Half an hour earlier, he had been resigned to dying; in the days he had been held captive, he had deliberately not given in to hope because he didn’t think he could handle the disappointment. But now there really did seem grounds for optimism.
‘Is there any water?’
‘Right here.’ Joel held the straw of a waterpack to Boon Round’s mouth and the Rustie sucked it dry in one swallow. Then Joel picked a slab of Rustie food at random from the box and held it out. One of Boon Round’s graspers, the tentacles on either side of his mouth, reached out and popped it into his mouth.
‘Feel better?’ Joel said.
‘Strength is returning. Thank you.’ Boon Round munched for a while. ‘My harness is uncomfortable. You did not put it on properly.’
‘Well, excuse me!’
‘If that is your desire.’
Well, we’re back to normal, aren’t we?
Joel thought. He picked out a pack of human food concentrate and bit into it. He looked up at the XCs. ‘Now what?’ he said.
Now, apparently, the XCs were going into a conference huddle. Joel looked dolefully at them and wondered if they were drawing up plans for an interesting execution. Somehow it didn’t seem as likely as it had an hour earlier, but . . .
One of the XCs was coming towards him – the big female. She held out one of her several hands and Joel’s eyes widened.
‘That’s my ident bracelet!’
The hand stayed outstretched. Joel reached out for it cautiously, ready to snatch his hand back at any moment; but still she stayed there, and so he took the bracelet and slid it onto his wrist.
‘Thanks. Thank you! Very much. Oh yes. Very much indeed, thank you.’
The XC looked blankly at him, then withdrew for another conference. Joel withdrew himself to the far side of the room and looked at his wrist thoughtfully. A mugshot of his own features looked back, mounted on the white plastic next to a bar code.
Then his finger sought out and pressed the red plastic square on the white band, and an image appeared in the air next to it. ‘Oh yes,’ he breathed. ‘Thank you, God.’
As well as the basic information stored on the bar code, the bracelet could store supplementary information, and if he had stuck to official procedure then the image should have been of his own face together with further details of blood group, allergies, religion, ethnicity, and last will and testament. Shortly before leaving for SkySpy, he had had a better idea.
Another face had appeared instead. Dark hair that could make the face look harsh when it was pulled back behind the head, or frame it to perfection when it hung loose. Bright blue eyes and a gaze that could blaze with fury or turn soft and tender. He had caught the picture just when the owner of the face was turning to him. It had been one of Admiralty Island’s perfect equatorial evenings and they had been walking along the west shore, watching the sunset. She hadn’t known what he was doing until she turned to say something and saw the camera, and in those eyes were irritation, amusement . . . and, just because he was there, that tenderness he knew so well.
Joel covered the image with his hand, and the warmth of the laser field suffused gently into his palm. For just a moment he had everything he wanted. He still didn’t know what was going to happen to him, and he didn’t have a plan for escaping – not even the germ of an idea for one. But right now, he didn’t need to go home. He didn’t even feel hungry. He had no idea if he would see her again, but at the moment small mercies were all he had, and the picture was enough. He wasn’t alone any more.
‘I cannot agree with your returning that item to the four-legged one,’ Stormer said tightly. ‘Learned Mother,’ he added.
‘Every one of the four-legged corpses had one of those around its neck,’ Oomoing said.
‘Exactly! It must be important!’
‘Important to individuals,’ Oomoing corrected him. ‘Probably not important in the day-to-day running of this base. If it was some kind of computer that held the weapons codes, say, or other vital information, then probably only one of the four-legged ones would have it. Not every single one of them. Would you hand out a self-destruct button to each and every one of your men?’
Stormer glowered; Oomoing had no idea if he accepted her logic or not, but he wasn’t going to argue. If he ever did, chances were he would go straight over her head to Barabadar.
‘So, now what, Learned Mother?’ he said instead. Oomoing looked back at the extraterrestrials. One was eating, the other apparently worshipping some personal god contained in that bracelet. Oomoing congratulated herself on returning it; another calculated risk, but clearly it was safe and it seemed to have generated some good will.
‘We continue to observe,’ she said.
‘With respect, Learned Mother, your brief from Marshal of Space Barabadar was to learn about them.’
‘I’ve learnt a great deal already,’ Oomoing said.
‘Such as?’ Stormer said sceptically.
‘I’ll make my report to the Marshal of Space,’ Oomoing said, with a childish measure of satisfaction. Stormer wouldn’t Share, so . . . ‘Ultimately, I’d like to take these two back to Homeworld.’
‘You’d like to what?’ Stormer exclaimed. ‘Learned Mother,’ he added again.
