“Answer? Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, of course, of course. My profuse apologies, young one. I must further compliment you, primate: that was an outstanding use of sarcasm. Indeed, most very most excellently outstanding. I like sarcasm, you see. I’m very fond of it, yes, most emphatically, if for no other reason than that it is representative of several different higher brain functions operating simultaneously. The complexity of the humor component alone is wondrous, most outstandingly wondrous, in fact. This wonder is multiplied exponentially when sarcasm comes into play because of involvement of the language centers in making word and syntax choices such that a literal parsing of the words actually spoken yields a meaning ironically at odds with the vocalizations’ underlying import. It is a thing of exquisite subtlety and even beauty at a neuropsychological level. Just the way it brings your corpus callosum into play, standing alone, is something I could contemplate without even the most infinitesimally minute trace of boredom for many, many cycles . . . .”
Max shifted impatiently on the bed, which the doctor noticed instantly and correctly interpreted as a sign of impatience, a fact that was not lost on Max. That an alien could understand Max’s spoken language through the intercession of a neural implant wasn’t all that shocking. After all, given how technologically advanced the Vaaach clearly were, this is exactly the kind of capability one might expect them to have. But, correctly interpreting the body language of someone from another world was a horse of a different color. You couldn’t just download that from a computer database like you could with language; unless Max was sadly mistaken, an alien’s ability to formulate accurate interpretations of human body language could come only after lengthy study by a being deeply interested in the subject and possessing very high levels of perceptiveness and intelligence.
“Oh, yes, answer. Answer, indeed,” the Bwhoid said. “I suppose that is in order at this juncture. Yes, and an answer you most emphatically deserve. You were seriously injured when your vehicle rather abruptly ceased its forward motion. Very seriously. Repairing the damage to your body kept me very busy for much longer than I typically go without a sleep period. It was a very long work period for me. I know not how that period relates to the customary length of time members of your species work without rest. I care little for such things. My interest is not in their customs and habits but in the living beings themselves.
“Living beings, you know, are the most complex structures in the known universe. The simplest bacterium is more intricate than the most powerful battlecruiser. Such complexity is endlessly fascinating. Fascinating! Life is such an endlessly fruitful field of study, so eternally fascinating, because one can never know it all, one can never have all the answers, one never runs out of new paths to follow through the forest.”
Max’s impatience caused him to shift his weight on his bed once again.
“Oh, but I see that, even though your raw intellectual ability is in the upper one tenth of one percent for your species, your interests lie elsewhere and that you are seeking a different kind of information. I suppose that is reasonable given your avocation. I would think that your navy is not in the habit of assigning deep penetration military intelligence missions to healers, medical researchers, and biologists. You are, after all, a fighter, not a doctor.
“Back to your body, in which you presumably do have an interest as opposed to the bodies of living organisms in general in which you clearly do not. You suffered from twenty-three bone fractures, including two compound fractures, six multiple fractures, and three separate and distinct skull fractures, various internal injuries including a ruptured spleen, a few brain injuries, and severe contusions and other soft tissue damage in several locations. Your knee joints had to be reconstructed in their near totality as did four of your cervical disks which were crushed. Those were congenitally defective and very likely would have required surgery in any event once your skeleton stopped growing. You have nothing about which to worry now with regard to your knees or those disks, as they will all outlast you and will provide better service than their counterparts provided to you by our Maker. The new joints and bones are literally hundreds of times stronger than the rest of your skeleton.
“All of these procedures were extremely time-consuming. It took a great many of those silly chronometric units you use: the ones with sixty of this making up sixty of that making twenty-four of the other thing . . . whoever invented that system must have had three or four brain lesions the size of his testes or simply suffered from some kind of profound psychosis. It’s obvious that you should be using powers of eight to match your digits.” He glanced at Max’s hand. “Ten. Pardon me, powers of ten to match your digits. Hours, hours are what you call them. It took hours to repair your broken bones and another several hours of surgery to treat your other injuries. You have been in an induced coma for ten of your standard days. You figure out how many hours that amounts to.
