by Ramy Vance
Chapter Seven
This was spinning out of control too quickly. She had to do something. She had to play the high card.
Jaeger sucked in a deep breath, and in a deep, loud voice—stage-trained by Toner to speak the words Kwin had taught her—she spoke. “I invoke the Rite of !Tsok n Sshoogn,” she called. Despite all of her secret practice with Kwin, the words felt alien and clumsy on her tongue. She could only trust she had pronounced them correctly.
The rustling and the babble of mechanical voices fell abruptly silent. Jaeger could have heard a pin drop.
“I invoke the Rite of the Grand Gesture,” she called. “By the traditions of—” she hesitated for a split second before pushing air through her teeth in a lilting, hissing sound and ended it abruptly with a tongue-click. “I invoke the Rite of !Tsok n Sshoogn. I bring an offering of peace. Thou be damned, who reject a nomad’s gift.” Kwin had tried to teach her how to say that last bit in the Overseer’s language and had quickly despaired. It was a harsh language for a first meeting, especially coming from someone in as tenuous a position as Jaeger. Still, Kwin had assured her that the Council would take no offense at the formalized, traditional invocation.
He had not promised they would take no offense to the fact that she, a primitive, violent little alien, knew of it at all.
This time, a gale of rustling and clicking swirled around her. She thought she even saw a few of the slender figures finally move, though it might have been a trick of her eyes.
“How do you know of this TRAdition?” the prosecutor said suspiciously.
Jaeger lifted her chin. Kwin had warned her that they would try to derail her petition. She must not allow it. “You yourself were once a wanderer seeking a home, long ago. It was by the grace and mercy of your hosts that you survived, and we are no less than you. I bear a gesture of peace,” she repeated, her voice rising to a challenge. “Do you accept?”
Mechanical voices flew across the vast chamber. This time, she caught words like clever, and dangerous, and traitor.
She set her chin and refused to show the seed of doubt growing in her chest.
A new voice spoke, this time matching Jaeger’s formal cadence. “We see you, WEAry TRAveler. What brings you to our door?”
Jaeger’s shoulders slumped with relief. In. She was in. The negotiations had truly begun. It wasn’t a done deal, but Kwin had assured her that getting this far would be the hardest part.
“I bring you the weakness of your enemies,” she called. “K’tax harries you at every turn.” She spat out the Overseer’s word for the alien raiders Occy had dubbed the Creepers.
“K’tax strikes at your transports and your ships and fades back into the shadows like cowards. K’tax raids your people and your cousin’s peoples and takes them for slaves and food. I have found where they go when they hide in the shadows. I have found their home. I offer it to you so that you will know we mean you well.”
Jaeger glanced over her shoulder. Toner was staring at her, hands clasped behind his back in formal parade rest. She could not read his face. That worried her.
Around them, voices clamored.
“Their base of OPerations?”
“You have LOcated it?”
“AMbush. Trick.”
“WHere is it?”
“You mUST tELl us!”
Jaeger turned back to the masses in the darkness. “Do you accept my gift?” she demanded.
The voices fell quiet.
Jaeger had been correct. They wanted the location of the Creeper base. They wanted it very, very badly. But they weren’t going to get it unless they agreed to give the Osprey and her crew a fresh start. That was how the Rite worked. A grand gesture of peace to wipe away the stain of past misunderstandings.
A new voice rose above the clamor, as loud as the prosecutor’s, but smoother, less mechanical. The rest of them fell silent.
“It is INteresting,” the new voice said, “that an Alien knows our rites so well.”
Kwin’s antennae dipped in mild embarrassment, but the speaker didn’t acknowledge him further.
“We have been SEARching this SYStem for the K’tax base for months,” the voice went on. “Tell us. How have you LOcated it?”
Jaeger shook her head. “All of that I will happily explain if you accept my gesture.”
“You are bold,” the prosecutor said, “to ASSume we CANnot COMpel you to share this VALuable SEcret.”
Jaeger felt Toner tighten. She was glad she listened to him and brought him along.
