Alien Honor (A Fenris Novel) (35 page)

Cyrus stared at the man in shock. “So what happened to you?”

“Could you be more specific?”

“I don’t know of anybody on Earth or in the Sol System that looks like you psi-masters.”

“Psi-masters?” the old man asked.

“That’s what we call you, ah, guys with the
baans.
Your bodies are quite different from the Vomags.”

“Oh. I think I understand. We are the Bo Taws. The Kresh created us in their gene labs, just as they created the Vomags to storm the tunnels of the Chirr.”

“The who?” Cyrus asked. This was too much information to sort through all at once.

The old psi-master or Bo Taw raised a long-fingered hand. It caused the wide sleeve to slide down, showing his bony, veiny arm. “We’ll take forever if I randomly feed you bits and pieces of data. Let me start from the beginning. I think you’ll understand better then. We lack time and soon you must leave or the Kresh will recapture you. We cannot afford that, as this is our greatest chance yet. Ah, I’m still confusing you, yes?”

“I’m for hurrying,” Cyrus said. “The Kresh have threatened to put me in the Grand Agonizer.”

“A horrible and sickening end,” the psi-master said. “Therefore, I’ll be as brief as I can. Still, I believe I should tell you the full story. You may never get
another chance like this. Besides, we need Earth to know as much about us and the Kresh as possible.”

“Ah…”
What was the best way to tell the Reacher the bad news? Maybe to just do it
. “I don’t think Earth is going to find out about either of us for a long time.”

“Fighting and struggling against an alien tyranny is much better than submitting,” the Reacher said. “Our actions prove we are men. Now let me compose my thoughts. I want to get the facts right. My memory isn’t what it used to be. Are you listening?”

“I sure am,” Cyrus said.
Didn’t he hear what I said about Earth?

The old psi-master studied one of the walls, blinking slowly. He pinched the bridge of his nose with a long forefinger and even longer thumb. “I do not know all there is to know about the Great Trek. I have heard bits and pieces, and through my long and lonely years, I have connected the stories into a pattern, searching for the truth. We are scattered throughout the Fenris System, slaves to the Kresh.

“I know very little about the ancient Earth of long ago, its politics and the happenings that forced our ancestors to attempt the journey across time and space. There is an ancient tale of Bernard Attlee, an extraordinary visionary. How he knew about the Fenris System remains a mystery to this day. I suspect he had mental abilities, a clairvoyant perhaps who saw the Earth-like planets here in their pristine glory. In any case, he persuaded the leader of the expedition to chart a path to this system.

“The mighty starship
Winston Churchill
held eleven thousand desperate souls. It used nuclear bombs as fuel, an Orion vessel, building up velocity. Once out of the solar system and with sufficient speed, they turned on the Bussard ramjet. I do not know the specifics of such an engine. It is sufficient to say that it built up to near light speed. The journey took two hundred and thirty-seven years to complete, at least to an outside observer. Because of time dilation, much less time passed for the travelers. The hopes and dreams of beginning anew in what Bernard Attlee promised would be Earth-like conditions… there was great fanfare as the ship approached its destination.”

“Didn’t they use telescopes to study the system?” Cyrus asked. “Didn’t they see it was already occupied?”

“That is a clever question,” the Reacher said. “I should know the answer, but I don’t. Hmm, that is interesting. In any case, the great visionary Attlee hadn’t foreseen the Kresh, nor did the passengers discover them until too late. The Kresh inhabited the star system, had for countless generations as they battled their great enemy the Chirr. As far as I know, the Kresh never used star-drives like a Bussard ramjet. They never had or have psionic talents. They did have Attack Talons that dreadful day. The aliens attacked
Winston Churchill
, capturing what was left of the crew and passengers. Perhaps I should tell you a little about the Kresh. You’ve seen them, yes?”

“I have,” Cyrus said.

“They’re dinosaurs, or they look as we supposed dinosaurs must have in the olden times on Earth. Well, the Kresh are warm-blooded, so in that way they’re unlike reptiles as the old books tell. They are inhuman in their thought patterns. Each Kresh strives for perfection in his or her chosen fields of study and contemplation. The hundred highest-ranked Kresh make up the Hundred, the ruling body, if one can call it that. Ormdez Ree, the Master of High Station 3, is ranked 30,231 in the Kresh hierarchy. That means in their way of looking at things, he is the 30,231st most impressive Kresh of the species. I estimate there to be something like eight or nine million Kresh in the Fenris System. So as you can see, Ormdez Ree is quite impressive indeed.”