“I am pleased, yes, most pleased indeed that you have recovered so thoroughly. I do so detest it when patients die or, as I am required to say in my official reports, ‘experience a negative therapeutic outcome.’ Bureaucrats are the one constant throughout the galaxy, are they not? Sometimes, I fanaticize about rounding them up and sending them to some far part of the galaxy, but then we would be left to perform their gray, repetitive, dreary duties, something which I suspect neither you nor I would relish.
“In any event, a ‘negative therapeutic outcome’ ruins my appetite for a week and sends my mind into borderline obsessive review of my actions, over and over and over again at very high speed worrying incessantly over every minute detail. You must be quite surprised, I’m certain, to learn that my mind would ever operate in such a fashion.”
Was that sarcasm?
“I experience these feelings even if the unfortunate patient is a member of an alien species. Irrespective of species, the life of all thinking beings is sacred. All. Without exception. It is given by the Maker and it is not something that we mere corporeal beings may take from another for frivolous reasons or lightly cast aside like a worn out shoe. Life must be cherished and protected, and must never be devalued, cheapened, or treated as anything short of sacred. This is the purpose to which I have dedicated my time in this existence. That is the cause I proudly serve and for which I am willing to give my last breath.” She had spoken with what Max interpreted as a great deal of emotion.
The doctor stopped to collect herself. “I beg your pardon. This issue is one that has been a matter of controversy of late in my professional life and the emotional wounds from that conflict are still fresh. In light of all the adjustment issues with which you are confronted, it was entirely inappropriate, inappropriate indeed, for me to subject you to the additional emotional burden of my vehemence.”
“I accept your apology, Doctor.” Max learned long ago that his relations with others flowed far more smoothly if he immediately accepted any genuinely contrite apology offered to him. With so many billions of genocidal Krag to kill, why should he weigh himself down with minor grudges? Besides, he was taking a liking to the talkative, brilliantly knowledgeable alien. Perhaps, someday, if he ever made it home, Max mused that it might be nice to find a human friend whose mind worked in similar fashion. Such a person would be incredibly entertaining as well as a source of interesting information. But, Max concluded, humans just aren’t put together that way.
“Very well,” the doctor said. “Let us consider the matter as behind us. Water under the river crossing, so to speak. To your status . . . fortunately for you, I am well-versed in the treatment of your chattering monkey kin. It is also fortunate that Bwhoid medical science is roughly a thousand cycles more advanced than that which I have gathered you humans possess. I have spent some time evaluating the state of medical science in your culture—primitive . . . so shockingly primitive—and I have grave doubts that your own physicians could have performed the organ constructions you received under my care.
“The result of the foregoing work is that you currentl
y enjoy a state of physical well-being slightly higher than when your ship first reached this planet’s atmosphere. This comparatively higher state of health is not entirely due to the quality of the care you have received here, but also to simple cessation of the abuse to which you subjected yourself before you came to be under my care. You inflicted upon your young body any number of deleterious behaviors: long hours without adequate sleep, protracted stress, exercise that was inadequate both in duration and variety, lack of natural sexual activity with a suitable mate or proto-mate, and a horrifyingly injurious diet, to name the most obvious.
“You had asked more of your body than it could comfortably deliver under those conditions. You must have an unusually strong constitution to have withstood these stressors so well. I am particularly amazed that you seem to thrive on the truly, truly, truly horrific array of foods you regularly consume. I was shocked, deeply shocked, to learn exactly what you eat. In fact, your nutritional profile causes me to doubt seriously the evidence that you are an otherwise highly intelligent, rational being. Your consumption of refined sugars and other carbohydrates is so far beyond that for which you are physiologically adapted to metabolize that, if you were in the Vaaach Sovereignty armed services and under my care, I would be required by regulations to put you on report for endangering your own health.
