...and they are us Homecoming

by Patrick McClafferty

  “Well met, Pallas Athena.”

  She met his bow with a smile of her own. “Hello Zed. I thought I’d drop by before things got busy.”

  Zed returned a wan smile. “I’d like to introduce you to my wife, Katherine Johansen Yates, the Captain of the Rose of the Dawn.”

  Athena held out a long slim arm. “It’s good to meet you Captain.” Zed noted that the image of Athena projected the subtle scent of jasmine. “May I call you Katherine?”

  Kat shook the offered hand and returned a bemused smile. “That would be fine, ahhh Athena?”

  “I didn’t know that you could appear here.” Zed interrupted, frowning. “I didn’t know that you could appear at all.”

  “My sister LOLA lent me access to her communication protocols, so I called up her holo-emitters and… here I am.” She looked around the room. “Nice ship you have. It could use a few improvements, though.”

  Lola appeared, floating cross-legged above the table, next to the holographic image of Callidus. She had on a sleeveless yellow dress so short it made Zed blink, and bright blue hair and eyes. Today her ears were very pointed and sported wide golden hoop earrings. “Hi sis.” She grinned at Athena, and gave the tall image a long speculative look. “The ship is just fine the way it is. What’s with the Deja Torres look?”

  Athena looked down at her body, stretched out a long pale leg and took a deep breath. “What’s the matter with my body? I rather like it.”

  Zed gazed at the tall woman a moment, and her flaunted attributes before turning away, his face flaming. “Oh brother!!!” He said to the wall.

  LOLA laughed. “It’s a little distracting to the humans.” She glanced at Katherine’s red and angry face.

  “But you chose a body imagined by Boris Vallejo, a Terran artist of similar vein.” Athena frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  LOLA coughed. “I kept the proportions a little smaller.”

  Athena sniffed. “They’ll have to get used to it.” She gave the glowering Kat a long look. “If you’d like Katherine, I can change you to look like this too, and Zed too, for that matter. Then there’d be nothing for either of you to be embarrassed about.”

  Kat let out a little squawk, and Zed replied with a firm “No!!” And then… “What did you say??” Athena gave him a slow smile. “No…” He gasped. “I like me just the way I am, and so does my wife.” He looked at Kat for her quick affirming nod.

  “Wellll, if you’re sure.” She drawled. “If you change your mind, just let me know. I have closets full of clothes I’ve whipped up to fit me, and we could share.” For a moment Kat wavered, and Zed turned to his new wife.

  “No! I like you just the way you are.”

  “But she’s so much bigger…” She put her hands well in front of her own chest to emphasize the point.

  “No!” Zed said emphatically, as he swept her up into a passionate kiss, ignoring the presence of the two AIs. LOLA raised an eyebrow. After a minute or so Zed pulled back slightly to look at his wife. Her pale cheeks were flushed now, setting off the constellation of freckles that ran from cheek to flaming cheek, across the bridge of her nose. Her emerald eyes were sparkling as she reached out to pull his head back to hers.

  Later, back in their rooms Kat confronted Zed. “Just how come I could actually feel Athena’s handshake?”

  Zed dropped into the couch, chuckling. “You’re forgetting that Cybele, back on Thal’ark Station, figured out holographic feedback using advanced Dramul science.”

  Katherine frowned for a moment. “Oh yeah… I remember now. She figured that out while we were recovering from radiation exposure.”

  Zed crossed his legs. “Remember that LOLA had access to Cybele’s data, right up to the point of our departure for Earth. When LOLA activated Athena the new AI had access to all of LOLA’s data files, and by extension… Cybele’s. Now think about this; Cybele has the resources of Thal’ark Station to draw on, and a vast memory system. She is immeasurably smarter than our LOLA. Athena, with a whole planet to draw on, is several magnitudes brighter than Cybele. Eventually I would like to see LOLA upgraded to bring the three into near parity.”

  “That’s good.” LOLA muttered out of the air. “I’m tired of being the poor dumb cousin to these young whippersnappers.” The voice sounded petulant.

