Dark Running (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 4) (24 page)

‘And then, of course, there was the Falling. Marek closed their borders at once, wouldn’t allow any other ship within or anywhere near their system. They were still in contact with other worlds, though, remotely – don’t ask me how, but it does seem from the archive that worlds could communicate directly back then. And I
think
, from things the Solarans have said, that they still do, beyond the Firewall. Anyway, the Marefek didn’t just close their borders to protect themselves, they were working just as hard as anyone to find some kind of cure or solution that would stop the plague. Given their field of expertise it was natural, of course, that they would explore technological solutions. And inevitable, in that, that they would come up with the idea of an artificial immune system.’

She paused for a moment, letting them take that in, and seeing a general acceptance – yes, that made sense, it was logical, and something humanity might well have come up with, too.
Had
come up with, indeed, as the problem of how to allow Solarans to visit their worlds when they had no immunity to human diseases had generated just that solution. Shion herself was able to stand there talking to them because she had been fitted with the same system.

‘I think you have to understand,’ said Shion, thoughtfully, ‘just how we – my people, and just about all the other worlds – reacted to that. Nobody wanted it. Even people facing imminent extinction would refuse the implants. They would, literally, rather die out as a people than live on like that. It’s hard to explain why to you, because you take medical implants so much for granted you can’t see the issue at all. But to us, to put such things in your body and make your survival dependent on a machine, that’s the stuff of horror.

‘The best way I can explain it is to give you an equivalent scenario. Say, if you were terminally ill and you were told that you could survive but you’d have to eat a bucket of live slugs every day for the rest of your life…’ she gave a quick grin at the involuntary
errrgh
reaction that ran through the audience.

‘But even that doesn’t really cut it, because humans have such an extraordinary survival instinct, part of your development as a survival
species
, that if it came to that, most of you would in fact go for it and eat the slugs. Most other species would not.
My
people would not. Bearing in mind what I said about even the most conservative culture throwing up radical individuals, you should realise that I am the only person on my world who was prepared to come to your space, knowing that it would mean accepting those implants. And that was not, I can tell you, an easy decision, it was the hardest aspect of deciding to come here by far. And it isn’t easy for me even now. I don’t make a fuss about it because it
is
a small price to pay for all the joys of being here, but those implants are disgusting. They kicked in three times while I was on Therik, reacting to infection. They worked perfectly, saving my life, I wasn’t even what you’d consider to be ill, no symptoms. But I felt them working. I felt the machine in my liver vibrating as it turned itself on, and I felt the anti-virals and anti-bodies flooding through my bloodstream like ice-water. It only lasted a few minutes, and Davie was great,’ she smiled at her friend, ‘held my hand, made me laugh. But it was horrible, being honest, I felt nauseated and disgusted by it, contaminated, even a full decontam shower didn’t make me feel really clean again.

‘I don’t mind, really,’ she assured them, as their reaction to that was one of immediate concern. ‘It’s fine – I knew what would be involved, and it
is
a small price to pay for all the joys of being here. I’m only telling you to help you understand, I hope, why other worlds would not accept the implants that the Marefek developed. And I should say, too, that there are legends among the ancients, legends of a civilisation from the dawn of life, a people said to have created or transferred living consciousness into artificial bodies, in a quest for immortality. It’s said that they took their own lives, in the end, because they could not bear what they had become. It is the big taboo, something all the people I know of are unanimous about, that life is
life
, a vital flow, and prolonging it beyond the natural lifespan of a species is wrong, immoral,
anti-
life. Certainly that is the view, very strongly, of my own people.

‘The Marefek, however, were of the view that it was justified to use the implants as a temporary measure, until such time as the plague could be eradicated. They wouldn’t use them to extend life beyond a normal lifespan – in fact, the operation of the implants puts such strain on non-human physiology that they’re more likely to reduce lifespan slightly than extend it. Anyway, that’s what they did, and they went ahead with widespread installation of the implants, too, across their population. Even though the risk of their world being infected was vanishingly remote, they knew that if the virus
did
break out there, it would only be a matter of hours, days at the most, before they were wiped out, so they took that precaution, just in case.

‘And with that, see, they became… something else. Not cyborgs, yet. I don’t consider myself a cyborg because I have immune system implants. But I am dependent on those implants, my physiology is partly artificial. The Marefek clearly became dependent on their implants, psychologically if not physically, and over time, they refined, developed and enhanced them.

‘I don’t know what the tipping point was, the point at which they began to improve on their physiology and became true cyborgs. After the Firewall, they were as isolated as we were, nobody knew what was happening there. But it is apparent, tragically apparent, that while other worlds fell into the Dark Ages, the Marefek engineered themselves into their notions of the perfect species.’

She put up what was believed to be the way the Marfikians were now, though nobody had ever actually seen one in person. These were images transmitted by their ships. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about them was that they looked like children. It was believed that they arrested their physical development at around puberty, maintaining that appearance throughout their lives. The resemblance to the Marefek was obvious; their descendants too were hairless, smooth skinned, perfectly proportioned. But they didn’t look quite real; their skin had a dense, almost plastic sheen, their silvery eyes a flat cold stare.