“If your health actually mattered to you, when you get back on board your vessel you should jettison all of those horrid candy bars you like so much, about 80% of the meats including all of the cured meats, and every molecule of the Cajun ethnic food you call ‘boudin.’ If your kin actually consume that vile concoction in any quantity, it is a wonder that the entire over-clan of boudin-eating Cajuns has not become extinct through coronary artery disease.”
Max knew that boudin wasn’t good for him. Too much fat. Too much salt. Too many carbs. But, that didn’t stop this Cajun staple (a zestfully seasoned pork and rice sausage, sometimes made with seafood in place of the pork) from being amazingly, wonderfully, borderline obscenely delicious. There were some old (and a few young) Cajuns in the culinary services branch who made boudin on various ships and stations throughout the navy and who supplied Max with a few “pounds” of the precious stuff from time to time. Anyone who wanted Max’s boudin would have to pry it from his cold, dead fingers.
“Fortunately for you, you are young and strong and resilient. Your physiology rallied to your call, but there is a price for such things in terms of hypertension, muscle pain, headaches, and a depressed immune system, not to mention an increased degree of psychological lability (which you are still experiencing, I might add) all of which—except the lability--I have rectified. You are much better now and you will be even better before we return you to the Vaaach to continue your training.
“If I may offer a brief word of advice, even though I am not a trained pilot, I would strongly suggest that you avoid similar landings in the future if at all possible. The next time you inflict that degree of harm upon yourself, there might not be present to help you a healer of my high level of skill. In fact, you are unlikely to have such a being close by, in which case your life would quickly end.”
“What about my ship?”
“It is in good hands. When you require it again, assuming you live that long, you will find it fully repaired and functional, refueled, reprovisioned, serviced, and ready for you. But, you have more immediate issues with which to concern yourself.”
He stopped abruptly and cocked his head to the side once more, his eyes unfocused as he listened to whoever was in his ear. After listening for a few seconds, he scampered over to one of the tables that held various pieces of equipment, removed a roughly square sheet of milky, opaque plastic from one of those pieces of equipment which Max surmised to be a printer of some kind, and scampered back to Max’s bed.
“I am directed to give you this message.” He handed the plastic sheet to Max. The plastic material clearly served the same function as paper. It had printing on one side, in Standard:
GREETINGS, YOUNG HUMAN. YOU WILL SOON BEGIN THE NEXT STEP OF YOUR TRAINING: ONE ON ONE TEACHING WITH VLLGRHMMRL, THE SHEPHERD OF THE YOUNG WHO IS YOUR TRAINER. WHEN THAT IS DONE, YOU WILL CARRY OUT YOUR BLOOD MISSION, FOR WHICH YOUR TRAINER WILL PREPARE YOU.
THE TEACHING WILL BEGIN ONCE THE BWHOID TELLS US THAT YOU ARE READY IN BODY AND MIND FOR WHAT IS TO COME.
TRAIN HARD AND TRAIN WELL BECAUSE IN YOUR BLOOD MISSION YOU WILL FIGHT REAL FOES WHO WILL STOP AT NOTHING TO KILL YOU.
CHAPTER 4
04:11 HOURS ZULU (05:30 LOCAL SOLAR TIME), 21 JULY 2304
For the next two days, the Bwhoid was a convivial companion, spending much of each day stuffing Max with food (high nutrition, low flavor) and nutritional supplements, and injecting him with various enzymes and growth factors to tweak his healing process. She also put Max on a rigorous exercise routine consisting of literally hours on the treadmill and more hours working out on a set of exercise machines that her assistants wordlessly rolled into the room where Max was being kept.
The assistants, three of them, looked almost exactly like the Doctor, but for slight differences in size and in the camouflage patterning of their fur.
