Darzi wagged her head. “What? What do you mean?”
“I mean they are running a social experiment.”
“Explain,” Darzi said, folding her arms across her chest.
“They are conditioning the Lizards for obedience and letting their social structure dictate the rest. They are treating this as an experiment like ancient earth scientists once did with lab rats. They fell back on basic behavioral science to solve a complex problem.”
“What in the hell are you talking about?” Darzi asked.
Drexler turned away from his scrolls. “The lizards who climbed that lift shaft on the bridge of the Thick River were starving to death. Reptilians can’t go long without food. They wanted to eat us. The Thick River controlled the food supply to see which group of lizards would come out on top. That is the group that the Thick River is rewarding with food. The rest are sorting themselves out.”
“That is…sick. Unacceptable. How is that better than your mad Captain Aahloh picking them off with an electron pistol?”
“Ethically questionable by human standards, yes. But the Trade Union has tolerated Reptilian aggression on the border worlds for centuries. Why do you think the Federated Americas, the Three Pillars, and the Pan-African Federation all have armies that do nothing but fight Reptilians? Well, they also fight some other violent species, but that’s not my point here. The Trade Union accepts violence as a cultural aspect of some species, just not inside the Lanes. This is no different. The ships are creating an environment in which some Lizards understand and can thrive.”
“If you let me and Tara’s brood storm those ships, we can get them back in a day. No social experiment required.”
“You’ll take casualties and make a lot more too. Then what?” Drexler said. He gave her his full attention now, pushing aside the scrolls. “Big picture, Darzi. What do we do about crews? We need ships. Once we clear the breakaways, we’ll need forty-thousand bodies to run them all, minimum. I’m talking a skeleton crew. It takes at least three hundred hands to run these ships, Darzi. We are building a fleet here.”
“You are insane,” Darzi said.
“Insane like a fox,” Drexler said.
“I’m not sure that’s how the saying goes.”
“Once the power struggle shakes out, I’m going to throw a few tons of tobacco at them, and get them to go to work for us.”
“I am speechless,” Darzi said.
“It will work. You didn’t think I’d get us this far. Admit it.”
“You have a point there.”
“If it fails, you can have your fun. Be my guest. If it works, we leave those eight ships behind as part of our Armada running the Trade between the BJP, New Detroit and Medina 3. The rest, we take with us.”
Darzi unfolded her arms and leaned forward. “You son-of-a-bitch,” she said. “You plan to make credits from all this. You want those ships to work for you just like that captured Lizard vessel you have working for you now back at the refugee cloud.”
“You’re damn right I do. Why the hell should I not make some credits? Do you have any idea how much this Armada costs to run? Do you know how many credit contracts all these supplies are costing?
I want a piece of as much of the forward spot contracts as I can get. Otherwise, my company is broke when this is all over. The brokerage fee income I’m making barely covers my expenses as it is. I’ve promised most of the credits I’ve earned so far to future trade deals with the other Captains out there.
Those contracts are worth hundreds of millions. The only way I can collect is if we are all linked up together through agreements. That’s how the damn Trade Union works. It’s a patchwork of interdependence. Shit, Darzi! Do I have to take you back to school on this? This is the world we live in.” The veins in Drexler’s neck stood out, and the blood rose to his cheeks as the words fired from his lips.
“Yes, but you are looking to make all of that interdependence focus on you and your bottom line,” Darzi said.
“You’re damn right I am! Most of it, anyway. That is how you win the game.”
“This is not a game!”
“That is where you’re dead wrong. You tell me it’s not a game when your Admiral Luthra shows up with his shiny new BJP battle fleet and his plan to absorb the Armada.”
Darzi registered shock. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the BJP trying to take full control of the war effort,” Drexler said, then paused. “No, I’m talking about one Colonel trying to take over the war effort in the name of the BJP for his own gain. Pick your poison, Darzi. Which is the better option for you? Say what you want about me, Darzi, but my primary goal is to kick the Lizard out of the Trades by the most expedient means. Do you think Luthra wants the same thing?”
“So, you’re not just a hustler,” Darzi said.
“Oh, I am definitely a hustler,” Drexler said. “A hustler on a scale like mine was once referred to as a tycoon.”
“When do you expect to have a solution for these eight ships?”
“I’ll let you know,” Drexler said, turning back to his scrolls.
“And the other ships? We have tens of thousands of Lizards on them.”
“Your job is the same there. Keep them secure, keep them fed, keep them alive. I will let you know my plans when there is more work for you to do,” Drexler replied while he read. “That’s it. Dismissed.”
Darzi rose slowly. She did not take her eyes from the Captain as she left the room. She still looked back at him as the doors slid closed.
“You are extremely tough with that woman,” Reggie said.
“That,” Drexler said, finally looking up from his scrolls, “is because the woman terrifies me. If I let up on her at all, she will shred me like a Hunot shreds a fish.”
“It’s either that,” Reggie said, “or you are in love.”
“I’m ignoring what you just said,” Drexler replied.
“What do you plan to do about my sister ships and the Reptilians on them?” Reggie asked.
“I’m going to give most of them to the BJP and the Medina 3 government,” Drexler said.
