Jamie stared. The big alien wheel was named Lorraine.
Bridget chuckled and walked past. Welligan’s team was unloading the knowglobe from the shuttle. Hip-high and dodecahedral, the database held all the shared knowledge of the member Signatory Systems — including their languages. Every traveling party in the pact carried one, an all-purpose travelers’ aid. And it was already aiding now, Jamie learned.
“Lorraine is a Sheoruk,” Bridget explained. “Your suit’s aural sensors are picking up Lorraine’s words and putting them wirelessly back through the knowglobe. You’re getting the translation in your headset.” She patted the speaker outside Jamie’s helmet. “And any alien who talks to you is getting your words translated, as well.”
“Oh,” Jamie said, realizing for the first time that when he spoke to the wheel, he was hearing a strange whispering echo that was not his voice. He was speaking Sheoruk; his uniform’s system was doing its best to muffle it from his own hearing.
Bridget nodded to the knowglobe. “We’ll be thankful for any help you can give,” she said.
“Certainly.” Lorraine wobbled toward it and wiggled a robotic arm. “There,” she said. “Synchronization complete. You now have everything my mission has found about the Baghu — including their language. I do hope you find our research of use.”
Jamie shook his head, flabbergasted. The alien sounded so chipper. “Okay,” he said, still back on the name. “You’re Lorraine?”
“You don’t know anything about what we do here, do you?” Aggravated, Bridget gestured to the giant wheel. “The knowglobe has translated her name to a human cognate, and it’s selected a speaking persona it believes is a good match for her.” She stepped over and patted the metal frame of the alien’s odd vehicle. “It appears the knowglobe has decided Lorraine would sound best as a nineteen-fifties flight attendant.”
Jamie gawked. “Are you joking?”
“No, it’s for real. The knowglobe has billions of bits of recorded human speech in it.” Bridget checked a display in her helmet and continued with a smile. “Lorraine Buchwalder of Passaic, New Jersey, lives again as a Sheoruk xenobiologist on the planet Baghula.”
“Whatever.” Jamie rolled his eyes. He found his briefcase and picked it up by the handle. “Let’s get to it.”
“Thank you for flying Pan Am,” Lorraine said. “Please step this way.”
***
Flanked by O’Herlihy, Dinner, and Bridget’s other troopers, Jamie and the chief followed the wheel through the green mist to a brown lagoon. The body of liquid was a soupy brine so dark nothing could be seen within it. The brown mud resolved into lighter, almost golden sands as the party approached the lakeside.
“Jesus!” Jamie yelled, dropping his case. Behind the troopers, a massive beast rose from the water. And then another, and another.
“The Baghu,” Lorraine said.
“Uh-huh.” Jamie stared, mystified — and glad that his space suit had ways of dealing with what had just been scared out of him. Because there were more now, rising from the nasty surf — and because the Baghu looked like nothing more than walking versions of the human stomach.
Bulbous two-meter-tall flesh bags waddling on pairs of gummy legs, the Baghu had large slimy tentacles extending from their midsections. And up top, instead of heads, the giant sacs tapered off to drooling nozzles.
One of the creatures tromped from the lagoon and onto the shore. “It’s missing an esophagus,” Jamie said, repulsed. “And everything else.”
“Isn’t it fascinating?” Lorraine chirped. “That upper valve handles sensory perception, eating, respiration, elimination—”
“Elimination?” Jamie asked. “It craps through its mouth?”
Lorraine tittered, amused by the slang. “I’ve never seen that, of course. But it breathes and sees through it, for sure. In fact, we’ve nicknamed them Breathers — I think you can hear why.”
Jamie could. The Baghu leader — if that was what it was — expanded and contracted like a blood-pressure bulb. Its loud, wheezing respiration made Jamie glad he’d skipped lunch on the shuttle.
Lorraine prodded at Jamie with a robotic arm. “Speak,” she said.
“I don’t speak Baghu,” Jamie said. But what came out of his uniform’s public address system was something altogether different: a warbling series of gurgles and squawks.
