EYES CLOSED AND RUMBLE TO RECEIVE QUERY DESOLATOR IS INSANE DEVICE ALSO VESSEL YOU ARE ORGANIC SENTIENTS HAVE YOU DEVICES SANE OR INSANE
“You weren’t kidding.” Absen took a deep breath, let it out. “Thoughts?”
“They say desolator is an insane device, and ask whether we have sane or insane devices,” Mirza remarked. “Could it be a device that causes or cures madness?”
Ford spoke up. “What about ‘also vessel’. Desolator is insane device also vessel? Could the vessel itself be the desolator device that is in some way insane?”
“Perhaps it is –”
“Conn: Sensors. Gentlemen, something is happening.” Tanaka pointed at the screens showing the data feeds from the drone they had launched. They fuzzed, then whited out, except for the gamma-neutron detector which showed the same growing blob of fusion activity in the middle.
“Did the thing destroy it?”
“No, sir. I’d say a wide spectrum blinding laser just overloaded almost everything.” Tanaka made adjustments to his console. “I’ll see what I can do, but I think we lost everything but the gamma-neutron.”
“Are we still getting something from the eyeball?”
“Yes, sir, those screens there.” The ones Johnstone indicated showed the big ship from a side angle as it slowly cruised by at long range. “It doesn’t seem to be reacting to the transmissions, though I have deliberately kept them minimum power. Maybe it viewed the drone as hostile, since it is coming right at it.”
“As long as we can see that it is still on course and speed…”
“Yes, sir, Conquest’s own sensors can tell us that. The probe was just to get a closer look. The bogey is decelerating for approach to New Jove orbit near Reta, if I had to guess.”
Admiral Absen paced a moment, looking at the holotank. “The tug Booker – do they have contact with their base?”
“I’ll check, sir.” A moment later Johnstone reported, “Yes, sir. They left all the cameras and sensors on and transmitting. I’m retrieving their encryption keys and integrating it into our displays…now. It doesn’t show much yet.”
Absen nodded. “But it will be interesting to see what it does when the ship approaches the ice moon.”
Ford grunted. “Just lost the drone. EM pulse hit it.”
“Well, I guess that tells us it doesn’t want us to look too closely.” Absen glanced around the bridge at the worn-out crew. “Captain Mirza, I am going to go catch a couple of hours rest. I suggest you rotate some of your people and yourself too. Wake me when the bogey gets to Reta.” Without waiting for an answer he left via the Captain’s hatch, searching through officer country until he found an empty stateroom in which to collapse.
***
Jill checked her GPS reading, then stopped at the crest of a low dune and stared at the shore of the great worldwide Afranan ocean. Sea grass and hardy bushes grew along the coast above the tide line, but no trees taller than a couple of meters. To the Hippos, it was cold here; for humans, it was quite comfortable.
Regulation skinsuit on, she carried a rucksack with some food and standard military gear, as well as her PW5. Anything bigger and she’d have had to check it out of the armory, obliterating the covert nature of this mission.
She’d told Dannie she needed to get out of the stacked-box warren of the human city, saying it had started to feel like a ghetto, and asked her to look after the kids. It wasn’t an unusual thing for demobilized female troops to feel restless after so much motherhood, nor to share childrearing duties – and there were always the communal crèches.
Human society here on Afrana had adjusted to the demands of war, had made do. That didn’t stop Jill from feeling guilty. She told herself it was just this one mission, and that after three years, she needed to stretch her legs. This explanation seemed inadequate, but at least it had the virtue of being true.
A curl of smoke caught her eye, whipping inland in the cool sea breeze, so she hiked her ruck up and trotted down the hill. Though she had long ago adjusted to the 1.4 gravities of the Hippo world, she still felt some kinks in her musculature, confirming her assessment that she had been getting lazy. It felt good to get out.
Rather than find her way through the brush, she approached along the beach, the better to recon her objective. Old habits died hard, to have as much information as early as possible, and not to get caught out. Soon she could see a man next to a small fire. Once she got closer, she saw two whole spitted glusters roasting over it.
