha family so desires it. Did you know him well?”
“Not hardly,” I said. “But he was the best friend I had.”
She gave me an ironic look.
At which point she guided me to a bench along one of the walls, and I told her the whole story—in between gulps of near-scalding cocoa.
“I guess I ought to be getting back,” I finally said.
“Don’t worry about it, kid,” Chaplain J said. “You were with me on the way up, you’ll be with me on the way back. At this point nobody from cadre is going to question it if I keep you under my wing. Besides, I want to talk to you about something.”
I looked at her.
“What’s that, ma’am?”
“You’ve got heart, Barlow. A good one. The Fleet needs that. Unless you’re dramatically opposed, I’m going to send some e-mails when we get back to Earth and have you put directly into Chaplain’s Assistant training.”
“Just like that? What about graduation?”
“Oh, you’ll still do the parade field routine like everyone else. Clean out your locker and kick off a final, high salute to your drill sergeants. But the Fleet needs you. You haven’t been told this, but things on the frontier may not be going exactly as well as everyone believes. Some big offensive missions are being put together. World-walloping stuff. I’ve got friends in the Chaplains Corps going out on some of those missions. They will need a smart, sensitive guy like you. You game?”
I numbly thought about the offer. I’d made a pretty piss-poor chaplain. But as I sat there staring at the floor, one of Chaplain J’s kind arms draped comfortingly around my shoulder, and I suddenly realized that I probably didn’t have anything to lose.
“Sure thing,” I finally said. “Sounds like a plan.”
Chapter 39
The mantis drop pod carrier was voluminous by Fleet standards.
With no benches, seats, nor chairs of human description, I simply sat on the carrier’s bare deck with Captain Adanaho’s head resting in my lap. I’d retrieved my pack and spread my emergency sleeping bag over her body. Disinfectant wipes from the med kit had allowed me to clean away the water, sand, and blood from her face. I’d closed her eyelids and given her as much dignity as I was able at the moment. Having no idea where my final destination might be, I was hoping there would be better means with which to properly care for the body.
There were four mantis troops in the compartment with me. Once upon a time I’d have been mortally afraid of them. Now?
I wasn’t terribly sure I cared what would happen. If the Queen Mother was as good as her word, she’d attempt to stop the fighting. Assuming she could regain control of her own forces first. For myself I felt only guilt over the passing of the officer—the young woman—in front of me. She’d come to me on Purgatory, filled with hope. She’d believed I was special. That I could make a difference. And it had ultimately cost her her life.
I’d also lost a good friend. The Professor had given his life for the Queen Mother—primarily—but I believed he’d given it for the captain and me as well. He’d wanted to preserve the peace—just like Adanaho—and he’d been willing to risk and lose his life in the process. When he’d first appeared in my chapel those many years ago, I’d thought him no different than the warriors who guarded the carrier deck on which I now sat. I’d learned otherwise. The mantes could be as individual as any human. And he had been exceptional in so many ways. With him gone, would the Queen Mother be the single voice of peace among her people?
A slight rumble told me we’d gone transonic prior to boosting into orbit. I readied myself for the sickening sensation of microgravity. When it never came I was both confused and relieved. But then it occurred to me that the mantes had had much more time than humanity to refine their engineering—that they could build artificial gravity cells small enough to fit on a craft the size of the carrier was not that much of a surprise.
I waited and wondered what life might be like on one of their bigger ships. So far as I knew I was going to be the first human to ever board one. At least of my own free will. During the first war there had been rumors of mantes ships ramming human vessels, the mantis shock troops storming into the besieged human ships and “harvesting” human crews. Whether or not those rumors were actually true had never been determined. After I met the Professor, and the armistice was secured, I chalked those rumors up to creative propaganda.
Now, though, I felt a tickle of cold unease—as the minutes went by before docking.
A few more rumbles, followed by occasional mild lurches, and suddenly the main deck ramp was unsealing with a hiss. My ears felt the pressure differential. I forced a yawn and worked my jaw side to side in an attempt to pop my ears while I watched the ramp lower down to a different, much larger deck entirely. Six mantis soldiers floated up the ramp to where I held the captain’s body. One of them towed a flat sled which appeared to function in the same manner as the discs themselves.
“You will place the female on the transport,” one of them ordered.
“No,” said another mantis voice.
The Queen Mother hovered up behind them on her temporary disc.
“He is a guest,” she said. “Not a prisoner. We will show respect.”
The six troops said nothing, though they retreated from me by half a meter or so. I looked at them—each in turn—then slowly bent to the deck. It took considerable strength to get her up onto the sled. I moved as carefully as I could, treating her gently. Anything less would have seemed unkind. I’d had to help with the wounded and the dead before. We’d buried countless people on Purgatory—after our failed invasion.
As I looked at Adanaho’s slack features, I remembered Capacha’s face too.
“What are your wishes for the captain’s remains?” the Queen Mother asked.
“On a human ship she’d be taken to the morgue,” I said.
“Cold storage?”