‘I have to study them properly,’ Oomoing said patiently. ‘I can only make so many observations here. I’ll never be able to learn anything definitive about their language, their biology, their culture . . . Do you have a problem, Colonel?’
‘Oh . . . tell her, Worthy Brother,’ Stormer said to Fleet.
The younger male looked abashed. ‘I think my Worthy Brother means,’ he said, ‘that your brief from my mother was to assess their level of threat, their military capability, their technology—’
‘
Definitely
their technology,’ Stormer added.
‘Well, of course,’ Oomoing said. ‘But there’s the whole contribution to science to consider . . .’
‘That won’t be relevant if my mother considers them a threat to the state, Learned Mother,’ Fleet said. ‘She’ll only be interested in anything we can use to a military advantage.’
‘And that won’t include their mating habits and artistry,’ said Stormer. ‘If these two can tell us anything useful, we’ll keep them. Maybe we’ll learn how they Share. Maybe we’ll have to extract the knowledge neuron by neuron, or kill them trying. But if My Martial Mother decides we’re better off just observing the equipment on this base and drawing our own conclusions, then that’s what we’ll do.’ He looked back at the two extraterrestrials. ‘We won’t starve them, don’t worry. A shot to each head and they’ll never know what hit them.’
‘I see.’ Oomoing looked sadly back at the two. There was so much knowledge locked up in those heads that Stormer had just so casually offered to blow apart for her, and Barabadar’s orders would override her own. ‘How soon does the Marshal of Space get here?’
‘Her ship arrives the day after tomorrow, Learned Mother,’ Fleet said. ‘She’ll listen to your report and then decide their fate.’
‘Then I’ll have to find out what I can, as quickly as possible,’ Oomoing said.
‘Indeed, Learned Mother.’
Four
Day Ten: 12 June 2153
Oomoing and Barabadar met in the Marshal of Space’s cabin on her ship, shortly after it had braked into a parking orbit around the asteroid.
The cabin was in one of the ship’s rotating sections. The return of weight, and going back to full white light and the familiar surroundings of a ship and other Kin, were most welcome.
And then they were at Barabadar’s door. Fleet opened it without knocking.
‘The Learned Mother Oomoing, My Mother,’ he said.
‘Thank you, Third Son,’ said a female voice. ‘Wait outside. Learned Sister, please come in.’ So Oomoing entered.
‘Learned Sister,’ Barabadar said again. The Marshal of Space rose up from a squatting cushion and presented the Bow of Equals. ‘How good to meet you at last.’
‘Martial Sister,’ Oomoing returned. Barabadar, she sensed, was a formidable hunter. Every movement was carefully controlled and spoke of the strength of her animal nature, lurking just below the surface of her conscious mind. Her talons slid in and out frequently and rapidly, all the way out to their quarter tips and then back again. Her eyes were shrewd and her gaze darted here and there, taking everything in. The muscles beneath the skin were tense and powerful.
‘Please, sit down,’ Barabadar said, indicating a cushion that faced her own across a work tray. Both females crouched. ‘Keeping busy?’
‘Extremely,’ Oomoing said. The Marshal of Space’s whole stance was putting her on the edge of combat herself. ‘There are plenty of bodies to observe.’ She emphasized the point,
to observe
. Barabadar had been explicitly clear that Oomoing could do what she liked with the extraterrestrial technology, run whatever tests came to mind, make whatever observations . . . but no autopsies. The bodies were to be treated with respect. Oomoing wondered if it was some kind of amends for the unprovoked, unchallenged attacked.
Barabadar’s forehead muscles rippled in a smile, though there wasn’t much humour there. ‘I’ve read the preliminary reports you transmitted,’ she said. ‘Your assessments so far sound plausible.’
‘Why, thank you, Learned Sister,’ Oomoing said. She wondered how Barabadar would react if she complimented the Marshal of Space on being good at tactics.
‘In fact, you’ve covered things so thoroughly it’s barely worth Sharing,’ Barabadar said casually. She picked up some notes from the tray in front of her and ran her eyes over the front page. ‘They’re clearly a long way ahead of us, but I’d already guessed that . . . You think they have control of gravity?’
‘A hypothesis that fits the facts,’ Oomoing said. The corridors in the asteroid were smooth, round tunnels with metal grids that provided a flat surface; there were no handholds, nothing to assist someone trying to get round in freefall, which was the base’s current state. Something must have held the extraterrestrials against those grids. And she had seen the recording of the extraterrestrials’ escape ship – even she knew that no conventionally driven ship moved like that. It had effortlessly bridged the space between the rock and Firegod, after which it had vanished behind the gas giant, never to reappear.