  Kat tapped her foot dangerously, and her green eyes narrowed. “What did we tell you about eavesdropping?”

  “Oh give me a break.” The disembodied words continued. “I listen to everybody all the time. I just don’t tell what I hear—usually.”

  Kat’s face hardened. “I can fix that right now. Command override delta niner xray four sierra.” She snapped. “LOLA, you will not…”

  “No!” Zed said softly but firmly from the couch. “Let her listen, Kat. There might come a time when it will save a life.”

  The Captain of the Rose of the Dawn turned a surprised look to him. “But Zed, I don’t want her listening to us when we…” She flushed brightly and her words trailed off.

  LOLA laughed. “I’ll admit that the first few times I saw humans make love it was entertaining, but after seeing it again and again it gets old. I do not have a physical body, so I cannot get aroused, or feel lust or passion, although I can now feel the sensation of a caress or a kiss. I do, however, feel curiosity and love for my friends and family, and anger when they are hurt by others, and happiness when they feel joy.”

  Kat shut her eyes. “It must be a very lonely life.”

  “Not anymore.” LOLA returned softly.

  “And just who do you consider your family? “Zed asked with a thoughtful expression on his face.

  “You, Katherine and my sisters Cybele and Athena. Some time ago you mentioned that I should begin treating Cybele as a sister, and I’ve taken that to heart… well, we all have in a sense.”

  Zed cleared his throat and blushed. “Well now. I’ve never had a family before.”

  LOLA’s laughter was low and throaty. “We can’t wait for you and Katherine to begin having children. We’ve never had children in our family before.” Kat’s face turned scarlet.

  “That.” Zed said dryly. “Is called putting your foot in your mouth, LOLA.”

  “Ohhh.”

  Chapter Seven

  EVA

  “Launching the first four Strike Team members.” Zed was glad LOLA was doing the talking because he could feel himself shaking with tension. Due to the distances involved, he had to use a large shuttle to move all the teams into position near the main door. The cloaked shuttle floated just inside Callidus and the teams launched from there, saving them hours of boring and tiring flying. Now, on the bridge display four dots moved rapidly away from the concealed shuttle, and toward the equally concealed main door.

  “Will you have to decloak the main door to let the teams through?” Zed never took his eyes from the moving dots.

  “Not at all. They will simply pass through the containment and cloaking field. With their own cloaking units on from the outside they will be virtually invisible.”

  “Good.”

  The cargo sled was a blunt ten meter cigar shaped vehicle. Two meters wide, the truck had a small cab for the driver, and a flat magnetized bed for the cargo. Life support equipment was stored in a compartment behind the cab. A flat black cover rolled out of the side of the cargo area, covering the cargo in blackness as dark as night. The four cigars moved soundlessly away from the hidden shuttle, and seemed to ripple as they passed through the concealed door and out into open space.

  “The first team is away, Fleet Captain. Time-on-target, two hours. Next team will launch in thirty minutes.”

  Zed nodded. “Captain.” He gave Kat a wink. “You can release your personnel for dinner.” It was one of the amazing things about space battles — how long and draw out they were.

  “Very good sir.” Her head cocked just slightly to the side as her jade eyes regarded him. “And at what time will the Fleet Captain be going for dinner?”

&nbs
p; Zed flinched, his stomach in knots. “Well, I thought I’d just stay here and…”

  “You don’t eat enough Zed.” Katherine said in a firm voice. Several members of the bridge staff smiled at the comment. “We will go to dinner now.” She turned to the bridge personnel. “Atsuo,” she said to the diminutive Science Officer who often served as her second in command, “you have the con. Let half go to dinner and when they return, the other half. All will be back thirty minutes prior to time-on-target.”

  “Aye Captain. I have the con.” The small woman gave Kat a nod.

  The dining hall had few customers, despite a wide and varied menu. Zed sat stirring a steaming bowl of Haddock Chowder, a smoked fish potage that originated in northern Maine. A hot loaf of what appeared to be fresh baked bread, and a small crock of butter sat on the table untouched. Kat watched Zed as her own bowl of Tuscan Tomato and White Bean Soup grew cold in front of her.