Reggie was not able to formulate a reply.
“Mumlo, who’s next?” Drexler called.
“The Protector is asking for you. They say it is important.”
“They want me over there now?” Drexler replied.
“Yes. They have a shuttle standing by.”
Drexler paused for a moment and looked at the pile of glowing, blinking display scrolls that streamed data of every kind. All of it needed his attention. But when the Protector called, Drexler had to put everything aside. Fourseven was his ace in the hole.
He was surprised to find Boljak waiting in the shuttle bay beside an Arachnid transport.
“Hello, Captain,” Boljak said in his strange, multi-toned voice.
“Good to see you, Boljak,” Drexler replied. He meant it. Drexler took a liking to the spider.
“Well, let’s go,” Drexler said. Boljak led him into the shuttle, and they took off.
26
General Fourseven called a meeting of her followers for the first time since their departure from the Insectoid Homeworld. The gathering was long overdue. They spent so much time planning their flight, then rendering aid to the refugees, then engaging in battle, that they began to lose touch with the larger goals. It was Cila who suggested the gathering in her typically direct style.
“General,” she said, “our combined hive is falling apart, and you need to do something about it.”
Fourseven did not quite agree with the severity of the assessment. She was more than happy to continue standing on the force of her presence as a Winged Insectoid, top of the genetic hierarchy. But she found herself in a new era that required new ways. The soldiers on the ship, of Arachnid, Termite, and Winged alike, served by their own will. They were volunteers bound to the hive more by choice than biology. That required more thought, effort, and deference.
Most of the crew was a
ble to gather in the ceremonial chamber at the center of the ship that also housed the main computer. A little more than a hundred soldiers remained behind to run the ship listening to the proceedings over comm channels.
When the time came, Fourseven and her personal Guard strode through the parting crowd with the old Termite Monk. Fourseven helped him climb into the symbolic throne that formed the heart of the chamber. He settled back into the polished black stone with chattering, creaking shell plates. Fourseven stood to his right and Cila to the left as they waited for the crowd to settle.
Fourseven was happy to see that all her followers stood mixed, Arachnid beside Winged and termites in between. They formed a new type of hive that Fourseven had never before seen. Some of the Winged even took to arguing amicably with the Arachnids in that strange Arachnid way.
When Fourseven lifted her voice above the crowd, she spoke in the common language, and not with the sacred words of high primes. “We are a new hive,” she began, and the crowd grew silent. “I speak to you with the common words, not because our task is mundane, but because these words bind us closely to one another.
I look out at you, my children, the workers of the forest, and the termite priests, and I see a new form of sacred labor. Across the countless ages, the Insectoid species tended a single world, kept it safe and in balance, with reverence and respect. But now we carry our intentions beyond our world, to the species among the stars, who struggle for a different kind of balance. For them, we struggle, so that we can return to our home with the Great Solution that we seek.
Today I am proud to stand beside you as a servant to this Great Solution.”
The crowd murmured and shifted. At first, Fourseven stood tall and proud, stiffened by her own inspired words. But as the voices in the crowd grew louder, and she began to pick out scraps of their meaning, she faltered. Not everyone in the assembly took her words as inspiration, even some of her own children. Fourseven stood in disbelief as Cila turned her eight eyes toward her.
Formerly amicable groups of Arachnid and Winged insects broke apart. Arachnid clustered with Arachnid, and the Winged gathered in ever-larger groups. Termites tried to stand between them as the arguing grew louder.
A shriek filled the chamber, and Cila leaped high above the crowd. From her abdomen, she cast a single thread that stuck to the chamber ceiling. She swung above the crowd shrieking until all eyes fell upon her. Cila cast another thread to the ceiling, cut them both loose and hung above the crowd by gripping both threads in her lower arms.
“Enough!” Cila screamed. “The General says you are a hive, so behave like a Hive!”
“Her words do not feed us!” an Arachnid shouted. “Her pretty words do not stop the war at home!” shouted another. “Her words do not repair the ship!”
“No, they do not!” Cila shouted back. “But if you doubt her words, you are fools! If you shrink from her words, you are not of my hive! If you do not honor her words, I have no respect for you!” The crowd stilled. At that moment, it occurred to Fourseven in a single rush of emotion how much respect Cila had earned from every insect on the ship. She stood on the entirety of that earned trust now, willing to risk it all to support Fourseven.
“Every single insect is here because they chose to be,” Cila continued, ”If you doubt this mission, then you are free to leave. I will personally send you off with a thank you and a goodbye forever, and I will never think of you again!
Your choices are but two: stay and honor your commitment or leave and resume what little remains of your life back home. We called you here today to tell you how it will be. It is up to us, as a single hive, to succeed or fail. We did not call you here to listen to your doubts. We called you here to work!”
Cila lowered herself from the ceiling by another thread and stood once again by the ceremonial throne. The crowd murmured and clattered softly as the separate clusters blended again.
Cila brazenly walked across the throne steps, heedless of custom. She stood in front of Fourseven and said, “The time for pretty speeches is over General.”
