The Fires Of Hell

by Craig Robertson

  A word about something I learned during my many musto-sessions with Harhoff. Such an inhospitable world with such bizarre inhabitants might beg the question as to why the Adamant would bother to conquer the planet and subjugate the locals. He explained it was just prudence on the part of the Adamant. If they left a sentient world intact, there could arise a problem down the road. Plus, the Gorgolinians had interstellar flight capabilities. They would be a potential wildcard in the middle of the ultra-predictable Adamant empire. Better to destroy them than allow for future issues.

  The issue that was going to limit my mission with the Gorgolinians was that I had basically no information on them. There were a few references to them in the Langir database I snatched from GFN, but not much useful knowledge. Not surprisingly, there had been very limited contact between the two civilizations. They were not as different as night and day. They were as different as night and rubber. Oh well, I had a lot of experience with first contacts back on my Ark 1 voyage. Not once did I get myself killed, so I figured I was pretty good at it.

  There was no area I could identify as a spaceport, so I landed Stingray near what seemed to be a large population center. I exited and walked around close to the ship to see if I drew any adverse reactions. After thirty minutes, I decided that, unbeknownst to myself I must have become invisible. Even when I stopped dead in a walking fish tank’s path, the only indication they perceived I was there was that they slightly missed ramming into me. I needed to engage a bit more.

  GFN provided enough linguistic information so the Als could set up a crude translation program. The more I spoke with the locals, the most the program would improve. I walked beside a random Gorgolinian, keeping up with their lumbering but surprisingly quick motion. “Hi. I’m Jon Ryan,” I shouted with a friendly wave.

  Nothing.

  “Are you able to hear me?”

  Nada. I was feeling the first inklings of me getting pissy.

  “If you understand me, could you please acknowledge me.”

  Silence. I unconsciously patted my pockets looking for a hammer. Maybe if I broke the damn glass, the fish tank would react.

  One last try the easy way. “Take me to your leader.” Dude, I always wanted to say that, but the opportunity never presented itself. It felt good to say it. Take me to your leader, nanu nanu.

  My silent partner finally stopped walking. Without turning, it said, “Why must I speak to you, alien? If I wanted to speak with aliens, I would fly in outer space.” He shook violently. “Does this look like outer space to you?”

  “No, it sure doesn’t. Now that we’re communicating, might you direct me to someone in authority?”

  “I do not understand your alien question, alien.”

  “Jon. You can call me Jon. All my friends do.”

  “All your friends is not a subset of individuals I belong to, alien. What do you mean by someone in authority?”

  Come on, you seventy-five-gallon PIA. Think it through. “I want to speak with someone on this planet who is in charge. The boss. The mayor. The Grand Poobah, if that’s who it is.”

  “You may address your concerns to me.”

  “You mean I happened by chance alone to strike up a conversation with the head of this entire planet? What are the odds of that I wonder?”

  “I could not say since I still do not understand your question.”

  “What did you have for breakfast?”

  “I fail to comprehend how my first meal of the day …”

  “Humor me,” I interrupted. “What was the first thing you ate today?”

  “Pisolofil with roasted grain bits.”

  I had no clue what a pisolofil was, but I could run with my explanation anyway. “Do you grow, raise, or produce pisolofil yourself personally?”

  He shook, though less violently. “No. What an alien question.”

  “Thank you. Okay, someone else provided you with that delectable roast pisolofil, right?”

  “The pisolofil was not roasted, you alien dimwit. The grain bits were. Who in their right carapace would roast a pisolofil?”

  “My point is someone here makes stuff and sells it to you. You do something to be able to pay for the food. The one guy’s a farmer and you’re … excuse me, what do you do for a living?”

  “I breath, consume, and excrete.”

  “No,” I was patting for that hammer again, I swear I was. “Not to live, but to be able to buy food.”

  “I integrate denominal factors into useful particulars.”

  Made sense to me. The asshole, who didn’t have one, was a bureaucrat. “Okay, you integrate. The farmer produces. There must be some individuals responsible for leadership, societal guidance. Where can I find one of those guys?”

  “Ah, now I take your meaning, alien. You are most mentally incapacitated, aren’t you?”

  “I consider it one of my finer qualities. Who is in charge that I may speak to?” I was exhausted.

  “You may address your alien concerns to me.”

  What were the chances that the first two planets I went to in order to try and save them from Adamant onslaught turned out to be ones I’d prefect to see burn? Was it me? Was I getting cranky or less tolerant in my middle age?

  “We just went it a painful circle, my friend. Say, what’s your name anyway?”

  “It is not anyway. It is 00100-1-11.”

  “Your name is a binary number?”

  “Whose isn’t?”

  “I’d rather not go there. Back to my main question, which is taking longer than it should to answer, by the way. You are a world leader and not an integrator?”

  “Alien mutant, I am both. Who isn’t?”

  I rested my hand on my chest. “Me, for one.”

  Instead of shaking violently, he rocked side to side violently. “Of course, you are not. You count for zero.”

  “You know, if you keep insulting me, I might just get mad. You really don’t want to see me mad.”

  “I really don’t want to see you, period. Whatever mad is, I don’t want to see you doing it.”

