Swarm

by B. V. Larson

  I looked at it, and saw a dozen or more new golden beetles crawling around on the surface of the Earth. You could tell the new recruits from the old hands, they tended to roam around randomly.

  “I see them. Are they joining up?”

  “Yes. It’s going very well. There are only a few rogues left. After that last battle, people began seeing things my way. All the ships with human commanders aboard went up to meet the enemy, whether they wanted to or not. Watching other ships blow up did a great deal of the convincing for me. They know now they can’t hang back and hide. The screen you came up with helps my recruiting efforts as well. Once I tell them how to show the entire tactical system on their living room walls, they get the picture, literally. I tell them to color us green and themselves a chicken-white. They stand out and look lonely. That gets most of the bloody dags to join up immediately.” Crow broke off, erupting into a gust of laughter.

  Somehow I found him less than amusing. “Commodore? I’ve got another idea for you.”

  I told him about the Nanos and the Macros. I told him the Macros were coming back, and they wanted raw materials.

  “That’s not good. I tried talking to them, you know, the guys in the big red ship. I had several of my lieutenants on it, trying to establish contact. They ignored us completely.”

  “Maybe they will listen now that we blew up one of their ships.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  “I’ve got a new idea, Jack—ah, Commodore.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  I described to him another screen, a predictive screen, which we could lay out on the ceiling or the floor of the bridge. If we could show a plan visually, such as how each ship should position itself, everyone would have a much easier time following orders and acting in coordination. It wouldn’t just show where ships were, but rather where we would like them to be.

  “That’s a fantastic idea. Let’s set it up now and test it.”

  After an hour or so of work, we had a working system. The ceiling worked best. We tried the floor, but Crow complained that furniture kept getting in the way. I gathered that Crow had done a lot of pirating. He had by his own admission a morass of carpets and things strewn over his floor. In the end we set ourselves up in comfortable chairs and gazed up at the planning screen on the ceiling. We found it worked well, we could easily talk and plan strategies. We could even give our ships formations to fight in.

  “I’m impressed again, Commander. We make a great team. I’ll relay this to everyone else and next time we’ll be flying in organized squadrons,” Crow said, but then he hesitated. “Do you really think there will be a next time? Soon, I mean? Your ship suggested they would be back, but it might not know the difference between a day, a year, or a century.”

  “I think the ship means soon, sir. We have to be vigilant. Logically, it makes sense to me that the threat is real and ongoing. If the Nanos are trying to protect Earth—in their own special way—they’ve overdone it at this point. I mean, just one enemy ship came to the party? We fought with clueless commanders and only forty-odd ships and won easily. Why then, if that was the end of it, did the Nanos send over seven hundred vessels here?”

  “I don’t like it,” said Crow. “But you’re right, we have to assume they will be back for more soon, and in strength. And we have to assume we are in an all-out war.”

  “We need to alert the governments of Earth to the situation,” I said. “They probably saw the battle. They have to be tracking us. They must do what they can to mobilize and protect themselves.”

  “So far, with humanity’s primitive, homegrown tech, they can’t do much.”

  “Has any nation tried to nuke one of these ships yet? That would probably do the trick.”

  “Not to my knowledge. But you’ve got a point there. We should talk to them before they get desperate. I’ll put another officer on it, I’ve got just the guy, his name is Pierre and he could sweet-talk anyone out of their wallets. He’s an ex-confidence trickster. He’s got a silver tongue.”

  “An ex-con man?” I asked doubtfully. Did we really want a criminal as our representative to governments? I supposed plenty of the world’s diplomats came under that description, but still....

  “Well, maybe not so ex,” Crow went on. “Pierre’s been living off internet scams for years, I gather. He always kept a loaded weapon with him, expecting some mark to hunt him down for revenge. That’s what saved him when the Nano ship grabbed him.”

  “I see. Well, if he’s the best we have for now.”