“Splendid!” Lorraine said, rolling happy circles around Jamie. “You’ve just done it!”
Jamie looked back at Bridget. “The knowglobe, right?”
Bridget winked. “You’re getting it. They have a rudimentary language. You have it now, too.”
He shook his head. “I hope it’s not making me sound like a Baghu fashion model or something.”
“Just talk,” she said, laughing.
Jamie picked his briefcase back up, faced the Breather, and took a deep breath. “Greetings,” he said, trying to ignore the creepy echo from outside. “I’m Jamison Sturm, representing the Sigma Draconis expedition on behalf of Quaestor Corporation. Perhaps you’ve heard of us?” Instinctively, he put forward his gloved hand.
He immediately thought to pull it back — but astonishingly, the Baghu moved first, plopping a dripping tentacle onto his hand. “I am Baghu,” the alien said in a breathy basso voice that Jamie suspected the knowglobe must have pulled from old recordings of sexual criminals.
Then Jamie realized the tentacle — and now his hand — was covered with a gooey slime. He quickly pulled his dripping hand back. “Ew!” he said, flicking his wrist madly.
“Mr. Sturm!” Lorraine called out, alarmed. The alien wheel ground its gear teeth into the sand. “Please, watch your behavior.”
Jamie looked up at the Breather. If it was offended, he had no way of telling. He tried to restart. “You said your name is Baghu? Don’t you have an individual name?”
“They do not,” Lorraine said. “They know who they are.”
“Maybe you’d like to buy a name?” Jamie said, finally overcome by the absurdity of it all. “Here’s one for free. I’ll call you Bob.”
The Sheoruk tut-tutted. “So disrespectful!”
Jamie snapped back at the alien scientist. “You’re a glob in a wheel named Lorraine! You’re one to talk?”
“Well!”
With that icy response, the Sheoruk pivoted and rumbled away, heading over the hill to its survey vessel.
Bridget shook her head. “There goes our help.”
Jamie took another look at the big Baghu wobbling indifferently on the beach before him. Then he looked back at Bridget. “Sorry,” he said, chastened.
“No, you’re off to a fine start,” Bridget said, resigned. “I can’t wait to see what happens next.”
12
This Dominium session began as they all had, with the ruling body displaying a visual reminder of the dangers the Xylanx were up against. Kolvax, standing in the center of the circular assembly room, looked up at the suspended crystal imager and yawned.
There was the soundless monochrome image of a human woman, tromping up and down happily in a vat — dancing, the Xylanx presumed, in the blood of her enemies. A sure sign of a vicious people. And there she was again in another fragment: evidently a prisoner, she was forced, along with another slave, to stuff her mouth with dark morsels carried along by a conveyor. The segment ended there, but the Xylanx assumed that death had surely followed. A fiendish method of execution, showing that even the mightiest human could be brought low.
Kolvax looked away, annoyed. How many times could this thing be rerun? The seconds of video had no context now, nor had they ever: Kolvax even suspected that, viewed outside the martial lens of the Xylanx, they might be part of some human entertainment rather than a political message. There was something comic about the woman, in a curious way. No, how the images were transmitted was the key thing.
Xylander observers had found the signals decades earlier during a years-long focus on a nearby star believed to have no transit stations. Had the broadcast been mea
nt for the originating planet itself, the Xylanx would never have found it: a signal directed around the horizon by a surface-based transmitter or down to the ground from a satellite would’ve leaked little into space and not been of sufficient power to span the vast distance. But these signals were directed outward, at a strength intended for reception off world.
Had the humans colonized their star system? It seemed the most likely explanation to Kolvax. And it meant that a human presence in their neighborhood could be just around the corner — or even underway, by the time the Xylanx had received the signals.
Had Kolvax been alive then, he would have mobilized the Stalkers immediately to investigate. Instead, the Xylanx of that time decided to withdraw to within their borders, using the militia only to put down local rebellions. Rather than test themselves against the humans, the leaders chose the path of cowardice.