“Be not cruel!” Kwin drew himself up taller, his antennae lashing angrily. “They have PLACed THEMselves WILLingly in our care. You may not harm them!”
“They harm us by WITHholding this INformation EVen as K’tax does us war,” the prosecutor answered sharply. “It is a GESture made in bad faith.”
“They are DISadvantaged,” a third voice reasoned. “We should not CONdemn them for DOing what we might have done, in their POsition.”
Another murmuring breeze passed through the chamber. The speaking voices paused as if to listen to the masses.
“You and your LIVing crew have OFFered this gift,” the reasonable voice said. “We may ACcept it on their BEhalf Alone.”
Jaeger cocked her head. It sounded like a promising start, but she was wary. “I do not understand.”
“Your ship CONtains the seeds of war. If you wish to CO-exist PEACEfully with us, you will DEstroy them.”
Jaeger winced. She had always wondered how good of a look the Overseer AI had gotten of the Crusade Protocol. The thing had been a downright perverse catalog of weapons of war. “I know the files of which you speak,” she said. “They have already been destroyed.”
“Not COMputer FIles, CAPtain JAEger. Not code of SILica and Electricity. Codes of PROtein and Amino Acids from which the Sphynx MONster Arose. They are WEApons DEsigned for VIOlence as well. You will DEstroy them.”
She had expected this. “I will not destroy them. I offer a genetic code instead to place on all the newly hatched. It will act as a kill-switch should we ever betray—”
“NO,” the prosecutor bellowed. “Such TRicks can be UNdone.”
Jaeger stared into the darkness, disbelieving. She was sure they would accept this offering. “There are three hundred and seventy-eight thousand embryos in the Osprey’s freezers,” she said.
“SEeds of war,” the voice agreed, merciless.
Jaeger laughed weakly. According to the books she had read, laughing at a time like this was piss-poor diplomatic form, but she couldn’t help it. The implication of what they asked of her—it was too absurd to consider.
“Now that is genocide,” Toner protested, breaking his uncharacteristically long silence. “They’re only people. Well, potential people. Sphynx was a fuckup. Yeah, we admit that, but he was a fluke. The others don’t have to grow up to be like him. You should meet our engineer. He was one of them. He’s a sweet kid.”
“The OFfer is made.”
“The offer is death,” Jaeger pressed gently. “We desire to build a peaceful home for our people. Those are our people. It is physically impossible for us to build that home without them. What you are asking for, it’s racial suicide.”
“Four HUNdred THOUsand is too many,” the voice sniffed. “Not a COLony of SETtlers. An INvading ARmy.” The voice paused to consider a new whisper rising through the trees. “You may PREserve a small NUMber of the least-MODified SPECimens,” it conceded. “PERhaps TWENty. Build your MOdest COMmunity from them. DEstroy the rest.”
Jaeger hesitated. She’d have to run the numbers, but from what she recalled of genetic education, twenty specimens would not give them a wide enough genetic pool to create a stable, self-sustaining population—but even that wasn’t the point. She had to tread carefully, now. The Overseers assumed that they had agreed that a trade would happen, and now it was simply a matter of negotiating a price.
Could she put a price on four hundred thousand embryos, especially when the
y might be the very last humans?
“You present an interesting and very difficult offer,” she said finally. “We need time to consider it.”
Another bout of conference. “We are not INsensitive to the weight of what we ask you to do,” the reasonable voice said finally. “You may have time to CONsider.”
“But do not TArry.” The Prosecutor’s voice returned, harsh and grating. “While you fret and scheme, K’tax raids our ships and our COUsins’ lands.”
Jaeger bowed her head and nodded assent. “We will give you our decision in three days.”
“Yes,” the Prosecutor agreed, in a tone that sent goosebumps sliding down Jaeger’s spine. “You will.”
Chapter Eight
“You’re unusually quiet.”
Toner glanced up from the thruster controls. He was piloting the shuttle back to the Osprey. The first twenty minutes of the trip had passed in utter silence.
