But suppose the Traveler itself returned, to wreak devastation again? Certain evidences suggested that there had been prior sieges, possibly many of them; perhaps civilization had risen, flourished and perished many times, leaving not even a memory. Were the cultures of this period simply to disappear at such time as the Traveler laid siege again? Or could something be done to stop a recurrence?
Plans were made. Theory was perfected, special stations were constructed. A select cadre was trained and maintained from generation to generation and millennium to millennium. If the Traveler came again, this galaxy was ready.
And it did come, as projected — one hundred million years after the earlier siege. Dissolution proceeded where it touched, as species far too young to remember or appreciate the devastation of the last siege embarked upon trade and its corollary, conquest. Some of these did not know about the Plan, however — and sought in their naïveté to prevent it. A number of stations were disrupted…
Harold Groton came out of it as he had before: not with nausea or alarm, but simply a feeling of stress, of internal acceleration. The sensation did not bother him; in a manner of speaking he had been rehatched and matured in minutes and hours, and in another sense he had retraced the entire evolutionary experience of the hive in the same period. It was the nature of the reconstitution.
He leapfrogged out of the chamber and looked around. The room was unfamiliar, but elegant. A daylight-emulating ceiling of muted yellow, richly muraled walls depicting hive activities, resilient flooring, uniquely styled furniture — a very plush accommodation.
There was a triple-refraction mirror — one of many, he noticed — at hand, and he positioned himself before it to assess his condition before dressing. He did not recall undertaking a melting cycle this time, though; in fact, he had been—
Small-thought ceased abruptly.
The image in the mirror was man-sized, as far as he could tell. The creature was basically tripodal, so that two small feet offset one very large center foot. Perambulation was by leapfrog: the center leg provided most of the power, the side legs incidental support, somewhat like a one-legged man on crutches. He was able to stand on the center leg alone and spin about in a small circle, but the pair of legs were less stable. Walking human-fashion was impossible; the side legs acted in concert when supporting weight unless he concentrated directly on them, much as had the toes of his erstwhile human foot. Offsetting the third leg in front was a mound that tapered into the torso.
The upper limbs were also triple, with the third arm rising from what he thought of as the chest area. Unlike the third leg, this limb was slender and delicate. Evidently this species had evolved from six-legged stock, modified for an upright posture. Three eyes decorated the head, and each saw in a different color and fashion, making an impressive composite picture. He closed one eye and found that the image differed substantially; much could be learned by using only one or two eyes at a time, and analyzing the result and filtered view. There were three ears on the back of the head, and these were also very good in concert, each responding to a different range. He was sure he could detect much more intricate and extended sound than ever as an Earthman.
It was a good body, in good condition; he could sense its general health. He realized that this was to be his home for the duration: this alien body. The experience was novel but not alarming.
“Drone!” an imperious inhuman voice called from the adjacent room, sonically assaulting all three ears.
“Immediately, mistress,” he replied on the center frequency, and perambulated hastily in that direction. He had supposed walking would be awkward, but for this creature it was not. Observing it in action, he suspected that if this body were to engage in a foot race on even terms with his human form, this one would win.
The language employed, like the body, was alien to anything in his prior experience, yet he handled both with expertise. He had not intended to respond: his body had done that automatically. Was this the way of Ivo’s gift of tongues at Tyre?
The female he approached was similar in construction to himself, but larger and adapted for reproduction. He presumed that she laid eggs, perhaps thousands of them. Her swollen midsection was certainly geared for it. Yet her form was the essence of sex appeal by the definition of this species. He was of this species now, and he felt himself becoming interested, despite his human background. Well, other cultures, other ways.
“Groom me for presentation,” she snapped (her mandibles making it literal), not bothering to give a reason.
Groton rebelled at the tone — but his body was already active, rushing to a cabinet, unsealing the waxy fastening easily, taking out a brushlike device, and approaching the female with due deference.
This time he was sure the process was involuntary. This body he occupied was strongly conditioned. Unless he exercised conscious control all the time, it went about its business as usual.
He/it played the brush over the fur of her thorax, some electrical interaction making the pelt brighten and fluff out with each pass. Groton let the task continue while he explored his situation internally. There ought to be an explanation somewhere, a mind belonging to this body—
There was. As easily as his intention to search had come, the object was realized.
He was the Drone: consort to the Queen. He was expected to do nothing other than cater to the whims of his mistress. In return, he received respect and the best of all physical things — so long as he retained her favor.
“Fetch a new brush,” she said. She did not explain what objection she had to this one. Why should she? The Drone did not need to know. He needed only to obey.
He was in the hall and swinging toward the supply depot before he could assert himself. Perhaps it was just as well; what could his human mind have done except aggravate an untenable situation?
“One static brush for the Queen,” he snapped at the clerk, his own mandibles clicking as he addressed the inferior. This was the first worker he had seen: an apparently neuter creature, similar in outline to himself but only two-thirds his size.
