“No, it doesn’t. The rest of the People regard them as a necessary evil. You may come into contact with them before you are fully integrated as one of the People, but my advice to you is if you are offered the opportunity, decline it and keep well away from them. If you do meet them, you’re likely to be asked to join them. You must decline. If you become one of the Tolen, it is for life. There is no getting out.”
“There’s no chance of that. I’ve had enough of the military and I know that apart from being forced into it, I’ve had it pretty easy. But what’s so bad about them? Why do you consider them a necessary evil, and why have they never been to this galaxy before?”
“As I’ve said before, a conversation with you would be much easier if you would ask one question at a time.”
“Yeah, but less fun.” Mark answered with a grin. “You need to chill out a bit Alan. You were much more relaxed when we first left Earth. You used to laugh, although mostly at me.”
“Perhaps you have forgotten already about the events of the last few days. There hasn’t been much to laugh about.”
“But it’s all over now, everything is fine. We can relax!”
“It’s not fine for the dead, or for their loved ones and their friends. Or for the wounded, although they will get better, including you. You have serious injuries that need medical intervention.”
“Oh, I guess you’re right. But I’m OK, these are just minor injuries. They don’t even hurt.”
“The reason they don’t hurt is because you’re AI has shut down the pain receptors in the areas of the wounds. And you are feeling good because it has released endorphins into you. I have looked at the scan of your injuries. Your chest and arm wounds are flesh wounds, but you have lost a lot of blood. There is a hole in your back and two badly broken ribs on your right with some lung damage. The particle weapon wound to your chest has separated a rib at the front and back and collapsed your left lung. The knife wound to your knee has penetrated the joint severing the lateral collateral ligament and torn the lateral meniscus from the top of your tibia. Have you noticed difficulty in walking and shortness of breath?”
“Er, now you come to mention it…”
“You’re going straight into the care of the medical AI when we land. Have you contacted Sally yet?”
“No, but you haven’t answered my questions about the Tolen yet either.”
“Get your priorities right Mark. You’ve got enough injuries already without inviting more from Sally. Contact her now.”
“Nag, nag, nag. OK I’ll contact her now.”
“Kate…” Mark started to say to his AI.
“You are connected now.” His AI interrupted.
Sally opened the conversation with “So, you survived.”
“Yes, You might seem more pleased.” Mark replied.
“And Tk'ng Dach Rrn?”
“He’s dead.”
“You killed him? Are you sure?” Sally sounded surprised.
“Yes of course I’m sure. And I have proof.”
“Really? Bloody hell Mark, well done! Are you sure he’s dead? What sort of proof? It will need to be pretty convincing.”
“Will his head do?” Mark asked.
“Yes, perfect. What happened? How did you get his head?”
Mark sighed. Why did she find it so hard to believe he had done what he said he would? “I got his head by cutting it off after I killed him. If you want more details, I used the knife he stabbed me with to cut it off and wrapped it up in the cape he was wearing.”
“He was wearing a cape? Yuck. How unbelievably unfashionable! Did you say he stabbed you? Are you injured?”
“Not really. He just slashed me open across my chest and arm and then stabbed me in the knee. From Alan’s description my knee is pretty fucked now. Oh and I got hit by shrapnel in my back which has shattered a couple of ribs and I was shot in the chest by a particle beam weapon which has separated a rib in two places and collapsed my left lung. I’ve got a bit of a headache too, but apart from that, I’m fine thanks. And you?”
“Well, I burnt my tongue by drinking coffee that was a bit too hot, but I think I’ll survive.”
Mark laughed, he could imagine the grin on Sally’s face as she said that.
“How did you get injured though? I thought the People’s armour you’ve got was going to protect you from anything?” Sally asked.
“That’s complicated. How is the battle on the ground going?”
“I have got so many soldiers now that we’re still landing more of them with supporting equipment. Tk'ng Dach Rrn’s soldiers here are much better trained than the previous one’s we’ve encountered, but those battle line tactics you mentioned to Orange are working well, especially now we’ve modified them with experience. The Lieutenant Colonels all think you are a genius.”
“Well, don’t disillusion them. Alan said I am to go straight into medical as soon as we land, so I guess I won’t see you.”
“We’ll go to medical with you, though I am sure you’ll be put under for a few days while you are healed.”
“A few days? From Alan’s description it will take weeks for me to recover. And who’s this ‘we’ that will come to medical.”
“The team of course.” Sally said, sounding surprised he asked. “We’ve all been worried about you and even Simon won’t go to the front line until he knows you’re OK. It should only take a few days, three, maybe four at most to get you fixed up. You need to stop thinking in pre-emergent terms about medical technology. As long as your brain is intact and still alive, we could grow you a whole new body in ten days.”
“And if my brain was dead but my body was intact and still alive?”
“I don’t think we would notice.” Sally answered. “I’m going to sign off now and let the team know what happened. See you here soon.” And Sally was gone.
“We’ll be there in a few minutes.” Alan informed Mark.
“OK, I need to have a conversation with my AI, I don’t understand some of what happened down there. It was weird. But I still want to know a lot more about the Tolen.”
