‘First, order the soldiers at the front of this ship to lay down their weapons,’ she said.
The lieutenant reached for the device that Barabadar still held, thought better of it, and crossed to the central console. It pressed a control and spoke. It had a conversation with a deeper voice at the other end, which seemed to grow quite heated.
The lieutenant turned back.
‘They refuse.’
‘Refuse!’ Barabadar bellowed. Such . . . such insolence! Had these creatures no sense of battle honour
at all
? She would have strong words to say to their mothers, were they ever to meet.
‘Explain the situation,’ she said tightly. They
were
only outlanders . . . ‘We have captured the key areas of this ship. We have captured you. We have captured most of your crew, two- and four-legged. They can die with honour, or they can lay down their weapons and live.’
The lieutenant had another conversation.
‘They are complying,’ she said.
A quick conversation with the leader of Squad the Seventh confirmed this.
‘Good. Now, stand still,’ Barabadar said. She walked around the lieutenant and took hold of the outlander’s head in her feeding arms. She felt the creature trembling. A short mane covered the head, again similar to Long’s, though darker. Barabadar ran her fingers through it. Then she pulled back the outlander’s collar and peered down the back of its neck. Just smooth skin. Absolutely nothing that even looked like it just might be a Sharemass.
So how
did
these animals Share? This was going to make life more complicated.
Perhaps their Sharemasses were internal . . .
She walked round to face the outlander from the front again.
‘What is the largest open area on this ship?’ Barabadar said.
‘That would be the hangar deck.’
‘Then here are my instructions. Those on board who are actively involved in the operation of this ship are to remain at their positions. Everyone else is to report to the hangar deck at once. You will designate someone to show my First Son here where this hanger deck is. And now –’ the crunch! – ‘can this ship move?’ Barabadar said.
A pause. ‘We have limited mobility. We haven’t yet tested the repairs.’
‘Can you get us back to the rock?’
‘The rock?’
‘The asteroid!’ Barabadar said impatiently. ‘The secret base. The one you attacked.’
‘The one
we
. . .?’ The words through the translator were flat and unemotional, but from the sudden volume and the increased smell in the air, Barabadar guessed outrage, surprise. ‘Yes,’ said the lieutenant. ‘We can probably return there.’
‘Then we will do so. Pass on my instructions to the crew and also inform your engineering staff that my engineering staff will require a full briefing on the operational principles of this vessel. And, of course, your clever method of opening holes in space.’
She suspected the lieutenant would dispute the point, so she turned away before any argument could be entered into. Of course, the creatures would want to hang onto their superior technological secrets – who wouldn’t? – but, one way or the other, she would get the secrets out of them.
And the best of it was, she no longer had to worry about preserving the bodies so as to placate the outlanders. The outlanders had come, they had been duly challenged, they had fought, and they had lost. The dead were hers to do as she liked with.
‘First Son,’ she said, making sure she wasn’t within range of the translator gadget. ‘I want volunteers to consume a couple of dead outlanders. They must have a way of Sharing and I can’t guess what it is. Try eating their heads first of all; there may be something inside that I can’t see.’
‘Very well, My Mother.’
‘And if it doesn’t work on the corpses,’ Barabadar added, ‘try it on a couple of live ones.’
Twenty-One
Day Twenty-One: 23 June 2153
The lifeboat came to within 30,000 miles of SkySpy and stopped.
‘Think they’ve detected us?’ Donna said.
‘Almost certainly.’ Gilmore scowled at the display on the flight-deck desk. They weren’t making any effort to hide. At this range, there was no harm in letting the XCs see them.
Pathfinder
had fallen silent soon after the Mayday went out, leaving them with hours of speculation fuelled by their worst fears. But then the ship had started moving and now it was almost back at SkySpy, which was encouraging. The XCs couldn’t have worked out so quickly how to make the ship move; therefore, a large part of the crew must still be alive.
‘We are receiving a signal from
Pathfinder
’s step-through generator,’ said Boon Round. ‘It seems to be on SkySpy.’
‘On SkySpy?’ said Gilmore.
‘Definitely somewhere in the asteroid,’ Boon Round confirmed.
‘Could we fire it up at a distance?’ Donna said. The point had already occurred to Gilmore. Open a point, rush in on full, skip back to the Commonwealth and bring reinforcements.
Except that . . .
‘It needs to be connected to the ship for the power,’ he said.
‘Does this lifeboat have enough power?’
‘Probably. But we’d have to get right close to it and . . . hey, stay back!’
The XC, Oomoing, had come too close for his liking. Donna whirled round and her shoulder lasers clicked into position, targeting the creature with pinpoint accuracy. She was still wearing her armour, minus helmet and gauntlets, for just that reason.
‘I just wanted—’ Oomoing said, via the translator aide.
‘We’re having a crisis and you’re not involved. I said, and I meant, stay away.’
The XC retreated to the far end of the cabin, still clutching the aide.
‘D-Donna?’
It was a faint whisper from the couch at the front of the main compartment, nearest the flight deck, but they all heard it. Joel had woken up. He was propping himself up on one elbow and looking blearily about him. His eyes focused on the small group.