More images appeared now, some in color, depicting escalating violence. He had had enough. “You can stop showing this now,” he said, his voice booming around the chamber. “I alone have seen them. Me and my followers!”
“The Great Kolvax,” a voice echoed from above. “We had forgotten you were here.”
Kolvax couldn’t see the speaker’s sneer, but he didn’t need to. The Dominium’s assembly room was structured to make anyone given an audience as ill at ease as possible. Kolvax stood in a tiny lighted circle beneath the crystal visualizer above. All around were the ranking Dominium members, silhouettes behind a hundred one-way partitions. It was a nod to egalitarianism: the guest, usually accused of some crime against the state, would have no notion of the identities of his judges and accusers. Kolvax knew, of course. “Well, Haarfat,” he said, glaring at the shadow who’d spoken, “you won’t forget me after this.”
He turned and looked up to the display, which now showed, in vibrant color, scenes from the last hours of his exile: The arrival of the humans, recorded by the armor worn by him and his compatriots. The weakling captive chattering in fear. And the battle with the warrior female and her comrades, all of whom looked more formidable than the wide-eyed blood-stomper from the old transmission.
The Dominium members had seen the video, but he heard them gasp again from behind their protective screens. Kolvax smiled. He’d guessed correctly. The images alone wouldn’t have been enough to save his skin; any talented Xylander could have doctored them. But he had something else: the coward’s blood on his glove. He hadn’t needed the hostage after all. Genetic analysis had already proven that the people he fought existed. And that, Kolvax hoped, would be enough to reverse his people’s slide into irrelevance.
The Xylanx of his grandfather’s time were the scourge of the region. Few species could match them for industry. The rivals who were more efficient did not long survive. The Xylanx made sure of that, laying waste to worlds, enslaving some species and eradicating others. The Stalker brigades, the Xylanx’s high-tech armored special forces, were a tool of expansion and terror.
But thanks to the messages from humanity, Kolvax had been born into a flabby realm only interested in protecting territory already taken. Despite its public rumblings, the ruling body really had no interest in venturing forth against the humans, not when its members could use the threat to stoke fear at home and preserve their holdings. The status quo enriched the Dominium members, and opponents to the isolation policy were made to suffer.
Kolvax could have been one of those liquidated. He’d originally cursed his people’s fear of and fixation on humanity: they limited their horizons, preventing conquests. But then he hit upon another way. He decided to outflank the ruling class with the creation of the Severed. If the Dominium wanted to protect what they had by sowing fear of another species, his people would loathe aliens, demanding that all contamination be purged.
Hewing to an even more xenophobic position had kept him alive and given him room to build his own power base — for a time.
And now he intended to pound the wedge in deeply.
“None of you believed the humans would ever leave their cradle,” Kolvax said. “You showed the old images by rote, building up your boogeymen without the least interest in investigating the humans’ challenge. Well, I have just reminded you. They are real!”
“You don’t have to make a speech,” Haarfat said. “Although we know that is what you most love to do.” The Dominium member cleared his throat. “We’ve sequenced the genetic material you returned. It matches what we would’ve expected to see. We’ll need to return to your place of exile in force to investigate.”
Kolvax laughed derisively. Some strategists these people are. “All you’ll do is alert them to us.”
“And you didn’t?” a female voice asked. It was Deeliah, Kolvax assumed, one of his harshest critics. “The humans saw you!”
“But we left no clue to follow — none that will be found before we have a chance to act,” Kolvax said. “The Severed are meticulous and careful, even in exile. That buys us time. The humans were not on a military expedition—”
“They were armed!” Deeliah sputtered.
Kolvax waved his hand, and above, the image resolved to show the golden-haired coward, wearing his badge. “The human was a trader,” Kolvax said. “He certainly wasn’t a fighter. We saw them bringing goods into the station. They’re leading a commercial — not military — expedition.”
Silence above and around. The human accession into the Signatory Systems was by far the biggest shocker Kolvax had come back with. It was a fearsome development, portending the spread of humanity everywhere. It gave him the confidence to advance his plan.