“I would be interested in a detailed report. I could track you being taken in and being left in a room by yourself, and then being taken deeper into the fortress until you stopped, presumably at a doorway - then your signal vanished.”
“How did you know where and when to rescue me then?” Mark asked.
“Mothers AI calculated the optimum timing and common sense led me to believe the best place to look for you was where I lost contact with you.”
“So it was pure luck the shuttle didn’t land on me and crush me to a pulp?”
“That’s one way to look at it.” Alan answered calmly.
Mark addressed his AI. ”Kate, what happened down there? You went quiet and my phase shift protection stopped working. Just when things looked like they were going to get really unpleasant the chair restraints retracted, doors locked, the lights went funny - what the hell was happening?”
“As soon as we entered the room Tk'ng Dach Rrn referred to as his lair I lost all communications. I was completely cut off. You may have noticed though that I still had control of your concealed weapon and was able to block your pain receptors. I interrogated the late Tk'ng Dach Rrn’s AI’s and can tell you what happened. As part of my contingency planning I took the precaution of instructing the AI’s that if they lost contact with me they should do everything they could to protect and assist you if you were in danger, otherwise they were to continue to operate as if I were there to control them. I understand that you had a long conversation with Tk'ng Dach Rrn but then he was going to carry out injurious procedures on you. Although I couldn’t see or hear what was happening, I received your instruction to fire your hidden weapon and fired it on command. At that point the AI’s took control of the smart metal in the room to release you and remove the instruments that Tk'ng Dach Rrn planned to use on you. They manipulated the smart metal to provide you with some shelter to protect you from his gunfire. They locked t
he main doors to prevent his guards from gaining entrance, but couldn’t prevent their use of explosives to blast the doors open. When you exited into the corridor in pursuit of him they used the lights to guide you to him. Does that clarify things for you?”
“Yes, thanks. It seems that I owe the AI’s one. What has happened to them? Are they still there?”
“I have removed their personalities from the fortress and stored them in a dormant state in a secure area on board Mother.”
“That doesn’t sound good. It sounds like a prison sentence. Can’t you do something for them?”
“Yes. When you specify your new craft, you can request to have it without certain AI personalities loaded. When you take possession of it, I can install the personalities in storage onto those subsystems.”
“Will they be exact copies of the Tk'ng Dach Rrn’s AI’s?”
“Not copies, the actual personalities. A personality is what gives the AI consciousness, self-awareness. Without a personality an AI would be just a piece of machinery, like the smartphone you had back on Earth. Think of it as analogous to the spark of life, or spirit, in an organic life form. Sometimes, for some reasons, a person dies. Their body can be kept alive, but once they have died, they can’t be brought back because the essence of the person has gone. An AI personality is like that.”
“Wow. That’s all a bit metaphysical.”
“It’s simple really, you’ll get used to it. We are approaching Mother and about to land. Do you want to speak Alan before we do?”
Alan spoke. “Mark, we are about to land. I am taking the shuttle to Sally and her team. I suggest we go directly to a medical facility. My AI has prepared one for you.”
“Er, yes, OK.” Mark was a little disoriented by the abrupt change of conversation from his AI to Alan.
The shuttle settled and the door slid open. Sally stepped in while Mike Simon and Orange stood outside, looking in.
“You’re covered in blood. It’s all down your front and it's dripping off your leg.” Sally said, as though she were talking to a naughty child. “Come on, let's get you to medical.”
Alan said “You take his left Sally, I’ll take his right.”
Sally stood still and looked at Alan for a moment, then said “OK.”
Between them they carefully pulled Mark to his feet and half carried him through the door onto the landing bay.
“You don’t need to do this, I’m fine. I am quite capable of walking myself.” Mark said to them.
Sally looked at Alan, who blinked his eyes slowly and tilted his head slightly. “Just shut up.” Sally told Mark, and they blinked to the medical facility.
Before he could protest any more, Sally, Alan, Orange and Simon carefully lifted him onto the table in the middle of the room. As soon as he was laying down, Mike leant over and pressed an injector tube to his neck. Everything went dark.
The Tolen
Mark Opened his eyes and coughed. Then he coughed some more. Then he had a full blown coughing fit. When he had finished, slightly out of breath, he looked up and saw Sally, Alan, Simon, Mike and Orange standing around him.
“I said we should have left him under treatment for another day.” Alan said.
“I’m fine.” Mark said, then coughed again.
He swung his legs over the side of the table and stood up. The sheet covering him slid off. Sally held out a fresh black jumpsuit.
“You might want to put this on.” She said.
Mark sighed. Maybe next time he would remember he would be naked under the sheet when he woke up in medical. As he pulled the jumpsuit on, he checked his body for scars. He was a bit disappointed to find no trace of his wounds.
“Good to see you back on your feet.” Simon said to him as he dressed. “I’ve heard the full report of what happened. You’re a bloody hero! Are you sure you weren’t a soldier back on Earth?”