  Then, luckily, it hit me. The Gorgolinians must govern themselves jointly. One tank, one vote, that sort of system. “So everyone on this planet is part of the leadership.”

  “No, impenetrable alien.”

  I had been so sure. “You mean only some of the individuals on this planet are part of leadership?”

  “Yes. You are not.”

  Count to ten, Jon. Maybe one hundred. “If I were not on this planet would everyone be part of management?”

  “Naturally. And I would be more contented if you were not here.”

  “Finally. Man, talking to you is like pulling my own teeth.”

  “What are teeth?”

  “It’s unimportant actually. Okay, oh powerful sub-divisional leader of Sotovir, I have an important question. Are your people aware of the threat from the Adamant?”

  “No.”

  “You know nothing of the Adamant?”

  “Of course, we do, retrofit.”

  “But you just said …”

  “We have no people. Since we have no people, they cannot be aware of the Adamant threat.”

  I was going to place a homing device on this one and ask Harhoff to target him first when the attack came.

  “So, the Gorgolinians are aware that they will soon be conquered?”

  “We know no such thing. We are aware the Adamant will attack us. We are confident we can repulse them.”

  “Well don’t be. They’ve already subdued most of this galaxy and large parts of several others. Whatever you offer by way of defense they’ve seen, beaten, and laughed about afterwards over drinks.”

  “Nonsense. We do not fear these soft-bodies. They cannot breathe here.”

  “They’ll wear environmental suits.”

  “There is no food or water to sustain them.”

  “They’ll bring their own.”

  “They will feel our determination and flee. There is nothing for
them to acquire here. We have nothing that benefits them.”

  “Oh, yes you do.”

  “What could they possibly want from us?”

  “Your lives. All of them.”

  “How would that profit them? A life is not a useful commodity. It cannot be consumed or traded.”

  “Yes, but if you don’t have them, the Adamant don’t have to worry you might bite them in the butt … Forget I said that. Look, as the advance, they destroy all civilizations. They will not allow for the chance of a society not eliminated to hurt them later.”

  “Then we will tell them to start with we will never harm them. We have no interest in them or their empire.”

  “The way they see it, if you’re all dead, they won’t have to take your word that you won’t hurt them.”

  “That, alien, is perfectly illogical. Why suffer, die, and cause misery upon all involved when it can so easily be avoided?”

  “Because they don’t consider abolishing your lives as a big deal. It all part of their orderly vision for the galaxy.”

  00100-1-11 didn’t respond. Finally, he was quiet. Dude was seriously annoying, and by that point I knew it wasn’t me.

  “I have presented your words to my brethren. We agree that you must be mistaken. You will now depart.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “You run your fish tank bodies into something you don’t want to believe, so you dismiss it as incorrect?”

  “Incorrect. We know it to be incorrect. Belief does not enter into the equation.”

  “But I know it to be correct. I can provide you with proof the Adamant destroy everything in their path. They always have, and they always will.”

  “Fool alien. How can you provide us proof of something we know to be incorrect? What falsehood would trump our confidence that our own opinions constitute facts?”

  Don’t go there, Jonny boy. You’re a diplomat, at least up until the point you kick this guy’s—well, the back of his tank. “Here’s my challenge to you and your stubborn-assed brethren, 00100-1-11. If I’m wrong and you’re right, preparing too much won’t hurt you, will it?”

  “Only the loss of time and effort wasted in defending against the impossible.”

  “But if I’m right and you’re wrong, you end as a society, probably as a species. What’s that worth to you?”

  “Very much.”

  “So, would you rather waste some time and effort or perish from the galaxy? Which outcome is more acceptable?”

  “Obviously the former. Why would you ask such an easily answered question?”

  “Because you seem to be incapable of doing so.”

  Yeah, no way around it, that felt good to say. I would have snapped my fingers and said zap or gotcha, but the dude wasn’t worth it. But what did result was worth all the mental grief. Over a few weeks I got them to see the wisdom of being totally proactive. I also put them in touch with the robots of Langir. Turned out, robots communicated well with the annoying-as-hell Gorgolinians. Well, not all robots, because I didn’t. But I was only technically a robot. At the core of my essence, I was a cocky fighter pilot. Enormous difference.Massive.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I knew the alliance of two objectively odd-ball worlds would be a drop in the bucket in terms of stopping the Adamant onslaught. With only a few years to prepare for an invasion force generations in the making, they’d be lucky to pique the Adamant’s interest, let alone hold out long. But, a start was a start. I had no idea how many civilizations acting in concert it might take to stop the juggernaut they faced. There was also no way I could guesstimate how many planets I could visit and what percentage of those I could sway to jump on the bandwagon. Against that wavy background, I was always keenly aware that my captivity clock was ticking. There was only so much time I could devote to this mission before I had to seriously address my looming debt.

  As Lao Tzu was credited with saying, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Call it Taoist fortune-cookie philosophy, but heck fire, I had two steps taken. My immediate goal was to cobble at least a few more together. Roughly the same distance on the far side of Langir from Sotovir’s position was the planet Vorpace. It was listed in the database as Ac (0). That sounded promising. No more recalcitrant fish tanks. Hopefully I was heading for a normal world, not another one full of flaky humanoids in search of the latest craze.

