by mikel evins
“What would those be?”
“Why did you sabotage your ship, Doctor?”
The pilot was silent.
“Yes, I see,” he said after a moment. “Well…it had to do with my mission. I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about that. That is, I’m not permitted to—”
“I understand your work is probably secret, Doctor. We get that much just from looking at your ship. But I can guess it had something to do with Titans.”
He paused again.
“What leads you to that conclusion?"
“The fact that we’re trapped inside your ship with twelve thousand Titan secondaries outside hunting for us. I’d call that a clue.”
19.
It was easier to make the ship’s instrumentation work with its pilot helping us. I’d already gotten it tracking all the twelve thousand or so secondaries floating around our tent as they spliced into our control and power systems. Doctor Yaug helped me find another few hundred that were inside the derelict crawling around the nooks and crannies looking for us. Better than that, he showed me a few tricks for discouraging them.
One was to steal a little of the power that they were funneling to the derelict and use it to create fluctuating currents. The fluctuations attracted the attention of the secondaries, and we could use that to lead them into traps. Doctor Yaug showed us how to arrange for electric arcs across certain spots that could fry whole groups of secondaries.
“That isn’t going to work as well once they decide to come in force,” he said.
“We just need to slow them down for a little while, until our ship gets here,” Jaemon said.
“How long is that?”
“A few hours, maybe.”
“And then what?”
“Then we catch a ride out of here.”
Yaug was silent for a moment, then said, “Have you thought about how you’re going to get aboard your ship?”
Jaemon was silent, his mouth pressed into a line.
“As much as those secondaries want my ship,” Yaug continued, “don’t you think they’ll want a new, fully-operational torch even more?”
Jaemon said, “You’re saying they’ll try to get aboard Kestrel.”
“Of course they will. They came aboard my ship.”
Jaemon nodded slowly.
“We’ll just have to improvise,” he said. “Kestrel isn’t a warship, but she’s armed and she has her torch.”
“You haven’t actually fought Titans in space before, have you?”
Jaemon scratched the back of his neck, then shook his head.
“No,” he said. “You’ve got me there. None of us have. What’s your point?”
“This ship is also a torch,” Yaug said. “If you could spare this many crew to survey my ship, then Kestrel must be bigger, and probably not as maneuverable as Autolycus. I wasn’t able to keep them from getting aboard Autolycus. You probably won’t be able to keep them off Kestrel, either, if they get close enough. I’ve fought Titans in space before. I had that experience in mind when I outfitted this ship, and I took every precaution I could think of. Look where I ended up.”
We exchanged looks.
Angier said, “You saying we’re screwed, Doc?”
“No,” said the voice. “I’m saying we’d better think things through if you expect to get out of here alive.”
We all looked at each other.
“Okay, Doc,” said Jaemon. “What do you have in mind?”
“Well, first, let’s get one possibility out of the way. I could just destroy the ship with all of us in it.”
“Wait, what?” Angier said. “How is that a solution?"
Jaemon shrugged.
“I see his point. If he does that, then Kestrel gets a flatline signal through the Fabric and she activates our creches. In a day or two we step out of the creches good as new.”
Jaemon looked at me.
“Except for Lev, here. I expect he has a backup body ready to go, already. He probably steps out more or less right away.”
“Yes,” I said.
“No way,” Angier said. His face was white.
“It would get you out of here,” Jaemon said.
“No it wouldn’t,” Angier said. “It would wake up a copy of me. I’d still blow up with this ship. That doesn’t sound like a good plan to me. I don’t want to blow up.”
“Fair enough,” Jaemon said. “I’m not a big fan, either.”
“That’s what I assumed,” Doctor Yaug said. “Now that we’ve checked that option off the list, let’s talk about other alternatives.”
“So you’re not actually advocating that we blow ourselves up?”
“No, but I thought I’d better eliminate that option first thing. Now we can talk about the possibilities that remain.”
“We’re going to need to get you out of your creche, aren’t we?”
“Let’s wait a bit on that.”
“Why?”
We waited a moment for Yaug to respond.
“I have a couple of reasons,” he said, finally. “One is that you may not like me so much once you see me.”
Jaemon frowned.
“Come on, Doc,” he said. “We already know you’re exotic. We’ve seen your quarters and your head and galley. We know you’re something we haven’t seen before. You really think because of that we’re going to forget you helping us to survive? We’re Jovians, Doc. You know what that means. Citizens of the League come in all shapes and sizes. Sure, everybody doesn’t get along all the time as well as we should, but give us some credit. We aren’t going to turn on you because of how you look.”
“Well, maybe we’ll find out about that soon. But there’s a second reason. The final process of starting up my metabolism is going to draw enough power to alert those secondaries. Now, whatever we decide to do, we’re going to get their attention, but I think we probably want to delay that moment as long as possible.”
“Okay, Doc, I see your point. Just remember, though, Kestrel will be here pretty soon. If the idea is to keep her from being in range of those Titans—”
“It is.”
“—then we’d better be ready to move, somehow, by the time she’s here. Otherwise she’ll just be sitting out there waiting for them to go after her. That’s what you’re trying to avoid, isn’t it?”
