The healing tank didn’t make me immune to harm, but it did speed up the knitting process. In that way, I felt like Achilles.
Several days after the incident, I could walk again and my ribs didn’t hurt every time I took a breath. Maybe Claath had been waiting for that.
An android in cyber-armor entered the hospital wing of the ship. We were in orbit over the Earth.
“You will gather your possessions and come with me,” the android said.
My things were my shirt, pants, shoes and several new scars. The healing tank hadn’t taken care of everything.
The android marched through an easy two miles of corridors, his magnetic boots clanging every step of the way. The vessel was huge. The regular thrum I’d felt in other spacecraft was lacking in this one. I began to wonder if this was Claath’s private ship.
The android and I entered a small room with a metal table and chair. My minder indicated the furniture, and said, “Sit.”
I was glad to get off my feet. The bones had mended and most of the tissue knit back together, but I’d lost stamina.
A screen flickered into life, and I viewed Claath. I finally wondered about that. Why hadn’t he ever met me in person? Why all these meetings via screen? What did he have to hide? Or was he that paranoid about my “beastliness?” The red-skinned alien took his time while he studied me, and I became paranoid. Was he going to accuse me of destruction of property? Not that he’d be wrong, but then I’d likely be dead.
He inhaled sharply, and said, “You have inordinately bad luck. I find that a poor quality for a battle-beast. Maybe I’ve made a mistake with you.”
I shook my head. “It didn’t have anything to do with my luck but that of the android piloting the ship.”
“Hmm,” Claath said. “If that’s the case, then it would seem that those around you have the bad luck, which amounts to the same thing.”
I slapped the table. “I’m the one who should be complaining. I broke bones because of an android’s carelessness. He nearly got me killed. I hope for both your and my sake that none of them are coming along on the mission.”
The android in the room stirred.
Claath noticed. “Do you wish to add something N7?”
“I do, sir,” the android—N7— said.
“I give you leave to speak,” Claath said.
“Thank you, sir,” N7 said. “I state for the record that the pilot was in perfect working order. I further note that all androids test out before departing the ship. The implications of this slanderous beast—”
“Who are you calling a beast, you pile of junk?” I snarled. “I was there. You weren’t. I know what happened. So don’t give me any of your sanctimonious robot crap.”
The android no longer stirred, but I felt hostility radiating from him. He’d turned from the screen and faced me.
“Interesting,” Claath said. “You have an uncanny gift, beast. For years, I’ve attempted to add emotional makeup to my androids, and my techs have always failed me. You, however, appear to have created anger in several different models. If for no other reason, I am loath to destroy you.”
“What do you mean, destroy me?” I asked in outrage. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked and now you talk about destroying me. What kind of double-cross is this?”
“The androids are excellent pilots,” Claath said, “better than the best Saurian.”
“Have you been down to Earth lately?” I asked. “Have you seen some of those storms?”
“Did you purposely destroy my property: the air-car and android?” Claath asked.
I’d been waiting for a direct question. “No!” I said, generating hatred at the Jelk, at the android and at humanity’s awful position in the universe. I assumed Claath used some kind of lie-detector that monitored my heart rate, brain rhythms and other bodily functions. With my hatred I hoped to mask these signs.
The Jelk glanced at something I couldn’t see, with his eyes darting like a hunting weasel. He checked a medical report, no doubt. He studied me afterward, and I’d swear he looked perturbed. “You continue to claim the wind blew your air-car off course?” he asked.
“I haven’t claimed anything other than android negligence,” I said. “I could have piloted the air-car better than he did.”
“I assure you,” Claath said, “you could have done no such thing. Their flight reflexes are amazing. It is their primary function.”
“Creator,” N7 said, with something approaching heat in his voice.
“I’ve told you not to call me that,” Claath said. “It is sacrilegious.”
“I ask your pardon,” N7 said.
“Yes, yes,” Claath said. “Now what did you want to say?”
“Sir,” the android said. “The beast…he lies.”
“Indeed,” Claath. “And how to you know this?”
“It is the only rational explanation,” N7 said. “The pilot would have made an emergency report—”
“Yeah,” I said. “He tried. That’s what got us killed. I told him to keep his eyes on the controls. He was too busy following your rote procedures when the wind flipped us and hurled us down.”
N7 faced me, and his right hand dropped onto the butt of his weapon.
Of course I was lying, and I was doing it as hard and as effectively as I could. What choice did I have? Hmm, what was the old saying? “Terror was the weapon of the weak.” Well, my position was the weakest, and so I used what I could.
“Contain yourself,” Claath told the android.
“Yes, sir,” N7 said. “But the beast’s lies, they are absurd and insulting.”
“Interesting,” Claath said. “You are insulted?”
N7 appeared surprised, and he nodded, seemingly reluctantly. “Yes, sir, the beast insults me.”
“What is your wish regarding him?” Claath asked.
“Let me destroy him, sir. He must have destroyed the pilot. It would be just for him to cease being as well.”