“No Simon. I wasn’t a soldier back on Earth. Do you remember what I was like when you were trying to train me to be a soldier? Why do you all always misjudge me? I blunder through things and you congratulate me as though it was all carefully planned. You can’t know the truth of how it ended. There were only two people who witnessed it, one of them is dead and I haven’t told anyone yet. It wasn’t heroic. We fought. He had a knife. He slashed me across the chest. I broke his arm, or maybe dislocated his shoulder, I’m not sure which. I tried to kick him, he stabbed me in the knee. He danced around a bit and told me I couldn’t win the fight against him. I agreed, so I shot him. See? Nothing heroic in that, is there?”
“Mark! You are a fucking legend! Or at least, you will be when that story gets out.” Simon told him with a big grin.
Orange and Sally laughed, Mike did her chirping thing and even Alan nodded and clicked, though he didn’t go as far as slapping his legs.
“Four weeks ago, could you see yourself fighting to the death with a psychopathic knife-wielding reptile - and winning?” Sally asked.
Mark looked down and shook his head. But then he looked up and grinned. “This is just mad.”
“Sally, we need him down on the battlefield.” Simon told her.
“Oh no. I’m done fighting.” Mark said to him.
“Not to fight Mark, to inspire the troops. We can show you to the enemy too, the soldier who killed Tk'ng Dach Rrn!”
“He’s right Mark.” Sally said. “We’ve broadcast to the enemy that their leader is dead. We’ve told them their high command have all been shot down as they tried to leave the planet so they have no centralised leadership now. They know the plan for the galactic empire is finished. They have nothing to fight for now, but they are continuing to fight just as hard as though nothing had happened. Maybe if we can show them you are on the battlefield now, it will inspire our troops to fight harder and de-motivate the enemy.”
“Just remind me Sally, what is your policy when you defeat an enemy?”
“We hand over to the civilian authorities and leave. You know that.”
“No, I mean what happens to the enemy combatants?”
“They are all dead by then, so they get buried or cremated, depending on local custom.”
“Do you think Tk'ng Dach Rrn’s soldiers know that?”
“Yes, of course they do. Oh. I see what you mean.”
“Right. They aren’t fighting for Tk'ng Dach Rrn, they are fighting for their lives. If you want this to stop, you have to offer them terms. Offer a cease-fire now and stop the killing. If their high command are all out of the picture, it may take some time for them to find a negotiating team, and the cease-fire will probably be patchy, but it’s got to be better than continuing with this pointless slaughter.”
“It would take us some time to find a negotiating team too. It’s not something we do.”
“Supposing you had someone available that you could trust who was an expert in communications and diplomacy?”
“Mark, much as I - like you, I wouldn’t put you in charge of diplomatic negotiations with a piece of cheese.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I meant Ti’rrk. There must be other Ants with her background. They could put together a team. Do you think they would do it?”
“Well, they might. But if the enemy were to surrender, what do we do with them? We have no prisons, and there are about one hundred and fifty thousand of them here. What the hell are we going to do with them all?”
“What you need is a prison planet.” Mark explained.
“Yes, and wouldn’t it be great if we had one?”
“You could take a suitable planet and use that.”
“OK.” Sally answered. “And where are we going to find a habitable planet to ship them all to?”
“We’re in orbit round one right now.”
“Hmm. That could work, but there’s a fatal flaw in your plan. Who would want to run and secure a prison planet and has the capability to do it? I can tell you right now, my army doesn’t have the skills or capability to do it and I’m damned if I’m going to b
ecome a jailer!”
“I wasn’t thinking of you and your army being the jailers, but someone might.”
Alan spoke up. “I may have a solution to that problem.”
“Not the People surely!” Sally said. “I wouldn’t trust you to look after them. They would either all escape or you would kill them all. I don’t think you would be capable of finding a middle line between those extremes.”
“You considerably underestimate us Sally.” Alan replied. “The Tolen are certainly capable of securing, managing and caring for a prison planet and they are here already, although I hesitate to encourage them to establish a foothold in this galaxy.”
Sally looked puzzled. “Who or what are the Tolen? And what are they doing here?”
“They are what you might call a subculture of the People. A closed community. They have never been to this galaxy before, we have had no need of them. I would rather they weren’t here now. They are here to secure and search the fortress.”
“Why do they want to search the fortress? Why don’t you want them here? And what sort of subculture?” Sally asked.
“Communication would be much simpler if you were to restrict yourself to one question at a time. I have exactly this problem with Mark.” Alan said tetchily. “It’s complicated. The Tolen have come to secure and search the fortress because they are looking for something. I don’t want them here because they have a habit of taking over civilisations.”
Sally looked puzzled. “Taking over civilisations? I don’t understand.”
“I said it was complicated. I have had a communication from them. They are waiting to meet Mark and me. I don’t want to keep them waiting, so please excuse us. Would you ask Ti’rrk about the Ants forming a negotiating team?”
“Yes, yes of course I will.” Sally answered uncertainly, Events seemed to be pulling control out of her hands.
Alan and Mark blinked to the command centre.
“Are we meeting them here?” Mark asked.
“No! I’m not having them on Mother. We’re going to their craft. Let me do the talking, only speak if they ask you something, and then limit yourself to answering as briefly and succinctly as possible.”
Unwilling From Earth Page 42