The Doctor seemed to enjoy showering Max with an astonishing volume of sometimes interesting, sometimes irrelevant verbiage. Most interesting to Max was the briefly-told news of how the Vaaach upped the difficulty level of Max’s landing by, not only disabling his controls and putting the ship on a very steep re-entry trajectory, but also making a hurricane and sending it right into the path of Max’s descent.
Yet, she deftly and gracefully dodged Max’s persistent questions (and, coming from Max, they were very persistent) about the Vaaach Sovereignty, its politics, its society, its economy, its territorial extent, and even what the Vaaach looked like, ate, or wore, whether they sang or played music, if they danced or played sports that didn’t involve killing anything, or what they did with their spare time when they weren’t scaring the shit out of a substantial fraction of the galaxy.
The Bwhoid, apparently with the blessing of her superiors, did pass on a few—very few—nuggets of information about the Vaaach. She did so with a great deal of ear wiggling and tail whipping, which Max assumed were her species equivalent of a wink and a nudge, as everyone from the invisible Vaaach overlords pulling the strings down to Max himself knew that Max—if he survived what lay ahead of him—would repeat every word to Commodore Hornmeyer’s N2 section and to the intel penguins back in Norfolk.
The information given to him, though sparse, was highly significant. The Doctor told Max that the Bwhoid were “members” of the Vaaach Sovereignty enjoying full equality and rights with the Vaaach, there were other races with similar status, and that—rather than adding to their domain by conquest—the Vaaach accepted as members only races that wished to join with them and that had been their trusted allies over a period of centuries.
Being the victors in war (which, apparently, was the same for the Vaaach as being in a war—the last war they lost was more than 40,000 years ago) did not add to their territory because the Vaaach generally quarantined their enemies rather than absorbing or destroying them, confining them to their home worlds or core territories. So, while vast, Vaaach-controlled space was riddled with tiny pockets of space controlled by defeated and, even, hostile powers.
The Bwhoid did, somewhat sheepishly, admit that there have been exceptions to this practice and that some few alien races have “had their populations reduced to zero” in her words, “but only when there was no alternative”—whatever that meant.
Max would have bet his last credit that this information, while meager, was vastly beyond anything known to the Intel weenies back in Norfolk.
On the last day of Max’s enforced convalescence, the Bwhoid served up a generous breakfast of what tasted like real bacon, eggs, ham, and grits, after which she led him out the door of the room he had occupied since he regained consciousness. She took Max about a dozen meters down the hall and into another
small room with two doors.
“Good luck, Max,” she said with apparent emotion, evidenced by flexing the shoulder muscles and an unusual lack of tail motion. “I offer the ancient blessing of my people: may Our Maker send the warm breezes to bend the tall grasses around you, so that you may discern at great distance friend and foe alike.”
Max bowed solemnly. “I don’t know how ancient this is, but I heard my great, great grandfather, Sosthene Leblanc III say this one time when I was a small boy on Nouvelle Acadiana, ‘On this day, may you look forward to your future with no fears. On your last day, may you look back on your past with no regrets. And, on the next day, in the Kingdom to Come, may you find rest, peace, and joyous reunion with those who have gone before.’”
Those words had not crossed his mind since that day, when one of his cousins got married and moved away to Alphacen. He was not sure why he remembered them now.
The Bwhoid pressed her two index fingers together, in apparent acknowledgment or thanks, stepped out of the room, and locked the door behind her. The room was bare except for a chest-high shelf on one wall containing a short stack of clothing, and what looked like a standard naval field pack taken from Max’s ship, stuffed and festooned with gear. On top of the clothing were Max’s wrist chrono (or, maybe, a perfect copy), a sheet of Vaaach plastic-paper with writing on it, and another document of some sort that appeared to be folded over several times into a square about twenty centimeters long and fourteen wide.
Max verified that the wrist chrono was running, and strapped it on. Then, he picked up both of the papers. One appeared to be some kind of note. As soon as he touched the note, the chrono beeped and started a countdown timer from 30 minutes.
The Hunters of Vermin Page 9