“Yes, exactly. So we’re going to have to time things very precisely, and we’re going to have to let Kestrel know in advance exactly what we’re planning.”
“Okay,” Jaemon said. “Exactly what are we planning?”
20.
First we went through every conduit and vent and hatch and access panel, signaling the ship’s systems to seal everything in the maintenance bay from the inside. I kept the displays filled with views of different parts of the derelict’s interior as we worked. We could see increasing numbers of Titan secondaries starting to swarm over the outside of the ship, working at the hatches, even trying to cut their way through the hull in some places. From time to time, Doctor Yaug routed current to different parts of the hull, catching and burning small groups of them, disrupting their attempts to get inside.
Next, with Doctor Yaug guiding us, we went over the insides of the bay by hand. We did all the same things again, but this time physically sealing hatches, painting quickseal over the joins and the vents, locking everything down and sealing it tight. The displays showed clumps of Titans forming at certain spots next to exterior hatches and instrument emplacements, presumably working at likely looking gaps or weak spots. Yaug fried some of the clumps, but he couldn’t get them all. There were too many secondaries, and the arcs discharged power quicker than the stream from the tent’s generators could replenish it.
Next we enumerated all of the physical feeds, one by one. Life-support, temperature control, ventilation, filtration, water, lubricant, everything. We found every tube and pipe and closed every valve, then locked it down and sealed it. Meanwhile, interior cameras showed small groups of secondaries that had gotten in somehow, or that
had been left inside all along, skittering over the bulkheads, gathering in spots where the larger groups worked on the outside.
Finally, we went over every square centimeter of the interior bulkheads of the maintenance bay, painting over anything with a hole in it, daubing on quickseal in thick blobs.
It took most of two hours.
“Okay,” Jaemon said, “What’s left?”
“That’s got to be everything,” Angier said, panting. “Doesn’t it?”
“It’s everything,” Doctor Yaug said.
“So what’s next?”
“Well, next we need to get my creche out of this tube. We’ll need the tube empty for the last part.”
“So does that mean you’re coming out now?” Mai said.
“It does,” Yaug said. “And before I do, I need all of you to promise me something.”
“Anything you need, Doc,” said Jaemon. He was taking big breaths and holding on to a conduit.
“Don’t shoot me when I come out.”
“What?” said Jaemon. “Why would we shoot you?”
“I’m going to put an image of me on the consoles. Before I do, I want to remind you that I’m here to help you. Remember that I’ve destroyed many Titan secondaries in order to keep them from you. I could have used similar techniques to harm you at any time if I had wished to. I mean you no harm.”
“Doc,” Jaemon said, “Don’t be ridiculous. We know how you’ve been helping us. What’s the problem?”
“All right,” he said. “I’m putting my portrait on the displays.”
I turned around to look. All of the consoles displayed the same view. It was a large figure of a black, multi-legged creature with a faceted central orb on top of a down-pointed chisel-shaped rod. Eight long, segmented black legs extended down from the junction of the rod and the orb. A dozen or more smaller appendages dangled from the bottom tip of the rod, each with a different set of manipulators at its tip. Long antennae with feathery tips rose from spots between the pairs of walking legs. Faceted compound eyes were studded around the orb, bottom and top. Four pairs of manipulator arms, black and segmented like the walking legs, were folded against the main central orb, smaller than the walking legs but larger than the dangling mouth parts.
It was a Titan primary.
“Holy Mother of God!” Angier said, drawing his sidearm and pointing it at the display. After a second, he swung it around and pointed it at the creche.
“Easy there, Buddy,” said Jaemon, but his tone was wary. We had all gone very still.
“Remember what the Doc said,” Jaemon said. “If he’d wanted to do us harm, he had plenty of opportunity for it. He could have let those secondaries in any time he wanted to. But he didn’t. Did you, Doc?”
“No I didn’t. I am not a Titan. I just look like one.”
“What the hell kind of sense does that make?” Angier said. His voice was high-pitched and shaking. “I say if it looks like a Titan, it is a Titan!”
Jaemon was pale, but he frowned and looked at Angier calculatingly.
“Yeah,” he said, “You might want to rethink that a little. But I’ll be honest with you, Doc, I’m kind of having a little trouble with this one, too. You’re telling us you look exactly like a Titan primary? But you aren’t a Titan primary?”
Mai had pushed herself backward until she ran into a bulkhead. Her shoulder gun was out and pointed at the creche, and her wide eyes were darting from Jaemon to me to Angier to the creche.
“That is exactly what I’m telling you,” Yaug said. “When I come out of the creche, what you will see is a full-grown Titan primary. That’s me, but I am not a Titan.”
Jaemon frowned and closed his eyes. “Okay. Go on.”
“You’ve already guessed that I was some kind of spy. You were right. At the same time, my identification as a scientist was also legitimate, not just a cover story.”
“Okay...”
“You may be aware that one of our great disadvantages in our long conflict with the Titans has been a lack of knowledge about them. Perhaps that has changed during my long...”
“It hasn’t changed. Or not much. I guess we probably know more than we did in your time, but I don’t think we know a lot.”