“More or less.”
“For what purpose?”
“Depending on the circumstances, she might be transported home for burial according to the wishes of her next of kin. Under combat conditions she’d be given Fleet rites in accordance with protocol, and the body jettisoned into the nearest available star.”
“It would seem there is no precedent in our case.”
“Then cold storage is fine for now.”
“We have something better. We use stasis technology to preserve various foods and other organic materials without resorting to reduced temperatures. This will keep her body in the condition it is now until a permanent choice can be made.”
“Okay,” I said. “Do that.”
The Queen Mother relayed her instructions in mantis speech to the six troops, who quickly maneuvered down the ramp again. I watched Adanaho go—with a unique and dreadful hollowness in my chest. She might have lived to have a husband, children, grandchildren…
“Come,” said the Queen Mother. “There is much we must discuss.”
I slowly walked down the ramp.
The docking bay of the mantis ship wasn’t all that different from that of an Earth-built craft. Contrary to the many imaginings of us humans, the interior of the mantis craft was not a nest nor a lair of any sort. No goo dripping from ceilings. No webs nor cocoons nor other organic grotesqueness. It was made of metal, plastic, and other materials which seemed familiar. Labels and signage were in the fascinatingly different script of the mantes—a semi-spiraling assortment of slashes and dots in an endless number of configurations. A linguist might have understood it. Maybe even Adanaho, who’d doubtless had some exposure during her training. I’d had some too, thanks to the Professor’s teaching during our years shared on Purgatory. But he’d been primarily interested in what I had to teach him, so the cross-transfer of knowledge
had been limited. He could read the human script far more easily than I could write in the mantis version, just as he could speak my language whereas I would never speak his.
I saw several other drop pod carriers arrayed in neat patterns, with hundreds of mantes—soldiers and unarmed workers alike—moving to and fro. They were conducting inspections, performing maintenance, loading and unloading equipment and munitions…all as would be expected with a human warship of similar size and function. Which somehow comforted me in a way I’d not expected. I’d been bracing for a scene that might be utterly alien. That it was in fact rather mundane spoke to me again of human-mantis similarity versus difference.
“What’s going to happen now?” I asked the Queen Mother.
“I have ordered a conference with the ship’s top officer, who I have learned is in fact the flotilla commander for this particular star system. We have lost many vessels, as it appears your Fleet has as well. The planet we were formerly on is still contested territory. I will order all mantis vessels, troops, and craft to reassemble and withdraw. At which time we will depart for one of the many star systems serving as staging areas for the Fourth Expansion. From there I will dispatch couriers to the various fleets tasked with engaging human space. Hopefully the Fourth Expansion can be recalled before the damage is irreparable.”
“Purgatory?” I said. “What’s happened there?”
“I was not privy to every detail of the Expansion plan. I left much to the individual creativity and initiative of my top warriors.”
“And what about Earth? Surely you must know if Earth is under attack?”
“That I think unlikely. There has not been enough time. The overall battle strategy was to engage your colonies closest to mantis space first—siphoning away as much of your Fleet strength as possible to the front—then decimating your Fleet prior to fanning out into human space proper.”
“Will your top warriors be willing to disengage?” I asked.
“Much depends on whether or not they accept my authority according to my former rank. Now that I am not dead, my successor and the Quorum have a conundrum to solve. It’s been rare in our history for any Queen Mother, once departed, to then attempt a return to office. If my successor does not demur, and demands that the war effort continue, then I will be more or less stripped of authority. Unless or until that happens, though, on this ship at least I am still the Queen Mother. No mantis here would dare oppose me. We will know more when we reach the first staging system.”
I looked around at the docking bay and its busy goings-on, and I suddenly realized I was going to have a lot of time on my hands in a very unfamiliar and not necessarily hospitable environment.
“What will you do with me?” I asked.
“As I told my soldiers,” she said. “You are our guest.”
“Do you have shipboard accommodations friendly to humans? A bed, a sink, a toilet?”
“Such things can be created. I will summon the ship’s engineers to work with you on this. It will take time, but they will do their utmost to see that you are made comfortable.”
“Thank you,” I said.
We waited silently as a score of mantis troops glided up on their discs. One of them hailed the Queen Mother with a raised forelimb. They did not speak. I sensed that whatever information was being relayed, was being done disc-to-disc. On Purgatory the Professor had instructed his students to avoid this practice when possible. He’d considered it a matter of transparency; a way to earn human trust. I suddenly felt wary of being excluded from the conversation, and looked to the Queen Mother as my only source of protection in this environment.
Unnerving, at best. Not long ago she’d gleefully tried to sacrifice herself aboard the Calysta so as to ensure that the Fourth Expansion could be launched under a pretext guaranteeing full commitment. Over the days on the planet below I’d watched her pass through an experience unlike anything any mantis had endured in hundreds or possibly even thousands of Earth years. Maybe tens of thousands? I didn’t know. Whatever had happened, it had affected the Queen Mother such that she was now having a genuine change of heart.