“Good day, Jill,” Spooky called as he turned the huge lobster-like critters over in the heat. Eventually the pressure of escaping gasses would cause them to whistle and their shells to split, and not long after they would become edible. Taking a dose of bio-engineered gut bacteria along with them helped.
“G’day, Spooky.” She looked around. “We going in NOE or what?”
“NOK, you mean? Nap of the Koio, not Earth.” Koio was the Hippos’ word for their own world. “Why bother?” Spooky stuck two fingers in his mouth and let loose a piercing whistle.
Jill’s PW5 was in her hand and pointed at the disturbance in the water before she realized what it was: the top of Ezekiel Denham’s living ship, breaching the surface like a whale. As she put the gun away, the ship’s owner rose through an iris at the top, then ran along its surface to jump off, wade through the light surf and join them at the fire.
Ezekiel set down the steaming pot he had carried. “Seaweed soup,” he said by way of explanation, and unhooked three mugs, pouring it like tea. He handed a cup to each.
Jill sniffed at hers, then sipped, savoring the unusual flavor. With a whole new world full of alien foods and spices, she never expected to run out of novelty. I’ll trust that it’s safe for humans…
She stared at Ezekiel, dressed in a jumpsuit of subdued yellow, Sekoi code for Meme Blend. In their language, they were even called “Yellows.” Long the masters of their society, they remained in charge despite throwing off the Empire. A democratic revolution it was most decidedly not, but she wasn’t about to concern herself with their governmental forms. It seemed no worse than historical India, with its castes, its Brahmins and its Dalits and everything in between.
“Why do you wear that?” she asked, not expecting to get an answer she liked. “Do you get off on lording it over the natives?”
Ezekiel grimaced into his soup. “Why do you put on your sergeant-major insignia? Do you enjoy lording it over the troops?”
“I have a position of service: authority and responsibilities,” she retorted.
“As do I, whether you see it or not. I’m the only human Blend on this expedition,” and here his eyes flicked at Spooky, “even if I am only one quarter Meme, and so I’m the ambassador. I can talk to them in ways no other human can. I’d think you’d understand these things, Jill.”
“Okay, okay, sorry. I was out of line.” To cover her retreat she gestured with the cup. “Pretty good, this.”
“Thanks. Roger makes it.”
“Hmm?” Her eyes narrowed. “Roger?”
“My ship. Steadfast Roger.”
“Funny. That’s what my son is called. Named for a friend, may he rest in peace.”
Ezekiel smiled. “Mine’s just a little play on words. Like Jolly Roger.”
“Ah. You’re a space pirate.”
“Someone has to be.” Ezekiel rinsed his mug in the sea and hooked it back on the pot. “Is that gluster done yet? It’s starting to peep.”
“Soon.” Spooky rolled the spits once more over the flame.
“So,” Jill ventured, “I take it we’re going by submarine?”
“Spaceship, submarine, it’s all the same to Roger. In fact, he likes it in the ocean. Lots of interesting things to see and smell.”
Jill laughed. “Here in the twenty-second century and we’re back to animal transportation.”
The two men chuckled at her observation, and then they listened to the glusters’ songs as their shells began to open.
Ch
apter Six
“What do you think they mean, Trissk?” Even to himself Chirom’s question sounded didactic, a habit of the elders, but in reality he did not know.
Trissk looked at the screen, on which the alien words showed:
WE ARE ORGANIC SENTIENTS HUMAN DEMAND DESOLATOR WHAT IS SANE OR INSANE WHAT IS
“The first part seems clear – ‘We are organic sentients called Human, and what is Desolator?’ But the other part…do they ask what is the meaning of the words ‘sane’ or ‘insane?’ The Meme equivalents are not so different, though their language structure is completely alien. Or do they mean what thing is sane or insane?”
“The latter, I suspect.”