I gathered myself, getting ready to lunge at N7. He might have cyber-armor and a weapon, but I’d fight until the last. He’d learn what calling me a beast would earn him.
“You may be right concerning his irrationality, N7,” Claath said. “Yet he is a ferocious creature, a veritable killer. If he destroyed an N-model android…that would be most impressive.”
“Sir?” N7 asked. “Would that not prove him too wild to trust?”
“No,” Claath said, while watching me. “I trust him to stir the other Earthbeasts to violent action on the corporation’s behalf. The success of your mission rests on it.”
“What a minute,” I said. “The androids are coming on the artifact hunt?”
Claath seemed amused. “You will need pilots and weapons officers. I can’t send the Saurians.”
“Why not?” I asked.
The humor evaporated. “Do not question me,” Claath said. “I am the Jelk, the superior. You are my property. I am not your property.”
I looked down lest he see my eyes. Someday I was going to put a collar on Claath. Achilles had dragged Hector around Troy in his chariot. I was going to drag Claath a lot farther than that.
“Please, sir, give me the word,” N7 said. “Let me destroy him.”
“What kind of robot are you?” I asked.
“I am an android with the same style of bio-brain as yours,” N7 said, “although mine is fully integrated and civilized.”
“Yet your civilized brain wants to kill me,” I needled him. “You sound like an animal.”
“Quiet,” Claath told us.
N7 faced the screen and stood rigidly like a statue. I couldn’t even see him breathe now. His eyelashes didn’t even twitch.
I waited, wondering what would happen next.
Claath seemed to measure me with his eyes. “The Saurians cannot join the expedition for the simple reason that anyone capturing or finding a destroyed Saurian craft would realize they had acted on Jelk orders. That would implicate the corporation, and that must be
avoided at all costs.”
I shouldn’t have said it, but I did: “So why are you telling me all this?”
Claath flicked his fingers in a dismissive gesture. “You cannot implicate the corporation. Any Earthbeast beyond the emitting range of the central assault ship will die.”
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“I know you’ve received punishment shocks,” Claath said. “The controller in your neck has other uses, too. If any Earthbeast drifts beyond range of the emitter, the device will explode, killing the creature.”
“What?” This was outrageous.
“It is an obvious procedure,” Claath said, “and it solves my dilemma of having any of you creatures inadvertently creating an incident.”
“Now wait a minute,” I said. “We’re mercenaries, not slaves.”
Claath gave me a pointy-toothed smile. “You wear the controller. Therefore it is clear that I make the rules. You are whatever I say you are. It would be good for you to finally come to terms with the idea.”
I’d never come to terms with it. “Why should we go into battle wearing a suicide device?” I asked.
“I’m glad you asked,” Claath said. “It is central to the reason why you’re alive instead of drifting in space, heading toward this system’s sun to incinerate.”
I scowled.
“You’ve proven yourself an interesting creature in more ways than one,” Claath said. “You achieve results. That is your critical quality. With primitive weapons and after shrugging off the tamer ray, you stormed and captured a Saurian lander. Later, with nothing but your hands, you destroyed an abusive DI and it is possible you engineered an air-car accident. Why you would have done so doesn’t interest me, although I suspect it has something to do with your outlandish notions of human equality. You are an odd beast, and it may be that your ideas give you strength of will. Very well, I accept that. The universe is a strange place, with many unusual creatures and events. A Jelk does not insist reality conform to every one of his whims or preconceptions. A Jelk uses what he finds to grind every particle of profit he can for himself and the corporation. It’s what has made us the most powerful species in space.”
He loves bragging. How can I use that against him? “Okay,” I said.
“You seek to keep your species alive,” Claath said. “I have found that that idea does indeed motivate you Earthbeasts. Now I am about to test your battle quality in a real situation. Is your fighting power inferior or superior? I have let you visit the freighters on Earth for a single reason: for you to see how slender a thread the rest of humanity hangs on to existence. Yours is a physically strong but mentally and emotionally weak species. If I summon the freighters and I empty them in space, humanity as a species dies. The only thing keeping them alive is the Earthbeasts in my employ. Fight well and your species lives. Fight poorly or run away and your species will cease to exist. You appreciate that fact more than the others do, and I believe you will help the others to recognize the importance of fighting well and getting me what I want.”
“Okay,” I said, “I get it,” and I did. Claath threatened humanity with extinction. He was little better than the Lokhars. If we failed to get him profits: goodbye freighters and goodbye humanity.
“It is for these reasons that you are alive,” Claath said. “Your vigor and desire to see your people live gives me leverage on you. Fight as hard for me as you fight for your people and we can do business together.”
“I hear you loud and clear,” I said. “And you can bet I’ll fight hard. Are you giving me command of the space-assault troopers?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Claath said. “Then you would attempt to foment rebellion. You will lead your maniple and the others will continue to lead theirs. I am however, sending an Earthbeast representative to the Starkiens.”