  My approach to Vorpace gave me reason to be optimistic. The planet was dotted with large cities and covered in smaller ones. Artificial satellites cluttered the skies, and there were several spaceports that broadcast advertisements to try their distinctive approach to customer service. One offered free lube jobs. I assumed they meant for the ship, but the ad was a bit unclear. I crossed that one off my list.

  I put down in a bustling port at the edge of Quarrace, a regional capital according to the Als. It was impressive both from the elevated dock as well as from street level as I wandered around. The locals were spot-on human. I was dying to probe one. I mean I was anxious to study their DNA with my command prerogatives, not the other possible meaning. I had a firm deadline, and no, I wasn’t speaking allegorically. I debated whether to book a room to maintain the appearance of being human. Ultimately, I decided why bother? I wasn’t on a covert mission like I had been before. I also didn’t want to pass myself off as a native. My goal was to speak to the powers that be, try and win them over, and then be on my way. So, I kept walking.

  Periodically the Als would feed me updates on cultural insights as they developed them. The more I learned, the more I was blown away. The nation I was in, Jerassey, had a democratically elected leader, a legislature, and a court system like the old USA did way back when. Other countries had similar governmental structures. Most surprisingly, given that the planet was teeming with near-humans, was that no one was trying to kill the guys next door. There hadn’t been a major war in centuries. That fact alone basically convinced me the locals couldn’t be too closely related to Homo sapiens.

  Once the Als told me where the prime minister’s office was, I headed in that direction. I wrestled in my mind how I might be able to speak to the woman in charge, Jonnaha Garefty. This civilization was used to alien species coming and going. They possessed serviceable interstellar flight capabilities. Ms. Garefty would be completely unimpressed with my credentials as an alien visitor. I worried I would only be allowed to speak with disillusioned civil servants behind a counter. They'd stare blankly at me before sliding me the form I needed to fill out to make an appointment to see if I could get an appointment.

  The ministerial building was oddly familiar, but I couldn’t say from where. I ascended the steps and passed under an expansive portico and entered the airy lobby. All in all, it was a typical home for politicians, one designed to impress the voters who visited. There were the mandatory busts and oversized statues of dead people lining the passages. But one, again, caught my eye as strangely familiar, though only vaguely. The male depicted was the only one on display who wasn’t the typical withered senior citizen.

  I was well past that statue when I turned to go back and take a closer look at it. Something wasn’t right, or not correct. I stared at the statue for several minutes, taking the time to walk all the way around it twice. My frustration gauge was beginning to redline.

  Hey, Als, I said in my head, there’s something very, I don’t know, odd about this statue. Can either of you say what it is I’m not seeing?

  That’s easy, Pilot. It’s male, not female, and it doesn’t have preposterously large implants flopping it the breeze. It is a form of expression completely foreign to you. It’s called art, replied dear Al.

  That drew an unhelpful snicker from the missus.

  Okay, now that you’re both off my Christmas card list for all eternity, a little actual help please.

  We are unfamiliar with the image. What does the plaque at the base say? responded Stingray.

  Duh, might help to check out the painfully obv
ious, wouldn’t it?

  Here, see for yourselves, I said. No name, just a quote. Like that’s helpful three days after the guy died, and no one knew who he was. Little kids forced to tour here on field trips will be unenlightened for centuries.

  The quote read: My greatest accomplishment served the greater good, so I may die a happy man.

  Vacuous drivel of the first magnitude. Nobody talks like that, I complained.

  Isn’t there a saw about not speaking ill of the dead? teased Al.

  You mean an old saw, a saying, don’t you? I replied.

  No, that’s tautology. It’s simply a saw, responded Stingray. She was just about never helpful.

  Back to the subject at hand, kiddies, any clues? I pressed.

  No, but that nose sure looks like Toño DeJesus’s, said Al. If the fellow sported a white lab coat, I’d say it was him. But old Toño always wore one. He was probably buried in one.

  Yeah, this dude certainly has quite the beak going on, doesn’t he? Hey, did Toño ever say those corny words?

  Not that I can recall. He was too smart to.

  You’re right. Oh well, can’t dwell on a dusty old statue. I have worlds to save.

  We’re so proud to have known you, General Ryan. Yeah, that was Al.

  I headed toward the main reception desk again. Out of the blue, someone passing me gave me a thumbs up and a smile. He didn’t say anything and kept walking. Oh no, another flake world.

  I stepped up to the counter and started to ask, “I know this is …”

  “Are we having another reenactment already?” Dude rolled his beady little eyes. “When will the political hacks stop wasting tax money on shows designed to make them look more patriotic than their next opponents?”

  No, I said to myself, don’t punch him in the nose. “You know I—”

  “Not that you’d actually serve as a passable Jonerian.” He leaned over the counter to make a big show of looking me up and down in judgment. “Too rag-tag and scrawny.” He pointed his pen at my arm. “Those sticks would need stuffing to even begin to match his.”

  Do not strike snarky lackey. I had to repeat that three times in my head. “Whose arms, my friend, are we discussing again?”