The worker affected not to hear him, going about its ruminating without a pause. This was unprecedented contempt — yet there was nothing he could do. He was a Drone going out of favor, and the workers knew it. Soon he would be cast off entirely, and the neuters would have the sadistic pleasure of ignoring him while he starved to death. He was unable to provide for himself, if the workers did not make food available; he and the Queen were royalty, requiring service for life. His body tensed in hopeless fury.
Groton-human viewed the situation more dispassionately. He saw that it was conditioning, not physical capability, that made the Drone dependent. He did not appreciate the insult either, but realized that there was a more practical danger. If he delayed unduly in fulfilling this mission, the Queen’s short temper would vent itself upon him immediately — as this insolent worker hoped. The creature was maliciously hastening his demise.
It had not been like this a year ago, he remembered with the Drone’s mind. Then, flush with the Queen’s favor, he had been an object of virtual worship. The neuters had gone out of their way to do him little favors. It had seemed that he had complete control of the situation.
Fond illusion! He saw himself now as the vehicle he was, to be used by both Queen and workers, possessing no personal value to either apart from convenience. An ambulatory reservoir of egg-fertilizer. He had known it would inevitably come to this, for all Queens were fickle — but, dronelike, he had refused to accept it for himself.
Groton did not consider himself to be a man of violence, but the emotion of the despised being that was the Drone affected the more analytical human mind, and brought forth an atypical response. Atypical for both beings. The Drone was a creature of emotion, as befitted the royal consort; Groton was a man of action. The combination converted impotency to potency, perhaps in more than figurative terms.
He swung the two side arms over the counter and caught the worker by the
shoulders. He lifted, and the light creature dangled in the air.
Groton held it there for a moment, letting it feel the great physical strength of the Drone — a strength that could crush it easily. No words were necessary. The worker’s cud drooled from its mouth in its astonishment and shock. The Drone had done the unthinkable: it had acted for itself. It would hardly be more astonishing for a neuter to impregnate the Queen.
He set it down, and in a moment he had the brush and was returning to his mistress. It would be a long time before that worker allowed its courtesy to slip again — and the message would spread.
Expectations of this drone’s downfall were premature.
Unfortunately, setting back one predacious worker did not alter the fundamental situation. The Queen was tiring of him, and unless he acted to preserve himself in her esteem, his fate was assured. A simple demonstration of muscle was sufficient to faze a simple worker — but not the Queen.
The Drone body and mind quivered with reaction and fear. The act it had just participated in was plainly beyond its nature, and it did not yet realize what agency was responsible. Once possessed of a fine intellect, it had largely succumbed to apathy, protecting itself from injury by ignoring it. Even the momentary surges of emotion were generally well disciplined, externally.
Groton calmed it, discovering that it reacted as subserviently to his control as to that of the Queen. But now it knew — and he felt its mixed elation and alarm.
If he had to occupy another creature’s body, this one had been an obvious choice. The Drone had a good physique, a position of enormous potential influence — and very little genuine will-power. Yet that did not explain why he, Harold Groton, had been selected to enter this picture. How had his quest for information about the nature of galactic civilization been diverted into such a channel?
Probably some answers were in the Drone’s mind — but it would be a tedious chore digging them out and organizing the information for his own comprehension. There was a hundred times the store of facts he needed — relevant only to the Drone’s life, not his own.
The Queen glanced at him with a single eye to hint at her displeasure at his slight tardiness, but did not make an issue of it. He had performed within tolerance — this time.
The communication screen came alive before he finished the grooming. “Mistress,” the pictured neuter said respectfully, keeping its third eye lidded in respect for royalty.
“Crisis already?” the Queen demanded.
“A Felk battlemoon has materialized four twis distant.”
Groton felt the reaction of his host. A twi was a unit of spatial measurement equivalent to about eighty-five light-seconds. The Felks — enemies — were within six light-minutes.
“So soon! So close!” the Queen exclaimed angrily. “How did they know?”
But she did not wait for an answer. Obviously there had been a leak, and the Felks had followed this expedition in. They could not have traced it in space so rapidly, since this would require years by lightspeed observation.
The Queen was already traveling down the hall at a pace that pressed even the trailing Drone hard. She was a magnificent specimen of life, large and sleek and strong, one who had been not merely born to command, but evolved for it.
The supervisory workers were already assembled in the royal hall. “Show me your deployment,” the Queen snapped, having no need of query or courtesy.
A sphere of light appeared, bright dots within it. A map of space, Groton realized, that covered a volume half a light-hour in diameter. A sun, several planets, and two free moons showed within it: the Queen’s battlemoon and the Felks’.
A sun? No, the Drone memory corrected him: that was merely the identifier for their point of focus, the scheduled location of the station. There was no sun within two light-years.