An odd smile flickered on and off the Reacher’s face. “The Hundred view themselves as philosopher kings, and they are passionless, driven by cold reptilian logic. In any case, one hundred and seventy years ago, the Kresh captured a ship full of humans. Seven thousand people survived the journey and the battle. The Kresh tested them and found the humans intelligent enough to use. The Kresh scooped every female ovary clean of eggs and began their genetic warping.

“The Vomags they created became fodder for the war against the Chirr. The Chirr are intelligent insects and control the three inner planets. Before
Winston Churchill
arrived, the Kresh had annihilated the Chirr of the most inward planet. The Kresh personally fought in space, driving the Chirr spaceships from the void. On the planetary surfaces, the Kresh sent their fighting machines down to dig out the Chirr. But the so-called masters failed to drive the insects from any nest. With the coming of the Vomags, events changed radically. The soldiers in their millions—”

“Wait a minute,” Cyrus said. “Millions, you’re saying there were millions of Vomags?”

“The Kresh were busy in their gene labs, bringing eggs to maturity in record time. One hundred and seventy years have passed since we arrived in the Fenris System, but the Kresh have already bred hundreds of generations of mutated humans.”

“That’s disgusting,” Cyrus said.

The Reacher shrugged. “Millions of Vomags have perished on the third planet. They drove deep into the nests, battling the Chirr in their underground hives. Finally, the Chirr exploded thousands of nuclear weapons, saturation-bombing their entire planet.”

“They committed suicide?” Cyrus asked.

“No. The Chirr demolished thousands of Vomag bases, hundreds of thousands of combat flyers and tanks. They made a dead zone on the surface, no doubt burrowing deeper into the planet to escape the radiation.”

“Chirr still live on the third planet?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t the Chirr do the same thing on the second planet?” Cyrus asked.

“They try from time to time, but the Kresh space lasers are always tracking, always firing and destroying.”

“It sounds like an alien war to the death,” Cyrus said.

“The war is greater than that,” the Reacher said. “But listen. Let me finish the tale. You must soon be on your way.”

“Where are you expecting me to go?”

“Listen!” the Reacher said sternly. “I’ve not waited these long years for an impatient young man to ruin everything because he cannot listen. You are a link in a great chain. You must do your part.”

Cyrus raised his eyebrows.

“The Vomag soldiers were simply one branch of humanity, a newly created race. The Bo Taw became another form of man. The Kresh do not possess psionic powers, as I said. Yet they tested the captured passengers and found that an infinitesimal number of humans do possess such talents.”

“How did they know to test such a thing if they didn’t have it themselves?” Cyrus asked.

“The Chirr are strongly psionic and have used their abilities against the Kresh for thousands of years.”

Cyrus massaged his forehead. “This is incredible. It’s too much to take in all at once.”

“Let me speak the words. Your mind will work on sorting out the facts later.”

“I guess,” Cyrus said. He was comfortable in this chair. He doubted he would know such ease in the Grand Agonizer. “You’re right. Keep talking.”

“The Kresh bred the Bo Taw for psionic ability. There are hundreds of thousands of us now, and we are a special problem for the Kresh. I suspect that is when one of them came upon the solution, and that was
love
.”

“What does love have to do with anything?” Cyrus asked.

“The Kresh do not love, but one among them deciphered its meaning in their alien symbols. He is high among the Hundred now, having gained rank through the discovery. That is how Kresh climb the hierarchy: through feats of mind, feats of rationality, anything that adds to their
Codex of All Knowledge
. I believe that is how he stumbled upon the human idea of love—the Kresh longing for greater knowledge. Their quest is a form of love, I suppose, though more like obsession. Most of them concentrate their minds and efforts on some area of expertise. They particularly prize practicality, the use of applied knowledge.”

“I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with love,” Cyrus said.

“The Kresh wished to leash the Bo Taw to them. What better way than to make the psi-masters, as you put it, loyal creatures? They would enforce loyalty by making us love our masters. The Kresh rule us through devotion, and when needed, through harsh and brutal discipline.”