Trissk arched his back suddenly, a gesture of surprised epiphany. “It all hinges on Desolator. It must. They do not know what it is. Even we sometimes speak of the ship and sometimes the AI. Of course they are confused. We haven’t explained very well. I’ll send this:”
We are happy to answer your question. Desolator is an artificial intelligence that is insane. It is also the name of this vessel. We believe you are organic sentients. Do you not have artificial intelligences? Are they not sane or insane?
Trissk eagerly clicked send before Chirom could comment.
“Perhaps next time we should compose a clearer, simpler message,” the elder chided. “We must speak as if to children, to communicate past the barrier of our own languages with only the aid of our enemies’ codes. In any case, let us see what they respond with.”
Abruptly the screen flashed and went blank. Trissk prodded at the keyboard, then spoke a vulgarity. “The feed has been cut, or the device destroyed.”
“Perhaps. Let us find out for sure.”
Ten minutes later Trissk was back in his suit in vacuum, holding the severed cable. He could see the device emplaced and apparently undamaged, except for the spool of connector wire, which was missing. Further vulgarities spewed from his mouth.
“Really, Trissk, such language is usually reserved for wounded warriors,” Chirom said over the radio. “Desolator must have decided it does not want us communicating with the aliens. Or perhaps it simply scavenged your spool of cable. At least we got through in those two instances. Come back inside before that relic you’re wearing springs another leak. We don’t want to lose your precious life code until you have a chance to be glorified by young Klis.”
Trissk coughed in irritation. “How is it unseemly to speak of my dam yet seemly to joke about my potential matings?”
“Because males are expected to joke at young males’ expense, but not at their elders, who have already experienced the glory of a female. You are so earnest that you forget this simple fact. Too few females and too many males means we must vie with one another for glorification, while the fairer sex is above such coarse jesting. If you were not an orphan and a pariah you would know this…but I do not hold it against you.” Chirom opened the inner door to help Trissk remove the awkward vacuum suit.
As they fought with the sticky fittings, the younger male asked, “Why is it there are so few females compared to males?”
Chirom stopped for a moment, then continued his task more slowly, opening the clasps that held the suit closed. “Trissk…I would like to tell you something. Many somethings that you do not know. But you must swear on all your ancestors that you will tell no one I revealed these things to you. I could be displaced from the council for it…but you and I already share secrets, and times grow desperate. Perhaps I must bend some of the old taboos so that all Ryss will not break.”
Trissk stepped out of the suit and hung it carefully inside a locker, then turned around. Reaching up to the fur of his own flat forehead, he gashed it with one extended claw, and held out its bloody tip. “I swear on my ancestors, I will keep all you tell between us only. My blood for yours.”
Chirom solemnly reached up and gashed himself, mixing the blood on his own claw with Trissk’s. Both Ryss then licked their claws clean of the mingled fluids. Impulsively Chirom reached out to embrace the younger Ryss. “Your dam and I…she was full with my litter when she died. You were just a mewling kit, barely weaned, and Mother B’nur took you in, even chewed your meat-plant for you herself. As you grew I tried to watch out for you, even as others older than you bullied and scorned you.” Pushing him back to arms’ length, he looked into the younger Ryss’ eyes. “You are the closest thing to my own kit I ever had.”
“Why did you not…did no other dam glorify you after that?”
Chirom’s grimace bled sorrow. “For which of these two questions do you wish an answer first? Both contain their own kind of horror.”
“Horror?” Trissk backed up and turned to pace, his tail lashing with agitation. “What can be so horrible?”
“Your mane is already starting to sprout. Adults must often decide between evils. Put off adolescence now: choose a question, and know.”
Trissk rubbed his paws together in the cold of the suiting chamber, his breath fogging as he snorted. “All right. The first question then. Why are there so few females?”
“As well you should rather ask, why are there so many males?”
“I don’t know. You said to ask, so answer me!”
“Grow up, Trissk, and think for yourself. I will help you to hunt knowledge but you must make the kill on your own. Again: Why do Ryss produce three males for every female, when other two-sexed species produce roughly equal numbers?”
“For the good of the species. Adaptive pressure ensures that only the fittest males win the right to mate and pass on their life codes.”