The magnification increased in response to an imperative gesture by the Queen, and the pattern of ships appeared. The Queen’s moon was englobed by dreadnoughts — but already similar armor was emerging from the enemy moon.
“What kind of disposition is that?” the Queen demanded. “They will penetrate it in hours.”
“Our tactician was lost in the last engagement,” the leading officer-worker reminded her carefully. “We did not pause to pick up a replacement.”
“Naturally not. I would not tolerate an alien in my hive. Where is the next tactician-egg? Hasn’t it been hatched yet?”
Almost, the Queen reminded Groton of someone. Would her next expostulation be against the need to take care of every detail herself?
“I am it,” the officer said, answering her question. “But the enemy has surprised us and I lack experience.”
The Queen brooded over the sphere. “My Drone could make a better deployment,” she said.
The officer very nearly dared to show its ire at the disparagement. “Perhaps your Drone should assume tactical command.”
The Drone-mind suffered a flare of rage at the well-turned sarcasm. The Drone would never have implemented it or even expressed it in the presence of the Queen; but Groton, caught off-guard by the ferocity of the emotion, did.
“The Drone will assume command,” he said, with the resonance of triple-range vocal chords.
The Queen turned, about to rebuke him — such rebuke possessing the force of exile — but changed her mind. “Yes — he will. You tactician — attach yourself to him as apprentice. It should be an intriguing experience.”
Thus had a single incontinent outburst netted him stellar responsibility. The whim of the Queen was cruel.
Desperately, Groton assessed his resources. The Drone-mind was cowering in horror, as a man might who had just broken wind vociferously while saluting his country’s flag. He had to detach himself from its emotional state and suppress that mind almost entirely to prevent being overwhelmed by cowardice. This meant taking over most of its remaining functions and dispensing with its store of information. He became the Drone.
Yet it seemed to him that the joke was not as farfetched as the Drone’s diminished status had encouraged the neuters to believe. The Drone had spent several years in close attendance upon the Queen, and surely had overheard many of her directives. The Drone had a good mind and excellent information; it was its timidity and dependence on the Queen that made the notion of command ludicrous.
Neither Queen nor workers knew that a determined human personality had taken control. The Drone had strong emotions and weak initiative; Groton had mild emotions and strong will. The combination could have meant weakness in both departments — but fortunately that was not the case. This worm could turn, as the experience with the supply depot worker had shown.
The Queen was gone, leaving him to his mess.
The tactician-worker waited beside him as directed. Groton perceived the distress caused by this ultimate indignity — but the Queen’s word really was law. The officer, like himself, was captive to its own indiscretion. The Queen had her own ways of dealing with insolence — and the remaining workers had had another lesson.
“What is the immediate objective?” Groton asked the officer, determined to do his best, whatever became of it.
“To drive off the enemy, so that the station can be installed and activated, and the mines placed,” it replied.
“And the mines will prevent subsequent attacks?”
“Yes.”
“How does the Felk armament compare to ours?”
“It is superior. In number, not in kind. We suffered losses in prior placements.”
“How much time do we have?”
“Time for what?”
Groton perceived another weakness of the worker-mind. “How much time do we have before the enemy breaks through and destroys the station?”
“About six hours — unless we can outmaneuver them or frighten them away.” The time had been given in alien units, but Groton had no difficulty in comprehending.
He studied the map-sphere. “You plan to wait for them to attack?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“How else can we observe the nature of their thrust?” Orders or no, the officer had little respect for the Drone. Groton was reminded of a somewhat similar experience many years ago. Then it had been high school students. Now, as then, he had no higher appeal, contrary to the theoretical situation; he had to handle the matter by himself or be washed out.
“Yet,” he said, “with their ships massed and traveling at high velocity, our scattered forces cannot hope to stop them all. And one ship should be sufficient to blast the station.”
The neuter did not bother to reply.
“You have no manuals of strategy?”
“Of course not. A tactician learns by experience.”
The military mind! “Provided he lives.”
“Yes,” the officer agreed. “My predecessor—”
“And the Felks are similarly organized? No study of the lessons of history?”
“I assume so. How else should it be?”
How else indeed!
It appeared that a noncombative but practical-minded Earthman was as well equipped to handle galactic battle tactics as the galactic commands were.
“All right. Relay this directive: All ships, repeat all ships, to proceed immediately to the Felk battlemoon, there to attack without englobement.”
The officer, true to its nature, relayed the command. Groton heard the controller giving directions to individual ships. Then, thinking about it, the officer objected. “What?”
“You wouldn’t be familiar with the dictum ‘The best defense is a good offense’?”
“Certainly not.”
“Well, chalk it up to experience, once you see it happen. We know we can’t stop their attack, if we wait for it to develop, nor can we hope to overcome the enemy in a normal encounter — but our ships do have an advantage of several hours in deployment. We can hit the Felk before the Felk hits us.”
Macroscope Page 45