  “You might do well as a liaison,” said Crow, “if that’s what you are thinking. I know that. But you can’t do everything. I need you focused on figuring out these ships and what we can do with them.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Commodore Crow?” asked Sandra suddenly.

  “Who’s that?”

  “My name is Alessandra, but people call me Sandra.”

  “Oh indeed? How old are you, Sandra?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “My estimation of your abilities grows ever larger, Riggs. You have to tell me, how did you manage to smuggle one of your students aboard your ship? Everyone that I’ve brought aboard was immediately subjected to deadly tests.”

  I explained that she failed the tests, but was brought back aboard afterward. I hadn’t really thought about it, but I supposed the ship was ignoring her and tolerating her because she was a failed applicant for command. She was a loophole. She wasn’t to be tested, because she had already failed the tests. She wasn’t hostile, so she wasn’t to be killed. She had already been kicked out once, so there was no urgency to kick her out again. I’m sure that the Nanos would have preferred to drop her somewhere as biotic waste, but were held in check by my orders.

  “Well done,” said Crow. He paused, and I got the feeling his mind was racing with ideas. “So,” he continued thoughtfully, “to get someone aboard with you, they have to go through at least one of the tests. Maybe.... What if I—we were to float close to the Earth, grab someone, let them fail a test, then when they get dumped out they fall into a swimming pool or something? Then I—we that is, could pick them up again and the ship would ignore them….”

  “Getting lonely, Commodore?” asked Sandra in an acidic tone of voice. I glanced over at her and noted she had crossed her arms. “Intentional kidnapping is still a serious crime, remember?”

  “Of course, my dear. I know that very well! We all do! We were all victims of these heartless ships. Riggs? You should work on some kind of video system. I would love to see the people I’m talking to.”

  Sandra and I exchanged glances. The Commodore wasn’t the most gentle of gentlemen. I had thought before that this fleet might be a ragtag force of scoundrels and crazies. I realized now that my assumptions had been essentially correct.

  “I’ll see what I can do, Commodore,” I said aloud.

  Sandra rolled her eyes at me.

  “And Riggs, go get some equipment. Whatever you think you need. Just hang over a mall and have the big arm dip down and grab whatever you want. Food, furniture, electronics, etc.”

  “Isn’t that piracy, sir?” I asked.

  “That’s a harsh word. But we have to do what we must until we establish proper relations with the Earth governments. Then we can buy what we need. That will take longer, but it will make everyone feel better about the situation.”

  “Relations? Do you plan on demanding payment?”

  “Aid, isn’t that what you Yanks call it, Riggs? Billions in aid, that’s what we need.”

  “Sounds like tribute, or ransom,” complained Sandra.

  “Too right, Sandra. Isn’t that what it always is? You can grizzle about it, but listen, we are providing a great service to Earth. We are doing more to protect them than all their military forces combined. They should mothball their navies at least and give us the funding. What good would one of your aircraft carrier battle groups have been, for example, against that last Macro ship?”

 
“You have a good point,” Sandra admitted.

  “Glad you see things my way. Well, we’ve chatted long enough. I’ve got a lot of business to do. Crow out.”

  “I’m not sure what to think of him,” Sandra said after the connection had been broken.

  “I know what you mean. But maybe he is just the kind of ruthless, practical man the world needs right now.”

  “Maybe. I don’t like the way he talks about Earth—about all of humanity—as if they are some foreign power. I don’t feel that disconnected from them.”

  “I know what you mean. But for a commander on one of these ships, disconnection is a stark reality.”

  “Do you think he’s really going to go down and kidnap some young girl for—ah, as a companion?”

  I sighed. I wanted to say no, but I couldn’t rule it out. What did I really know about this man I’d allied myself with? I shrugged.

  Sandra watched me closely. “Are we going to go down and steal things too?”