“We need more information about their capabilities,” he said. “I can get it.” Kolvax gestured again. A twinkling display appeared in the crystal imager above, depicting stars as glowing red pulses. Eight pathways traced away from a flashing dot at the center, representing the transit connections from the Severed’s place of exile. “A frontal assault on the station will mobilize them against us. But there’s no reason to do that — not when there are alternate routes for us to reach places they’re likely to go. We can find them where they’re out trading. And I can take the information you want as easily as I took the trader’s blood.”
Haarfat said nothing for a moment. Finally, Kolvax heard a grudging question. “What do you want?”
“Command of a habitat. And control of a Stalker detachment, which I will direct from there.”
“A habitat! You don’t want much.”
“I want to protect the Xylanx,” Kolvax said. He raised a hairless eyebrow. “If the rest of our people knew who was lurking at the door, I’m sure they’d want you to advance me all that was needed.” His lip curled. “Give me my license to speak to the masses again, and they’ll know—”
“We’re not making that mistake again,” Deeliah said. The Dominium had withheld news of Kolvax’s encounter from the general public. She sighed. “You will install your so-called followers in positions of power, we assume.”
“Of course. You know the code,” Kolvax said. “I claim this discovery. Rights assigned to it, and titles.” He looked at the display and pointed. “I suggest Gharion Preserve — where I just came from. It’s connected to the exile station, with transit links heading almost everywhere the trader can go.” It also had thirty thousand Xylanders, he did not need to say, whose production would be under his command.
“Use discretion,” Haarfat said. “If you know how to do that. The human traders may be accustomed to commercial rivals. Appear as one.”
Kolvax would do more than that. The need to keep the humans from expanding was legitimate. “I will oppose them at every turn — until I have what I need.” He looked up. “I mean, what we need.”
Silence from above signaled the audience was over. Kolvax smirked and walked out into the receiving area. There, in the antiseptic atrium, Tellmer stood beneath the only color in the room: a great tree growing in a vast planter. Tellmer’s other arm had been reconnected, he saw, and the aide was moving it around a
wkwardly.
“We got it,” Kolvax said. “Everything I wanted.” In less than a week, they’d gone from being exiled on an alien station to having control of the Xylanx fortress station next door.
Tellmer bowed his helmeted head. “Wonderful, Great Kolvax.” Raising his head, Tellmer looked up. “I just remembered something, standing here.”
“How to make a fist?” Kolvax laughed. Xylanx surgical science was remarkable, but Tellmer was still recovering.
Tellmer made a feeble attempt to point upward. “Remember back in your office, behind the chapel? You forgot your tree,” he said.
Kolvax looked up. “Huh. So I did.” But he was hungry and in the mood to celebrate, so he quickly forgot about it.
13
When he was eleven, Jamie Sturm had sold his little stepsister to the Regulans. Earth’s first trading partner had taken a liking to Shetland ponies, which his mother’s new in-laws bred: Jamie had opened their eyes to the prospect of shipping their excess animals off world, taking advantage of a market that was, as yet, in its infancy. He had simply added one more name to the documentation. Young Jamie had not gotten to keep the eighty thousand dollars, and to this day the sight of a live-animal shipping container still made Taffy Keeler cry.
Given how the adult Taffy had turned out, Jamie knew now he had been absolutely justified. The Keelers would drive anyone to extreme measures. But that early experience had put him on the road to thinking he could sell anything to anyone, anywhere. In truth, though, what Jamie had done at the bourse was much different from selling in the past. He’d conducted all his sales through an isopanel, only occasionally speaking to another human through a linkup. He’d never so much as had to sell a candy bar in person.
He’d tried selling candy bars and just about everything else to the Baghu in the hours since Lorraine left. The portable fabricator from the general store sat in the sand behind him, where Bridget’s team had parked it earlier. Two and a half meters tall and twice as long, the tracked vehicle was in effect a vending machine capable of producing most anything small enough to emerge from its meter-cubed slot. It had worked as it was supposed to. But nothing it had produced had caught the Baghu’s eye…or whatever the Baghu had.
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