“To gain love,” Cyrus said, “doesn’t one need to love also?”

“The Kresh argue they love us by giving us meaning, purpose, and most of all, order. In turn, they demand we obey and love them. Many Bo Taw and other lesser humans do love the masters, but many do not. The Resisters uses non-love—hatred, if you will—as the lever to pry people from their subservience to the Kresh.”

“What does the rebellion look like?” Cyrus asked.

The Reacher shook his head. “I have much of the old wisdom, but there is much I do not know. Have slaves in Earth history ever risen up and successfully thrown off the yoke of their masters?”

“Yes,” Cyrus said.

“Do you know this for a truth?”

“Yes, Moses led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, although Spartacus failed in the end.”

“The old knowledge says slaves need outside assistance for victory.”

“Legend says that God or the Creator helped Moses.”

The Reacher nodded. “We have lacked the Creator’s help, or anyone else’s help for that matter. Thus, we have never revolted or rebelled, but merely resisted. Now, however, you are here to give us outside assistance.”

“Me?” Cyrus asked. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Not just you, of course, but Earth. You are an earnest of Earth’s good will.”

“Surely you know that the Kresh captured our vessel.”

“One ship, yes, this I do know,” the Reacher said. “What about the others?”

“What others?”

The Reacher searched Cyrus’s eyes. “You made the assault upon the Kresh System with a single warship? That strikes me as irrational.”

“I think you have the wrong idea about us. We didn’t know the Kresh were here. To the telescopes in the solar system, the Fenris System—or the Kresh System—looked empty. I believe the Kresh possess a machine that puts a false picture of this system out into the stars.”

“But in your initial attack, some escaped.”

“What initial attack?” Cyrus asked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The Reacher frowned. “There is a mystery here. Our minds are not linking. Nine years ago, Earth made the first assault.”

“There’s your mistake,” Cyrus said. “No one from Earth even knew about—” He stopped suddenly, thinking.

“Ah. Your eyes, they show me you’ve had an epiphany.”

“What are you talking about now?” Cyrus asked.

“Speak your thoughts, I beg you.”

“Well… you’re saying people from Earth attacked Fenris nine years ago. But nine years ago no one in the solar system even knew about Fenris.”

“Yet nine years ago the Kresh captured humans or humanoid soldiers from Earth,” the Reacher said.

“Yeah, I bet they did,” Cyrus said. “Only they weren’t from Earth, well, not directly anyway. If I’m right, they were cyborgs. We defeated the cyborgs over a hundred years ago, driving them from the Sol System.”

“This is vitally important,” the Reacher said. “Do you mind if I scan your thoughts?”

“Yeah, I’d mind it a whole lot,” Cyrus said, bristling.

“Time is pressing. You must let me scan your memories.”

Cyrus shook his head.

“I could force it,” the Reacher said. For the first time, he seemed like a psi-master, with something of their arrogance. He stood straighter, and his eyes… the man’s gaze bored into Cyrus.

“No you couldn’t,” Cyrus said. He drew his heat gun, aiming it at the old psi-master.

The Reacher’s eyes tightened.

Cyrus winced. He felt the mind bolt, but his shield had been on automatic. He was too tired to try any telekinesis, but not too tired to shield his thoughts. “You aren’t going to get your info like that,” he panted.

The Reacher’s eyes began to grow dull, turning a metallic color.

Cyrus groaned, but he fought, holding his mind shield. He stood and he aimed the heat gun at the man’s tall forehead. “If you don’t stop, you’re dead.”

“If you kill me, you will never leave the Crab Palace alive.”

“Maybe, but I know you won’t ever leave it either. I’ll not be your slave.”

The mind assault lasted a moment longer, and then stopped. With a stricken look, the Reacher turned away. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Would’ve could’ve should’ve,” Cyrus muttered. He had another headache, the old bastard.

“Meaning what’s done is done?” the Reacher asked.

“Sure.”

With his back to Cyrus, the Reacher said, “Earth or Sol isn’t sending more warships, are they?”

“This was a colonizing mission.”

The old man took an audible breath. “I have revealed myself to you for nothing. All these long years… The Kresh will find us soon. I have played my last hand.”