“I see. Well, it was considered a serious problem by the Home Office. A program was instituted to collect more and better data about them. I volunteered.”
“Very few Titan primaries have been—had been—recovered for study, none of them alive or intact. We had more samples of secondaries, but one can only learn so much from them. Our plan was this: to grow a new body for me, one that appeared to be a Titan primary. I was to enter Titan space and attempt to make contact with as many primaries as I could manage. Use the contact to obtain close-range scans of living primaries and any other data I could amass. Tissue samples, if possible. Any other strategic data the services might find useful.”
“So you were given a new body. A counterfeit Titan?”
“Yes, exactly. Structurally, genetically, this body is a Titan primary. I am not a Titan, however. I am an agent of the Home Strategic Service, Scientific Investigation Office.”
Jaemon squinted.
“That couldn’t have been easy. What were you before? A Mech?”
“That’s classified information,” Yaug said. “I’m not permitted to reveal it without prior approval.”
“I see. So how did all of this work out?”
“You can see how it worked out. Not as well as we had hoped. I did collect a good amount of data, and I learned a number of things. One of the first things I learned was that even Titans can’t safely go among Titans. Their version of diplomacy includes using murder and dismemberment to establish pecking orders. Oh, and they’re cannibals.”
“So you got away to your ship?”
“Yes. And they followed. Most of them died fighting each other for possession of me and my ship. Eventually only one of them was left. I wound up in a hand-to-hand fight aboard my ship and—I’m a little embarrassed to admit—the Titan won.”
“So that’s what happened to your ship’s bridge? You blew it?”
“To save the rest of the ship, yes. Individually, Titan primaries are extremely efficient killers. They’re smart, fast, and well armed. Their secondaries give them something like omniscience on the battlefield, supreme situational awareness. They’re very hard to beat. But despite all their advantages, they have a few serious flaws. One is their egoism. I would never had had a chance if they hadn’t all been preoccupied with killing each other to gain control of my craft. Another is that they are unable to imagine altruistic motives. My willingness to sacrifice myself and my ship came as a complete surprise to that last remaining Titan. He trapped me in my bridge and I lured him in. Then I blew it, with both of us inside. He didn’t see that coming.”
“Looks like you got him.”
“Yes, but I left his secondaries alive, it seems. Not as many as we see here. They must have cannibalized the dead primaries to multiply their numbers before the ship lost power. I vented the reactor to space and set the batteries to drain. I figured the data and tissue samples stored in my ship would preserve what I had learned, so I set up a beacon on a timer.”
“To attract salvagers?”
“Well, in the best possible world it would have attracted my agency, but yes, salvagers would do. I didn’t count on the secondaries, though. I...well, I just didn’t think it through enough. I guess I was in a bit of a hurry. In fact, I’m luckier than I deserve. There were other primaries looking for me. I’m lucky they didn’t find my ship. I suppose all those that did killed one another in the fight over possession of Autolycus.”
“Okay, I guess,” Jaemon said. “Angier, put that away. You too, Mai. Stow it.”
Angier looked at him like he was crazy.
“You believe that crazy story?” Angier said.
Jaemon shrugged.
“You have a better one?”
“Yeah, I have a better one,” Angier sai
d. “The last two primaries fought it out, and this one here lost. It hid in the creche and made up this story so it would get the chance to jump us.”
Jaemon squinted and looked at me.
“No,” I said.
Angier shouted, “What do you mean ‘no?’ Why not?”
“Well, it’s far-fetched,” Jaemon said. “Not totally impossible, but if we’re gonna believe that, we have to believe the primary outside was killed, but not its secondaries, and the secondaries inside were all killed, but not their primary. And then somehow the primary inside managed to get himself into the creche, and also keep the secondaries from finding him.”
“So why is this bug’s story better?”
“Because if he’s really the pilot, he didn’t have to keep the secondaries from finding him. He wasn’t here. He was blown up with the bridge. He never went down below and climbed into the creche. He never left a trail for them to follow. It was always sealed. His new body was grown in there.”
Angier scowled, still pointing his sidearm at the creche.
“Besides,” Jaemon said. “You ever exchange words or shots with a primary?”
Angier shook his head.
“I have. I don’t think a Titan would tell us that story.”
“Why not?”
“Because it would have to pretend to be one of us. I don’t think a Titan would do that.”
Yaug actually chuckled.
“You’re probably right,” he said.
“Why not?” Angier said.
Jaemon said, “Because Titans think we’re feeble, disgusting vermin. ‘Throwbacks,’ they call us. And because no Titan can ever afford to appear weak or at a disadvantage.”
“A shrewd appraisal,” Yaug said. “You are quite right. Even a momentary appearance of weakness can provoke a Titan’s allies to turn and devour it. It makes it impossible for them to rely on feigned weakness. And they very definitely consider us weaker and stupider than themselves.”
Angier shook his head.
“I don’t see it,” he said.
“Holster your gun, Angier,” said Jaemon. “Yaug’s not the enemy.”
Angier looked daggers at Jaemon, but he holstered his weapon.