  “What’s the problem, Zed?” She asked in a soft voice.

  He set his spoon down. “I really don’t know.” A frown creased his face. “Things are going well.” The frown deepened. “Too well actually. We should have been caught a dozen times over. I guess I’m just waiting for the other shoe to fall.”

  “What’s the old saying about the gift horse?” Kat asked wryly.

  “I suppose.” He took a spoonful of his soup, swallowing it without tasting. “I was a Flight Engineer on the old Rose of the Dawn, back in Earth orbit salvaging dead satellites and making room for new ones. I enjoyed keeping that old hunk of junk flying. I understood how things worked, and could rebuild half the damn ship in my sleep. Here I have to keep reminding myself that things aren’t happening by magic. Nanites!” He said the last word like a curse. “Matter replication, tachyon drives and most amazingly, self-aware machines. I’m so far out of my league that I occasionally think that I have a good handle on things. Ha!” He took another sip of his soup and blinked. “Hey… this is good.” His face twisted in a wry smile. “How did LOLA ever get the flavors so exactly right?” He chuckled. “Magic I say.” He tore off a chunk of bread, spread a dollop of butter and continued. “I won’t even go into what I think of our enemies.” He shuddered.

  Katherine took a spoonful of her own soup. “You should go down to biological sciences and speak with Kai Méng or Katie Lipman. They can tell you more about the Creednax. I understand that they were able to get a whole specimen on our last little adventure aboard the Creednax ship. We still have over an hour to time-on-target, and then more time until the Strike Teams can get clear.” She pushed her bowl aside. “I’ll call you if something comes up, Fleet Captain.”

  Zed gave her a sour look. “Never marry the ship’s captain. She’s too used to giving orders.” She gave him a winsome little smile. “Keep those smiles for the bedroom, Kat.”

  She sighed and nodded. “Yes Fleet Captain.” The smile vanished. “You should still go down to biological sciences.”

  He pushed back his half empty bowl and stood. “I’ll do that.”

  Kai Méng was a tall acerbic looking Chinese man with long dark hair, held back in a ponytail with a rubber band. Unlike the rest of the crew, he wore faded jeans, a tee shirt and sneakers that were so worn and tattered Zed couldn’t determine their original color. He knew that the man held several doctorates in biology and xeno-biology, and by reputation was highly eccentric.

  Beside him Katie Lipman, originally from Devonshire in the UK, and then the ill-fated Europa Base was a horse of a different color. Small and heavy set, her sandy blond hair was cut short in a no-nonsense bob, and she wore a spotless white lab coat. She turned her hazel eyes on him as Zed walked through the door, and smiled. “Pay up, Kai.” She said in a sweet voice over her shoulder. “I told you that he would be here before things kicked off.” She nodded to Zed as her grin widened. “Fleet Captain.”

  “You bet on me?”

  “It seemed the appropriate thing to do at the time.” Kai answered, turning to face Zed. He held out his hand. “It is good to finally meet you Fleet Captain.” His smile was thin and composed, and never reached his dark eyes. Kai was a recent addition to the Rose’s assorted crew, recruited from his teaching position at the University of California Berkeley. “Thank you for providing us the opportunity to collect such an interesting subject to study.” He gestured to a sealed clear chamber at the other side of the 10 meter square examination room. In it Zed could see the form of a Creednax soldier, strapped to the metal table. Green viscous fluid dripped from the table to the spotless white floor.

  “Are you sure it’s dead?” Zed grated through clenched teeth. He couldn’t suppress his shudder as he recalled the dark passageway.

  “Oh it’s very dead.” The two biologists moved toward the table, eagerly intent on showing off their prize. It was all Zed could do to follow them in a room that reeked with the highly pungent, penetrating odor of formic acid.