He said nothing and returned to his work.
Jaeger sucked in a breath. The silent treatment was an age-old power play. She imagined her first mate was pissed off about a wide number of things, but she couldn’t give him the satisfaction of being the first to break. She was the captain, not the ship’s counselor. As long as he did his job, she could ignore the childishness. If he had a problem, it was his responsibility to voice it. Not hers.
That wasn’t to say she didn’t deeply resent him deciding to throw this unusually silent tantrum exactly when she most needed someone to bounce ideas off.
Her whole body jittered and twitched from a delayed nervous reaction. She didn’t remember much of her life before traveling through the wormhole, but the sheer anxiety-reaction she noted in her chest, her dry mouth, her wavering voice, told her she had been unaccustomed to giving speeches.
Or negotiating for the lives and deaths of nearly four hundred thousand embryos.
One step at a time, she told herself as the Osprey’s massive docking bay doors came into view. Give yourself a little time to come down from the jitters. Then think things through rationally.
It was what the public speaking books had suggested for beginners, at least.
She only wished she’d begun her public speaking career with slightly lower stakes.
“We can’t destroy them,” Toner muttered.
Jaeger nodded. “I agree.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“I don’t know, but I agree, Toner. We’re not going to kill our kin. Not like this.”
Toner squeezed Jaeger’s hand. “You look ragged.”
“I’m running on an hour of sleep in the last twenty,” she said as Toner landed the shuttle in its familiar docking bay cradle. “I’m going to get eight hours. Then we’ll meet for debriefing in the No-A lounge.”
Toner grunted. There was a distant click and hiss as the bay doors slid shut and the shuttle began its cooldown sequence. Toner reached for the airlock controls, but Jaeger reached out to stop him from opening the shuttle doors.
Toner stared at her with those cold blue eyes.
“I’m not your mother,” Jaeger said, just as cold. “I’m not going to give you a hug and some cookies and milk and coax you into telling me who hurt your feelings at school today. You’ve got thirty seconds to spill it. Then I get up and go to bed, and when I wake up, this temper tantrum of yours better be over. Am I understood?”
Toner stiffened. His jaw worked silently for a moment, and she saw many things at war on his face. Rage. Hurt. Vicious pride. Perhaps even a touch of sadness.
“Sure, Dad,” he said finally. He leaned back in his harness, folding his hands behind his head. Back in zero-G, his lazy mannerisms were all affectation. He wanted her to know exactly how insincere he was.
“You know what, you’re right. It’s no big deal. I was minding my business making mud pies in the corner of the schoolyard when one of my buddies decided to ask the big kids if we could join their soccer game. I told her it was stupid, we were doing fine on our own, but she didn’t listen. She toddled right over there.
“The big kids kicked her in the crotch and took her ball. Kinda sucks, but not a big deal. Maybe my buddy will learn to keep her head down in the future.” His eyes narrowed. “Then the big kids came over to me and threatened to kill four hundred thousand of my brothers and sisters or else they’ll feed me to the paper shredder.”
Jaeger said nothing. She knew damn well if she opened her mouth, he would shout over her. He went on, his voice rising until it echoed and trembled off the shuttle walls. “Everything was hunky-dory until someone opened her big mouth and brought the attention of the big kids down on us. Now I have to figure out if there’s a local organ farm willing to buy the shredded stem cells of four hundred thousand aborted embryos or if we’re gonna have to take a wash on this whole survival of the species venture!”
Jaeger considered this metaphor in silence.
“So what’s the plan, Captain?” Toner jeered. “I know you have a whole flow chart of plans in that sparky little brain of yours. What’s the contingency for this one?”
“I didn’t anticipate this demand,” she said quietly.
Toner threw up his hands in disgust. “Well, it came so far out of left field. Nobody could have anticipated that these aliens would wind up causing bodily harm to our crew or us. Nobody could have guessed that they would have wanted to take hostages.