‘
Dad?
’ He looked from one to the other. ‘What are . . . how are . . .’
Gilmore and Donna stepped through the flight deck hatch together and jammed. Gilmore’s unarmoured ribs crunched as Donna’s armour rammed into him. He gasped and staggered back into the flight deck, and Donna seized the moment to squeeze through and reach Joel first.
‘Hi.’ She knelt in front of him, took his head in her hands gently, ran her fingers through his hair. ‘How are you?’
‘Still . . . still a bit . . . what are you
doing
here?’
‘I came to get you,’ she said simply.
Gilmore had finally caught up. ‘We both did,’ he said. ‘Boon Round’s been telling us about your adventures.’
‘Boon Round . . .’ Joel said. The Rustie had stayed in the flight deck. ‘Hi, Boon Round. Thanks for everything.’
‘My pleasure,’ Boon Round said.
‘I hope you are better, Joel.’ The unfamiliar voice came from the translator, again. Oomoing was standing a safe distance away.
Joel grinned and pushed himself into a sitting position. He swung his legs down to the deck and stood up, unsteadily. Donna supported him.
‘Oomoing. Yes, thanks, much better. You’ve met my dad?’
‘Indeed, though trust has yet to be established. It might help if you were to tell him how I think I could help get your ship back.’
Barabadar had brought
Pathfinder
back into a parking orbit around the asteroid. The assault ships wouldn’t be back for hours. Still, the outlander lifeboat prudently came to a halt on exactly the other side of the asteroid.
Marshal of Space Barabadar gazed up at it through her helmet visor. Such effortless movement. Such grace. Such power.
‘
Are you ready, Martial Sister?
’ said the voice that she really hadn’t expected to hear again. Let alone to hear blackmailing her. Meet the outlanders, unguarded and alone, or face having the half-facts that Oomoing already knew – which were still too much for Barabadar’s liking – broadcast throughout the system.
‘Ready, Learned Sister.’
‘
They say you may come up.
’
‘How very gracious. I’m on my way.’
Barabadar’s thrusters carried her up to the lifeboat and to its airlock. She stepped through, removed her helmet and gave the Bow of Equals. ‘Learned Sister.’
Oomoing returned it. ‘Martial Sister. Face to face, may I first present my condolences at the death of your Third Son. He was a loyal ally, son and friend, and he died most worthily of your family.’
The words tore into Barabadar but she didn’t let it show. ‘Learned Sister, I have long since reconciled myself to his death without Sharing. I had to when these creatures here so thoughtfully removed him, and you, in this ship.’
She let her gaze sweep over the assembled outlanders. One of them was in the same kind of space armour that the outlanders who had attacked the asteroid had worn, and she suspected that the things on its shoulders were weapons attachments which were trained on her.
‘I see you found two more,’ she said. ‘A clever feat. We’ve unearthed quite a nest of them ourselves, but we seem to have dealt with them.’
Oomoing wasn’t letting her duck the subject. Now Barabadar heard the anger crackling at the back of her voice. ‘Martial Sister, you said you would Share. I suggest we do it now. Did you bring—’
‘Of course I brought it.’ Barabadar opened a pocket and pulled out a small, thin box which she handed to Oomoing. ‘Will you please do the honours? I’d rather not trust outlanders to get it right.’
Oomoing bowed again. ‘My pleasure, Martial Sister.’
She opened the box and took out the Sharing scalpel and bowl, then walked behind Barabadar. The Marshal of Space felt the Learned Sister’s fingers probe the Sharemass at the back of her head.
‘There,’ she said. Then a slight sting. Oomoing wasn’t an experienced Sharer; she had dug deep with the scalpel and Barabadar would probably bleed.
Oomoing came back into view with – sure enough – the bloodstained Shareberry in its bowl, its skin inexpertly peeled back. She handed the bowl to Barabadar; a redundant piece of ritual because Barabadar held it back out to her.
‘Learned Sister, take this Sharing of myself as your sacred duty,’ Barabadar said. Oomoing reached out and lifted the Shareberry up.
‘Be very careful, Learned Sister,’ Barabadar added. She felt a perverse satisfaction. Oomoing had blackmailed her into coming out here; now this was payback. ‘Not every Sharing is worth it.’
Oomoing paused, then popped the Shareberry into her mouth and shut her eyes.
There was knowledge and there was sorrow.
Oomoing had already guessed the gist of it. Over a
hundred years ago, near the end of the Era of War,
scientists had finally made the correlation between the
transit of the Dead World and the waves of battle lust
that swept across Homeworld. The old legends were
right, but the Dead World didn’t get its name from any
malevolent deities. Probes were dispatched there and the
signals beamed back clearly showed a civilization in
residence. An outlander race. Sentient life somewhere
else in the universe.
The news was closely guarded. Very closely guarded.
The scientists passed it to a few select politicians, the
politicians passed it to their counterparts in the other
nations of Homeworld
. We need not fight. Something up there is making us do it.
A peace conference was called. It was partially held. A
great spirit of optimism. We can do this. We can break
free from the past. We can . . .