  I thought about it. We needed food. I couldn’t just hang around my farm picking unripe corn and having the arm grope for things blindly in the windows forever. I had to wonder what the air force thought of my ship and its obsession with this one particular point on the map. I imagined a team of people might be fussing over the mystery. I couldn’t decide if it was funny or pathetic. How panicked all the militaries of Earth must feel right now, unable to stop these strange, roving ships. They had no idea what we might do next. Were the cities rioting, evacuating? Had there been panics and if so, how many had died?

  We spent some time cleaning up the mess the battle had made of things. It was extremely helpful to have the ship simply drop anything you didn’t want, such as dribbles of beer, dried up garbage and the like, out of the ship. Vacuuming was a thing of the past. I had the ship create another storage room, and made a private room for Sandra that was connected to the bathroom. She wouldn’t have to be tied by the ankles when she was in there, something she appreciated.

  After a few hours, we looked critically at our handiwork. Such a strange mix, my old furniture and stark walls of gleaming metal. One item in particular stood out. It was an old lamp we’d used in the kids’ bedrooms when they were babies. The ship must have found it in the attic. The lamp was in the shape of a teddy bear. I found it looked odd and pathetic, sitting next to my stained leather couch. All my furniture, in fact, was shabby-looking at best. I knew I should dump the teddy bear lamp and have the ship get something else, but once it was up there, I couldn’t force myself to part with it. My eyes stung when I looked at it.

  Sandra watched me, but pretended not to notice.

  “Sandra, what day is it?” I asked her, still staring at the teddy bear lamp. It had glassy, black eyes, like marbles.

  “Monday, I think.”

  “I think we will take a trip to the mall. Not a lot of people are there on Monday morning.”

  She pursed her lips disapprovingly.

  “We need bedding, furniture, clothes, food and electronics,” I argued. “Hopefully, we won’t give anyone a heart attack.”

  “You’re the commander,” she said.

  She turned away and busied herself with our pile of half-stale, half-eaten boxes of crackers and breakfast cereals. It had been a long time since I’d been in a domestic situation with a female, but I recognized the behavioral patterns. They weren’t positive.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She turned on me quickly and put her hands on her hips. The little black arms that still wrapped her ankles strained to keep up with her. Those lovely dark eyes smoldered.

  “Is that really what we are going to do, Kyle? Become pirates?”

  I looked at her. “Aren’t you tired?”

  “I’m almost sick I’m so tired.”

  “Well, this couch is mine. I’m not giving it up. So, you can sleep tied to a wall, or sleep on the metal deck in that room I made for you, or you could let me steal a bed.”

  “Or you could drop me off.”

  My face fell. I felt a pang. Was this our first fight? “Is that what you want?”

  She thought about it. She shook her head and grinned. I was surprised by the grin. She seemed to switch from a smile to a frown and back again very quickly. I supposed it was part of her personality, which I was just getting used to.

  “It’s all too exciting, is that it?” I asked.

  “Partly,” she admitted. “But also, I hate the idea of leaving you up here fighting for me—for all of us—with no one to talk to but that awful Aussie. After what we’ve been through, I feel like I would be abandoning you and not doing my part to save the world.”

  “Such idealism. It’s good to see it put to good use.”

  She made a face. “Yes, I admit it. I was into causes down on Earth. They all seem so far away and silly now that we are up here, fighting against the possible extinction of our species. I mean, we’ve already met two powerful, terrifying races of robots that have better technology than we do. Every Earth-threatening thing I used to worry about seems absurd in comparison. But I’m still not too excited about stealing things for our own personal comfort.”

  “We could build a shower setup,” I said enticingly. Her eyes flicked up to meet mine. They widened. I had her attention with that one.

  “How?”

  “We would start with a water tank. I could have the ship heat it up. Don’t you want to wash your hands? I could add a sink and a shower stall to our little bathroom. How long do you think you want to camp out up here with me without modern amenities? We don’t even have toilet paper.”

  She pursed her lips. I think the idea of a shower tempted her like nothing else I’d mentioned.

  “Well, maybe we could pick up a few things,” she said.