“Who are they?” I asked.
“They are independent contractors, little better than pirates,” Claath said with distaste. “You will use their ships to reach the Altair system. As contractors, they’re willing to deal with the corporation and earn some quick cash.”
“Right,” I said, beginning to understand his reasoning. “And if Starkien ships take damage, you can deny the Jelk Corporation had anything to do with this mess.”
“For such an emotional creature, you are perceptive,” Claath said. “I believe I’ve made a wise choice deciding upon you as the Earthbeast representative.”
“Sure,” I said. Drag you around and around the walls of Troy while you choke to death. “I’m still curious about the androids, though. Anyone who finds one of them will realize the Jelk funded the attack.”
“You’re right except for one particular, which makes you wrong,” Claath said. “The N-series androids are fitted with similar explosive devices as you space-assault troopers. We sell such androids everywhere, so their carcasses, just like yours, will not implicate us.”
I’ll say this for Claath: he was a coldhearted businessman. I turned to the android, wondering how I could use this last piece of information. “And you’re okay with being wired to blow?” I asked N7.
“We serve our creator,” the android said, “our designer.”
Claath cleared his throat in an imperious manner, his chin rising as he did so.
“Let me rephrase,” N7 said. “We have no problem with Jelk directives.”
“That’s bloody marvelous,” I said. “When do we go?”
“The expedition leaves tomorrow,” Claath said.
-13-
We were about to embark on our first mission as space-assault troopers to steal, purloin, or acquire for the Jelk Corporation, the Altair Object, a Forerunner artifact. As the Earth representative, I learned for the first time the number of commandos to be employed on the mission.
I’d expected Claath to use on the order of two or three thousand. Instead, to my amazement, the number was twenty-three thousand space-assault troopers.
The number surprised me for a variety of reasons. Firstly, as Claath had hinted earlier, Rollo, Dmitri, Ella and I had trained in maniples of twenty troopers per, never more.
I was designated Firstman Creed, the maniple leader. Under me were my sergeants or secondmen: Secondman Rollo, Secondman Dmitri and so forth. It was a simple system, made so the likes of us could understand the hierarchy.
In essence, the firstmen were lieutenants. The space-assault troopers lacked anything higher like captains, majors, colonels or generals. It seemed like a weakness. I suppose Claath figured the Starkiens or the androids would act as captains and maybe colonels, maneuvering the maniples as they wished. It seemed like an unwieldy way to do it. I mean, commanding hundreds of twenty-man maniples would put a lot of stress on the directing android or Starkien. Wouldn’t it be easier to marshal us into larger formations like companies or battalions, at least? Then we’d be trained to coordinate and fight as twenty-three thousand commandos, not as hundreds of separate squads acting semi-independently.
I didn’t like such inefficiency, especially as we would likely have to pay for any errors with our lives. And as yet, we knew nothing about the Forerunner object and how we were supposed to assault and acquire it. For a race concerned about their investment, the Jelk seemed to be setting us up for a lot of casualties.
Despite Claath’s words, it took another week before we actually left the solar system. My bones needed the extra time to mend and I exercised hard to bring myself back to peak condition.
Finally, we left Earth and the solar system behind as the fleet entered its first jump route or line.
I’d been wondering about that for some time: not jump routes specifically, but how the aliens beat the laws of physics. Things with mass like a spaceship and light, too, of course, couldn’t move faster than the speed of light. That was an immutable law of nature. Normally a journey at light speed would take 4.3 years to travel to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to Earth with planets. Nothing with mass could reach the speed of light, but close enough so that all kinds of
problems arose, like time dilation.
Why would that be a problem? Well consider. Back on Earth during the Age of Sail, galleons might be gone for months and even a year, but not for 4.3 years and certainly not for ten or twenty years. So how could anyone have a star empire or an interstellar corporation while traveling within the constraints of light speed or a bit under light speed? The answer was clear: they couldn’t. You needed magic, or a science we’d never heard about, in order to flit from star system to star system fast enough to have interstellar empires and corporations.
The technology that allowed ships to jump along these lines was just that. Think of one of those connect-the-dot puzzles you used to draw as a kid. The dots were the star systems, the pencil lines were the jump lanes, lines, points, whatever you want to call them. A spaceship went in at one end and popped out the other in a few hours, having traveled many lights years. Just like in connect-the-dots, some points had one line running through them and some had three, five or seven lines. Those dots with seven different routes were strategic points in the stellar system. Control one of those critical star systems and you could control entire routes.
None of us had seen a star map or knew which jump route went to which star. Our N-series android minders simply told us to get ready for a jump. Then we hurried to our cots, lay down, strapped in and endured.
After the first jump we learned they were bad, with terrible headaches, cramps, disorientation and vomiting. We dreaded being ordered to get ready after that. I think even the androids hated the jumps, which made me incline toward thinking of them as living creatures instead of just machines. And that didn’t help my conscience any.
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