‘At some point during that process,’ Shion continued, ‘it appears their capacity for empathy was removed, either by implant or genetic modification, in an ultimate form of social hygiene. And they had forgotten, as a species, that any other life existed beyond their own solar system. So when one of your exploration ships cruised into their system signalling ‘We come in peace’, the result was inevitable. Culture shock, multiplied exponentially by the discovery that your people were carrying diseases. They felt that they had to take control of things ‘out there’, in their own defence, to prevent more of your plague-carrier ships entering their space. Their word for us, for everyone who isn’t Marefek, is usually translated as ‘The Filth’ or ‘The Vile’. It would be more accurate, I think, to translate it as ‘The Unclean’, with all the connotations of plague-carrier and dread that carries, an almost religious connotation. Everything they do, everything, is about controlling the unclean in order to protect their world.

‘And yes, of course, the way they do that is appalling. We had no idea, on Pirrell, for centuries, of how dreadful their domination was. Our own world is protected, of course, by the Veil, so we’d never encountered them ourselves, or had contact with any other world which knew about them. It was only very recently, as the Solarans made contact with your people, you told them about it, they told us.’ She shook her head. ‘You cannot imagine the grief.’ She said. ‘It was before I was born, but they still talk about it as the Year of Mourning. So many worlds in fear, so many cities destroyed, just, truly terrible, beyond words.

‘But you have to understand, in that, that we grieve for them too. They too are victims of the Falling; they have become what they are in fear and desperation, and what has happened to them, too, is a tragedy. If the Marefek could have foreseen what they would become when they took the first step with those implants, it would have broken their hearts, for sure. It is a dreadful, tragic legacy, and for us, while we mourn the billions that they have killed, we must also mourn for them, for the horror of what they have become. I hope that none of you think that makes me in any way dismissive of the atrocities that they have committed, or any kind of apologist for them. I just hope you can see why we grieve for them, too, even if you don’t feel that you could do that, yourselves.’

The Fourth’s people accepted that, though few of them could find any degree of sympathy with the Marfikians themselves. Interesting as it was to find out how they had come to be what they were, to any member of the Fleet, they were the Enemy. The Fleet, after all, were the ones who stood between the Marfikians and the destruction of cities on their own worlds.

Ambassador Dolan had had a point, Alex thought, as he picked up the mood of ‘okay, fair enough’ from those around him. They were prepared to accept this from Shion, now, because they already knew, liked and respected her. If she’d told them this on first coming aboard, there might well have been considerable offence, even a question over whether someone with those views had any place on a League warship.

There were more questions after that, with someone, inevitably, asking Shion whether she knew if the Marfikians were aboard their attack ships or operated them remotely. That was a question that had been debated for centuries, and was still no nearer any resolution. Marfikian Thorns never landed, never opened an airlock, and nobody had ever succeeded in boarding one. Their hulls were resistant to heatscan, too, so there was no way to know whether there were actual Marfikians aboard. Some people believed that the ships themselves were a form of highly advanced AI. The more imaginative even speculated that the Marfikians used cyborg brains hooked up with the computer.

‘No, I don’t know that,’ Shion said, ‘though my
guess
would be, given how paranoid they were about dirt even before the Falling, that they are not likely to put themselves anywhere near infected biospheres if there is any way to avoid it.’

It was apparent that she didn’t really want to talk about the Marfikians any more than that, so questions moved tactfully back to the Olaret and their Nestings, with Shion explaining in more detail how she had identified where those worlds were now. That turned out to be remarkably easy – the list of the Nestings as recorded on Pirrell was in order of distance from Pirrell itself, providing bands of possibility which Shion had narrowed down. In some cases there was an obvious relationship between the name of the Nesting and that of the modern world, as with Aquarine and Quarus, but she had also looked at languages, genetics, history and culture to a depth worthy of a doctorate.

She provided, in fact, a written version of the lecture with full academic referencing, for any of them who were interested, and a file of source material and analysis. That would be copied, routinely, to the Diplomatic Corps, but it was primarily intended for their own shipboard academic journal, Mindful.

Mindful was one of their shipboard societies. They put on a weekly talk, a regular scheduled event in the gym, set up as it was today in lecture theatre mode. It ended, as usual, with a few words of thanks from Mindful’s president, the able star rating who organised the talks, warm applause and a surge of friends hurrying to congratulate the speaker. Within minutes, though, the gym was clearing. Everyone had been busy, the last couple of days, reading and discussing the files the skipper had made available, and the next day would see them getting down to detailed strategy and starting to train for their mission. It would be a big day.

Nine

Sure enough, next morning, Alex called a full officers’ meeting, presenting them with his plan.

‘Our efforts must be focussed on preparing as best we can for our meeting with the Samartians. Since we do not know where their border is, it is not possible to try any ‘hover at the border’ approach. I therefore propose that we take a non-threatening low-speed course towards Samart. At whatever point their warships intercept us – and we have to assume that they will – it is imperative that we comply at once with their command to us to leave their space. We will not return fire even if they are firing on us, but we will endeavour to stay out of damage-range without running out of their sight. Once they stop pursuing us it will be safe to assume that that defines the border of their territory, so at that point we will take up a non-threatening wide orbit course, moving out further if need be till we find the point at which they are prepared to tolerate our presence. There will be no attempt at communication with them. I know, it is tempting to feel that we should start blitzing signals at them as soon as they come within hailing range, but we know they don’t respond to that, so what’s the point? It would be better, I believe, to establish our peaceful intention by actions, rather than words.