“Absolutely nobody, not one single person on your crew, could have possibly understood how bastards think when they have the enemy on the back leg.” He stared straight in her face, his voice dropping like a stone. “We all run on hippy juice and fairy dust and unicorn farts just like you, glorious leader.”
Jaeger stared at him, too stunned to speak. Toner had gone off on histrionic tirades before—about the glitchy video-game programs in the crew lounge, about the price of rice in China, about the phases of the moon—but it was nothing like the cold fury in his voice now. She stared into his face and saw the dead-eyed Jefferies tube monster, with one thing on its mind: blood.
She didn’t expect him to attack her. It wasn’t in his nature, not really. He was a brutal creature when his blood was up, but there was a sincere sort of loyalty to his violence.
The problem, the other thing she had not anticipated, was that he didn’t need to touch her, to hurt her. The betrayed look on his face alone cut straight to her heart, and for a moment, she wondered if she hadn’t lost some measure of that loyalty.
“You should have told me,” Toner said. “You should have told me what you were planning.”
“I couldn’t.” She spat the words out quickly, automatically. An emotionless shield she could raise in the face of his wrath. “It wasn’t personal. I have sources that only agreed to work with me on the condition that I keep them secret. I couldn’t tell you.”
Toner’s shoulders twitched in a humorless laugh. “Your sources fed you a line of bullshit that lead to us having to choose between killing all the embryos or going back to our wonderful families. I could have told you where this whole grand gesture nonsense would have led if you’d trusted me as much as you trust your precious aliens. If you had told me.”
“I don’t think—” Jaeger started to say. She started to say that Kwin hadn’t deceived her. Kwin had given her this script in the best faith. Kwin meant them well.
None of that would have magically fixed the mess they were currently in.
“Jaeger.” Toner leaned forward and buried his face in his hands, his long fingers digging furrows through his hair. The picture of a man curling up in pain. “Please,” he muttered. “Just go away.”
By the time Jaeger got back to her bunk, she was trembling so badly that she did not at first notice something was vibrating on her hip.
“Asshole,” she hissed, slamming her hatch door shut behind her. Her throat burned. Her eyes stung.
“Asshole.” Hands shaking, she ripped her utility belt from around her hips and hurled it at the wall. It hit a cabinet door with a smash and sent sev
eral books and scraps of paper flying. Something small and hard rolled out of the utility pouch and thunked against the wall. Jaeger bent over and snatched it up with a scream of rage. “How dare he be right?”
The gunmetal gray sphere in her palm vibrated again, glowing in several places.
Jaeger’s hand tightened over it, squeezing until her fingers turned white. “I should throw you in the incinerator,” she hissed. “Fuck!”
She flung herself onto her bunk with a sob, exhausted. She was exhausted to her bones and buckling under delayed stress. A few hours of sleep and she’d feel much better. Good enough to handle this mess like the captain she was, not a child throwing a tantrum.
Her heart thudded in her ears as she stared into the darkness. Slowly, she regained control of herself.
The sphere vibrated again.
Scrubbing her eyes and wiping her face with the back of her sleeve, Jaeger sat up. She touched a computer panel mounted to her wall beneath the speakers, turning her room sensor settings to private so that Virgil couldn’t stumble in on a whim. It had taken several weeks of hard work to develop the privacy protocol, a job that should have taken only a few days, if not for Virgil bitching and moaning every step of the way.
The AI still grumbled about being boxed out of certain parts of the ship—“What if there’s an emergency? What if you’re alone and hit your head on a strut and fall unconscious again?”—but had more or less accepted that the fleshy members of the crew had the right to occasional privacy.
Now guarded against eavesdroppers, Jaeger picked up the sphere and tapped a particular sequence of glowing lights.
A cone of light shot up from it, filling the middle of her small bunk with a flickering hologram.
“It’s really not a good time, Kwin.”
The slender Overseer stood in the center of her room, oblivious to the mess of clothes and old books littering her floor. His long antennae curved down in front of his head and ended abruptly, where they left the frame of the hologram generator on his end of their comm link.