“A fact which you demonstrate very well,” Fourseven replied. Her guard produced angry waves of pheromones, but Cila ignored them.
“Sorry to be so blunt,” Cila added, in spite of herself.
“Never apologize for being what you need to be. I hope you continue to be as blunt whenever I fail to understand what is necessary,” Fourseven replied.
“Thank you, General. I will.”
A creaking sound from the shell of the rising Termite Priest silenced the crowd again. Fourseven moved he help him, but one outstretched lower arm stayed her.
“I too once lived with doubt,” the Monk said, and the crowd stood silently to hear better his voice, that now carried the universal insectoid language of high primes. “Watching our world descend to war among the Warmbloods and the Insect species shook my faith. But then, I found new faith in the Sacred Predictor through the vision of our new General. I found faith in this new hive made up of differing species. So this is why we bring before you the Deliverer, who I believe will help us fulfill the Promise predicted by our sacred computer.”
Drexler leaned against the rear of the throne hidden from view. His heart raced, and sweat ran down his face not only from the heat but because of the thousand gigantic insects that made seemingly angry noises on the other side of the throne. His conscious mind told him that the insects meant him no harm, but some deep, primal part of his brain urged him to run away fast and not look back. Boljak represented a rational voice that was hard to hear above Drexler's terror.
“You smell frightened,” Boljak said.
“You have a gift for understatement,” Drexler replied.
“Do not worry. Not all Insectoids hate Warmbloods,” Boljak said.
“You are not helping!”
“The termite asks for you to speak to them. It is time for you to stand by the throne,” Boljak said.
“Do you believe all this ‘Deliverer’ and 'prophecy' business?” Drexler asked.
Boljak stood in silence for a while. “My kind not too much involved with sacred visions. We use the models to raise food for our families, take care of the forest. Not much think beyond that. No need. We just live.”
“That is not what I asked, Boljak,” Drexler said. “I asked you if you believe I am this Deliverer.”
Boljak stepped close and used a gesture recently learned from his new human friend. He placed two hands on Drexler’s shoulders and said, “I know good when I see it. You are good. Good Human.”
Drexler took a deep breath, wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his flight suit and stepped out from behind the throne. Fourseven moved to him and guided him forward with two of her arms around his shoulders.
“Will they understand me when I speak?” Drexler asked.
“Yes,” Fourseven replied. “Our computer will translate.”
Drexler swallowed hard. The crowd resembled a rippling pond made up of insects. “Hello,” he said, figuring that was as good a place as any to start. Shells clacked and clattered. The confused voices Drexler heard moments before fell silent. He did not understand the words, but standing on the Protector and looking out at the group made him understand something more important. They were all travelers in space.
“All of you are here for a reason,” Drexler said. The fear he felt before disappeared, and in its place, from somewhere unknown, he found calm. “I am sorry, I don’t know about any visions. I am not sure I believe in visions. Some people of my kind believe in forces beyond the physical word, beyond science. I don’t. Sorry, I simply do not.
I hope I won’t disappoint you, but my beliefs are much simpler. I believe in promises. I believe in bonds, so that means I believe in people.” The crowd shifted, and insects turned to one another and murmured.
“Do they know that word ‘people?’” Drexler asked.
“No,” Fourseven replied. “There is no translation from tradespeak.”
“People,” Dr
exler said to the crowd again. “You and me, we are people. I am a person because I have thoughts, and I think and feel. Many people make up a group, a hive. Understand?
So, when I say that I believe in people, that means I believe in you. You did not have to help us when we asked, but you did. All of you. You did not have to give up your food to feed other people, but you did. You did this for people who were not of your own kind.” Drexler paused. The sum total of every instinct he acquired over the years to hustle, to manipulate and gain advantage suddenly stared him in the face. He finally achieved his ultimate bottom line full of a long string of digits, and it meant nothing. All the contracts he made out there in the Armada, all the credits he stood to make just seemed trivial. “All I can tell you is that other people out there are suffering and dying for no damn reason at all, other than some other people believe they have the right to kill them and make them suffer.
That is wrong. Sentient beings, people, cannot be treated that way. I won’t let that happen if I can help it. I can do something. We can do something. I know you feel the same way, or you would not be here. You would still be at home.
So, after we are done with the Reptilians, I will take you wherever you want to go. I will help you figure out this vision, whatever it is. I will help you find the truth of it. I cannot promise you we will find the solution to save your planet. I can promise you that I dedicate my life to trying.”
As Winged insects jumped up and swarmed high in the chamber, as Arachnids shrieked and cheered, Drexler stood dumbstruck, wondering whether or not he was sane.
He just made a verbal contract without any idea how he would deliver, or whether or not it would pay off. In all the schemes and scams and capers Drexler ever pulled, he had never broken a contract, verbal or otherwise. That was something a Merchant Astronaut never did unless he never wanted to do business again. Breaking a contract was the ultimate sin in his world. With one runaway tongue, Drexler put himself into the prophecy business.
“Reggie,” Drexler subvocalized. “Are you there?”
“Yes, Drexler,” Reggie replied.
Rogue Messiah: Fleetfoot Interstellar Series, Book 2 Page 28