  Coming up to the table, Zed forced himself to look at the creature, and the more he looked the more it bothered him. “It doesn’t look like any insect I’ve ever seen.” He glared at the dead creature. “It looks more like a… a… I don’t know what the hell it looks like.” The size of a Saint Bernard, it still looked big and hairy and green, and he wanted for all the world to step on it.

  “Actually.” Kai began. “The Creednax exhibit qualities of both the ant and the spider. Reviewing the helmet cams from the Strike Team we were able to note at least four separate subspecies of Creednax, obviously built for specific jobs. The ones you encountered in the passageway had longer legs and a smaller head, but better eyes. I call them the scout model. This one,” His gaze shifted to the creature on the table. “is a soldier model from the Creedax warship. Note the heavier armor on the head along with the substantial mandible for crushing and tearing a prey.”

  “I noticed.” Zed replied, feeling slightly sick.

  “The head armor is heavy enough to turn a shot from one of our energy weapons, if I can believe what I saw in the recordings.”

  “They don’t look intelligent enough to develop spaceflight.” Zed murmured to himself, but Kai took it as a question directed at him.

  “The ships are probably from the very first world the Creednax overwhelmed.”

  “This combat model isn’t too dissimilar from the terrestrial aphaenogaster, or ant, with legs and coloration similar to araniella cucurbitina, or cucumber green spider.” Katie Lipman said quietly at his side. Zed jumped nonetheless. “The brain has been artificially enlarged in proportion to the rest of the creature to provide a more efficient, larger sized combatant. The mandibles and jaws have also been modified to not only remove the prey’s vital fluids, like the spider, but to consume the flesh.”

  Zed stared at the woman. “Are you saying they are intelligent?”

  “Oh yes.” Kai replied, jumping back into the conversation. “They are about as intelligent as the average poodle. They can follow simple commands, and receive simple instructions like stop, go, turn right, turn left or kill.” Zed shuddered. “The controlling creature, let’s call it a queen for simplicity, is something else entirely. Since it appears that there was only a repeater of some sort on this soldier, we have to assume that the instructions were received mentally.”

  “Telepthically?” Zed asked, frowning.

  “That’s what I said.” Kai continued in a condescending tone. On Zed’s other side Katie rolled her eyes. “Arachnids,” Kai continued, “are by their very nature solitary creatures. These things are not. They appear to be a bastard hybrid between araniella cucurbitina and aphaenogaster, or perhaps a honey bee would be closer.” This repeated almost exactly what Katie Lipman had said earlier, and the woman shot him a glare. He frowned at Zed’s blank look. “A spider and an ant. They receive commands, and relay information they have seen. The repeaters boost the signals when the range is too great for regular communication.” He turned to face the dead Creednax soldier. “The queen may be a radical genetic modification of the same species, or
it may be altogether alien. Obviously linked to a computer system somehow, she controls everything, from the design and creation of the workers to carry out her will, to the direction of the spacefleet. There are no unions to contend with, no environmental groups to protest what she does to the world. All there is, is HER.”

  “So you’re saying that the queen is for all intents and purposes the only really intelligent member of this race?”

  Kai thought the question over for several moments. “You could probably say that.” He gave Zed a long look. “You realize that I am making many assumptions based on very little real data?” Zed gave the man a curt nod. “Very well, without the hive queen all the species would have left would be…” He paused again. “Call them local warrior queens. These would control a certain number of soldiers on a certain set mission: go here and destroy this. They would mate to produce more warrior queens, but not a hive queen. Without the central hive queen, the species would eventually revert to solitary existences or small colonies without the benefit of space travel. Since they are all highly specialized, they would probably die rather quickly.” At Zed’s look of interest he gave the Fleet Captain a wry smile. “Don’t get too excited, Zed. The hive queen will probably sit at the center, literally, of millions of soldiers. Killing her would be… difficult. In addition to that, the Creednax have developed, or stolen more than likely, very sophisticated computer systems that control their ships under the direction of the local warrior queens.”

  Zed got a faraway look. “That would mean that they probably respond poorly to unusual circumstances.”