Then the orbits of the two worlds brought them
together again, and war again swept the planet. There
was no stopping it. Even those who knew the truth found
themselves giving the orders that would cause yet more
death, yet more destruction.
When the war was over, the survivors reconvened.
Every one of the Kin who knew about the Dead World
was brought into the conspiracy.
Because conspiracy it was. They would destroy the
race on the Dead World, and if that didn’t break the cycle
then nothing would. But how can you go about attacking
an enemy like the unseen forces of the Dead World in the
proper way? What rituals do you use? How do you judge
the winner? How do you keep your honour?
You don’t.
The details of the xenocide, Oomoing already knew
from Joel Gilmore. Now she got to see it from the inside.
It culminated in a united, manned mission to the Dead
World – a technological triumph that had to be
conducted in total secrecy – to finish the job. When it
was all done, every member of the attack fleet committed
suicide. Their ships were destroyed in Dead World orbit
so that their crews could never Share again. Those who
were left behind had agreed to die Unsharing. Knowledge
of the xenocide would vanish from the Sharing pool of the
Kin, passed on instead only in highly classified, written
records.
Because a few still needed to know. The Kin were
spreading out into space; it was inevitable that someone
would end up on the Dead World. The satellite shield had
to be implemented, a space watch maintained. So the first
Marshal of Space, Barabadar’s predecessor by three, and
a small, select circle of senior space sta f knew. So did
their counterparts in other nations. As did their
successors today. It was understood that when they
eventually died, they too would go Unshared. Their
knowledge would vanish from the pool and the secret
would stay hidden, passed on only by word of mouth.
Until the outlanders turned up. Outlanders who had
witnessed and recorded the whole thing.
Oomoing opened her eyes. Barabadar was staring at her.
‘You . . . would do that?’ Oomoing said. She felt the tearing sorrow within her. To be unremembered, Unshared. To have nothing but genetic progeny to pass down through the ages. In times gone past, it had been the ultimate disgrace – a punishment for criminals. And to save a proud and honourable people from the knowledge of such a crime, Barabadar had taken it upon herself.
‘I told you that you might not like it, Learned Sister. The Era of War is over! A liberal like you should be glad. Now you know how it was accomplished, how glad are you still?’
‘I . . . am humbled, o Most Worthy Sister.’ Oomoing hung her head.
‘As long as we know where we stand.’ Barabadar turned her attention to the outlanders. ‘Now, introduce me to your new friends and we can work out where we go from here.’
‘Your ship is mine,’ said the voice from the aide. ‘It came uninvited, it was challenged, it was captured according to all due protocol.’
Gilmore looked across the table at the Marshal of Space. He suppressed a shudder at the sight: the blank eyes, the flowing mane, the shark teeth. If Barabadar decided to lash out with the talons of her hunting arms then he would be dead before he even noticed.
Fortunately the aide didn’t translate body language.
‘The crew—’ he said.
‘Is also mine. It was captured along with the ship and my Learned Sister assures me that Sharing between our species is impossible; therefore, we must be taught how to operate the ship according to your own methods.’
Gilmore breathed a sigh of relief that Oomoing had got in touch with Barabadar
before
she had started Sharing experiments with live humans or Rusties. ‘But we’ve already agreed you can keep the base,’ he said.
‘How very kind of you. A redundant, empty base on the outskirts of the solar system with no real practical purpose any more.’
‘SkySpy’s original purpose—’Gilmore began.
‘A telling choice of name, isn’t it?’ Barabadar interrupted. ‘Sky.
Spy
.’
‘I didn’t choose it,’ Gilmore said through his teeth. ‘I was saying, yes, its
original
purpose is now redundant. You know about us. But it would be a good, neutral centre of operations for our two species to meet and mix and ultimately form diplomatic relations. It’s in your territory, so clearly it would be best for you to administer it.’
‘And why would we want to meet and mix, Worthy Sister?’ said Barabadar. She would not consider the possibility that he was Joel’s father; speaking to anything less than a mother would have been demeaning for her.
‘Because you know about us and you can’t hide us. Accept us as friends instead.’
‘Why?’
‘Because otherwise we’ll come to blows.’
‘Stay away from our solar system and no blows will be necessary.’
‘Sooner or later you’ll leave your solar system. And we intend to study the natives of the Dead World, help them if we can. We won’t let them misuse you as they used to—’
‘How do you intend to stop them?’ Barabadar said.
‘But we can’t let them go on as they are.’ Gilmore knew that she knew he had ducked the question.
‘Why not?’
‘Because.’
At the back of his mind was the ever-present awareness that he was making promises he couldn’t guarantee would be kept. But he was Arm Wild’s official observer; surely that gave him ambassador status here. And if not, he was sure he could talk Arm Wild into it when he got back to the Roving. An opportunity like this would never arise again, and even a bad deal struck now was better than no deal at all.
Of course, he had no training in negotiation and he could already sense that the talk was going all over the place. He wanted, in order of priority: the crew back,
Pathfinder
back, and clearance to investigate the Dead Worlders. He had tried to start with the first matter; now they were discussing the last. How did the pros managed to concentrate on one subject?