  I would have smiled, but I wasn’t quite ready to do that yet. In the back of my mind I knew I was being manipulative. Sandra was good for me. She kept me going. I had to keep going, thinking, and working if I was ever going to get to the bottom of all this. I didn’t want others on Earth to feel the way I had been feeling. And I still wanted my revenge.

  -12-

  I was nervous. I felt like a shop-lifting kid, dared into stealing a popsicle by my friends.

  At first, the raid went well. We drifted over the biggest mall in Merced, which really wasn’t that big of a mall, but it had what we needed. The belly of the ship opened and the big, black snake-arm dipped down. I told it to find me a bed first, and hovered over a furniture store. I stood in the doorway between the bridge and the cargo area where the arm originated. It was rooted in the cargo chamber ceiling and hung down like some massive jungle vine.

  The opening allowed a gust of hot air and familiar smells to come up into my face. I looked over my shoulder and saw Sandra was there, leaning forward and sniffing as well. Her long black hair fluttered around her face.

  I squinted down into a parking lot. Everything looked so normal. There were Dodges and Fords. Lots of pickups and SUVs. A few nice cars, a few trashed ones. Windshields reflected the late afternoon sun upward, flashing it into my eyes. How I missed, in that instant, the open air and sunshine. Today should have been a fine day, just before summer. I should have been working on the farm, or sitting in my office at the university, or giving a lecture.

  Below us, in the parking lot, the initial reaction was predictable. Cars zoomed away. There were a few crunching sounds, screeching tires, shouts. I didn’t see anyone wreck their car, but I imagined that a few drivers, craning their necks up at the terrifying vessel that blotted out the sky overhead, had done so.

  I tried to ignore the fleeing citizens. I focused on the homey feel the place gave me. That’s what I craved. The scents got me the most. Hot asphalt. Dust. Trees in full bloom. Even the oily smell of exhaust was comforting and filled me with a longing for my old life. I realized then how sterile the ship was. I’d spent less than two days in it, and already the normal world seemed so very different. Being in the ship was like being in the hold of an air
liner. The air was canned and stale—flavorless. The light was muted and had no obvious source.

  I took a deep breath, enjoying the breeze and the smells of home. And the bed began coming up.

  “This ship has taste,” said Sandra behind me. The ship’s little arms were straining at her, trying to hold her back, but she leaned against them.

  I looked at what the ship had in its alien, metal hand. It was a big bed, an old fashioned four-poster with ruffles that rippled in the valley wind. I snorted. I did not smile, but my cheek did twitch. I was amused.

  Even as the ship lifted the bed upward, I realized something and Sandra voiced the feeling out loud.

  “Idiot Nanos,” she said, “it’s too big.”

  And indeed it was. The ship dilated the openings between the cargo area, the bridge and Sandra’s bedroom to the maximum, but it wasn’t careful with the awkward burden. One post crunched into the ship’s hull. The arm was too strong to notice, and simply pulled it through. There was a splitting, ripping sound. Part of one post snapped off and fell down into the parking lot. The chunk of hardwood crashed through one of those sun-silvered windshields and smashed it into white spider webs of broken safety-glass. I hoped no one was in there.

  “Damn,” said Sandra.

  We stepped out of the way and ducked as the bed sailed over us toward Sandra’s bedroom.

  “Quite a dainty ship, isn’t she?” I asked wryly.

  There was a crash as something fell over. It was the kid’s teddy bear lamp. I headed over there and righted it. I had had the ship build a power outlet in the wall, made with leads and a real surge protector from my house. The leads ran up to twin streams of quivering, liquid-looking metal. It looked as if the positive and negative wires were connected to frozen arcs of mercury. I didn’t know how the ship powered those leads without frying the little robots that made the connections, and I didn’t ask.

  “How’s the lamp?” asked Sandra.

  I looked at her. She knew I liked the lamp. She knew it was my kids’ lamp. “It’s fine,” I said. “The bulb is broken, but we can have the ship get another one.”