I just wasn’t sure if I could trust her entirely. Would she rechange her mind?
I thought of all the humans on Purgatory who’d found God—or at least religion of one form or another—once we’d been sealed behind The Wall. And especially in those dreadful days when The Wall had been closing in and we’d all thought death was certain. It had been easy for people to turn over a new leaf. What other choice had they had? But then when The Wall fell and safety was more or less assured, many people drifted away. Returned to old habits. The attendance at my chapel dwindled. Not back to its prearmistice levels per se, but dwindled just the same. And how many of those people had, upon leaving Purgatory, gone back to their old lives and their old ways of thinking altogether?
For me, the experience on Purgatory left permanent marks. The Queen Mother had only lived without her disc for a few days. Captain Adanaho had speculated that the Queen Mother’s perceptions—indeed, her attitudes based on those perceptions—would be in flux. I wondered if old patterns of thinking—and of seeing the universe—might reemerge now that the Queen Mother was among her own kind again, with all the familiar trappings of mantis technology.
I swallowed hard. From the frying pan into the fire?
“Do not fear,” said the Queen Mother.
She’d disengaged from conversation with her subordinate, who seemed to wait patiently while the Queen Mother floated over to me. The Professor had been adept at sensing my moods. Mainly through smell. I guessed that the Queen Mother was little different in this regard.
“You’ll have to forgive my distrust,” I said. “I am the only human, alone among a sea of mantes. Humans and mantes are still at war until proven otherwise. I want to believe that the situation can be remedied. But I have no guarantees. Therefore I am rather nervous.”
“Understandable,” the Queen Mother said. “If the situation were different I might consider finding a way to return you to your people. But I need you now, assistant-to-the-chaplain. With your captain dead, there are no more human officers to vouch for my intentions. When the time comes to—I think the Professor told me the correct phrase among humans is, extend an olive branch—your services will be vital.”
I voiced my understanding, but I wasn’t exactly sure that a single Chief Warrant Officer would count for much if Fleet Command was bound and determined to continue the fighting. They’d be damned fools to do it, but then they’d sent General Sakumora to handle the original negotiations. And he’d clearly been swayed to the side of war long before the meeting with the Queen Mother.
If a majority of Fleet Command believed as he did…
I suddenly felt an overwhelming wave of fatigue sweep me.
“You appear exhausted,” the Queen Mother said.
“And you’re not?” I replied, half-incredulous.
“Deprivation has weakened me, but mantis females are able to survive such things without a significant erosion of our faculties. A biological legacy, from a time when females would be left alone to guard both eggs and larva until pupation. It was the task of the males to provide food, and if the males were killed or delayed in returning…but I repeat academic trivia. Assistant-to-the-chaplain, you are spent. I will instruct some of the available ship’s technicians to take you immediately to a space where you can rest.”
I tensed.
“How do I know one of them doesn’t hold a grudge against humans?”
She considered this question for a moment.
“There are quarters being prepared for me as well. This vessel is now my flagship. I will designate that your quarters be located directly next to mine. You are the only human aboard, and I will know if you have been molested in any way. No sane mantis would dare harm you.”
“And what about the not-so-sane?”
She hovered over to me, her forelimbs gently stroking the edge of her temporary disc in a fashion I’d o
ften seen the Professor emulate.
“Assistant-to-the-chaplain—Padre—there was a time not long ago when I was forced to abandon my carriage and place myself almost entirely in your hands. I understand your misgivings. I can only ask you to trust me in the same manner that I was once asked to trust you—and your dead captain. You have returned me to my people as promised, despite the loss of your captain’s life. I would honor her commitment to duty by ensuring that you also are returned to your people. On my own life and as the Queen Mother, I swear an oath to it.”
I felt myself nodding as she said these things. Had she been a human, I’d have put my hand out to shake hers.
“Very well,” I said. “I will hold you to that oath. And I apologize for my behavior. You’re right, I am tired. And the grief I feel at the deaths of both the Professor and the captain is deep.”
“Go now,” she said. “My people will take care of you.”
A trio of unarmed mantes floated up to us.
“We are ready to receive the human guest,” said the leader.
I allowed myself to be led away, my head growing ever more foggy and my legs feeling like lead.
Chapter 40
Earth orbit, 2155 A.D.
Eighteen months after I watched Private Capacha die, I reported to my billet just down the corridor from the quarters of Major Thomas, an ordained Baptist minister who hailed from West Virginia. He was roughly Chaplain J’s age. I apparently came to him with Chaplain J’s hearty recommendation. Which was both good and bad. Having endured the much less harsh—compared to IST—rigors of the Chaplain’s Assistant specialty school, I still wasn’t feeling too confident in myself, or my new role. I didn’t fancy myself a spiritual person per se, and while the school had dramatically improved my comprehension and understanding of many of Earth’s larger religious groups—their doctrines and beliefs, their histories—I wasn’t exactly feeling “in the swing of things” as I later learned Chaplain Thomas liked to say.
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