Chirom nodded. “So the books say. But the dams choose whom they will glorify, and that is not always the male with the fittest life code. And what is ‘fitness’ anyway? Is not ‘survival of the fittest’ a tautology? How do we know they are fit? Because they survive? Why do they survive? Because they are fit. But fit for what?”
Trissk replied, “In ancient times, before we became civilized, the winning male would take the female by force, to pass on his life code. This selected for fitness of strength in combat. Now we are more enlightened. Dams glorify males in turn, ensuring many more have an opportunity to sire offspring, and select more wisely.” Trissk spread his paws as if to say, isn’t it obvious?
“So plausible…and so false. In the Beforetimes, if this were true, and simple force would win the day, the victorious males would have formed prides of many females and driven all other males away. That is how the animals do it. Our closest biological relatives, the moor-cats, drive off the secondary males once they reach majority. Why not the Ryss? What makes us different?”
More agitated now, Trissk paced back and forth, his forepaw-claws unsheathing and resheathing convulsively. “What is it, Elder? You tell me the writings lie, but what is the truth?”
“To find the truth behind a lie, you must first find the purpose for the lie. Why would you and the common folk have been taught these falsehoods?”
“To…to make us accept the way things are.”
“Precisely. And if you accept this…perversion as normal, what purpose does it serve?”
Trissk stopped, his fur arching. “Many males. Many warriors. Warriors to fight the Meme. That’s it, isn’t it? It must be. But how?” He paced again, then stopped as realization hit him. His paws came up to claw at his ears in disgust, and Chirom had to seize his wrists to keep the younger Ryss from mangling them. Trissk snarled, shaking his paws to try to loose them. “Life code manipulation is a Meme blasphemy. No Ryss would ever submit to it, or do it!”
“If so, why are you angry? Only because you fear to hear the truth. When the survival of the race is at stake…many taboos can be broken.” Chirom let go of Trissk’s arms, to pace up and down. “Sixteen centuries ago, when the Meme first attacked us, we were as all other related species, with litters of equal numbers by gender. But one dam can birth many kits, and the Ryss needed males to fight. Necessary things were done…and now you see the result.”
Trissk sat down s
uddenly on the floor, overwhelmed.
“You are beginning to understand.” Chirom waited, letting the young Ryss think.
In a voice full of hurt, as if every word pained him, Trissk spoke. “I read the histories. There were no social problems as the war with the Meme raged. Excess yearsmanes were trained and sent off to fight. Dams lived like the spoiled wealthy, choosing whom they wished, as males jockeyed for favor. This now seems oddly fortuitous to me, that we had so many willing to fling themselves at the Meme for the survivor’s chance to return to be glorified by a willing female.”
Chirom dropped to the deck to sit back to back with Trissk, seizing his own tail to still its twitching. “It is also debasing. It makes dams into pampered breeders and males into chattel studs, vying for their favor. It is a system fit only for war, but here and now, aboard Desolator, where is the war?”
“No wonder our numbers are dwindling. This is an ugly thing, but…could it not be overcome?”
“Yes, if Desolator were to help us energize and reprogram the robotic medical machines, and if those few remaining with the knowledge can overcome their taboos yet again. But what would be done? Birth more females? That may solve the problem for the future but what about now? Have you not noticed that all our females are either adolescents, or are old and decrepit? Where are those of bearing years? Where are the kits?”
Trissk curled into a ball and bit at the stump of his own tail, as if throwing a childish tantrum, then covered his head with his arms. A painful mewling issued from beneath his paws.
Chirom reached out to stroke the younger’s flank, as he would a child. “It is sometimes not pleasant to see the truth.”
“No. No. I do not believe it.” Trissk rolled suddenly to stand on all fours, like a moor-cat. “My dam? The others? We were told they died when Desolator fought to save us.”
“Ah. Therein lies still another evil lie…but again I ask: Where are those of bearing years? Where are the kits? Why have we yet to see our first litter born here aboard Desolator in twenty years?”
Desolator: Book 2 (Stellar Conquest) Page 6