‘And they must be able to travel at phenomenal speeds, to travel between stars at all. Any clues?’
Oomoing shrugged. ‘There are two main theories amongst the scientific community as to how it could be done. Some think it should be possible to warp the local area of time and space in a way that seems to propel you faster than light . . .’
‘Seems?’
‘
You
don’t feel you’re moving at all; it would be as if the rest of the universe came to you rather than the other way round. But from everyone else’s perspective you would just vanish. The other theory is about opening up small holes in space, which are predicted by some of the latest theories, and passing through them. For that, of course, you could just use a conventionally powered ship that just happened to have the means for opening a hole on board.’
‘Not very convenient,’ Barabadar commented. Oomoing paused; this was a practical point from a professional spacegoing Kin that had never occurred to her in her flights of theory. No, you wouldn’t want to open up the hole on board the ship itself.
‘Well, perhaps the means for opening the hole is
outside
the ship . . .’
‘Much better,’ Barabadar agreed.
‘But either way would take a prodigious amount of energy, much more than we can easily produce, and as to clues here on this base – no, none at all.’
‘All the information we could possibly need must be inside their heads,’ Barabadar mused. She waved the notes. ‘And yet I don’t see anything here which suggests how they Shared.’
‘I’ve no idea if they did Share,’ Oomoing said. ‘There’s nothing that even looks like a Sharemass on the bodies that I’ve been able to locate externally.’ No autopsies . . .
Barabadar went back to the notes and changed the subject. ‘The energy weapons they used against us were formidable,’ she said, ‘and yet our stealth technology still seemed to fool them.’
‘They probably use electromagnetic systems, like we do.’
‘So they’re not that far ahead of us?’
‘Maybe. Or maybe electromagnetic systems will always be the best detection system to use at any level of technology,’ Oomoing said.
‘Maybe. When they did hit us, they hit us hard,’ said Barabadar. She flicked further through the notes. ‘Your speculations on their home environment are less helpful.’
‘I expect Stormer has told you I’m an evolutionist,’ Oomoing said. Barabadar smiled again, with only a little more humour.
‘Yes, he wasn’t impressed. Anything that impugns his battle gods will upset him. I think you’ll find that every time he’s prayed to them, he’s won a battle.’
‘Has he ever fought a battle without praying to them?’
‘Probably not.’ Oomoing noticed Barabadar carefully withheld her own opinion on the topic, but thought she detected it from the tone. Then the Marshal of Space seemed to reach a decision. ‘Learned Sister, from now on the outlanders themselves are of secondary interest. I want your absolute priority to be to find out how they travel faster than light.’
‘I never thought you were that interested in expanding,’ Oomoing commented. The entire direction of Barabadar’s tenure as Marshal of Space had been towards consolidating, making things safe and secure.
‘I wasn’t. But it’s just possible these creatures could strike at us. If they do, I want to be able to strike back.’ Barabadar for a moment looked something between tired and disgusted. ‘I’ve done this job for twenty years, Learned Sister, and I’ve been good at it. I’ve safeguarded our interests, which is all someone in my position should be required to do. And suddenly I have a whole new frontier to patrol.’
‘And new interests to safeguard,’ Oomoing murmured.
‘Exactly,’ said Barabadar, missing Oomoing’s point entirely.
Safeguard our interests
was a safely neutral phrase which could mean a lot of things. In the case of extraterrestrials, Oomoing suspected it meant neutralizing the threat before it emerged. And that could only mean one thing.
‘I’m sure you’ll do your job well,’ Oomoing said.
‘I always have,’ Barabadar said sourly. ‘And look where it got me.’
‘It’s the scientific find of a lifetime!’ Oomoing said.
‘It’s a political nightmare. Only a few people in our government know about this, so far. The question is, do we tell the other governments? Rather,
what
do we tell the other governments, since our interest in this place has no doubt aroused the curiosity of every mother on Homeworld with a good telescope? Or, do we kill the prisoners, blow up the base and pretend the whole thing never happened? Having, of course, taken as much of their technology as we can understand home with us.’
‘That would be insane!’ Oomoing protested.
‘For reasons you have no idea about and aren’t going to, it’s an attractive option,’ Barabadar said. Then the Marshal of Space sat casually back on her haunches. ‘So far,’ she said, ‘you’ve made better observations than Stormer ever could, but there’s nothing here any other bright female couldn’t have worked out. You’re better than that. Convince me you really were the right choice for this job.’
Oomoing paused to collect her thoughts. She had a feeling that Barabadar hadn’t let her Share so that she could be tested more subtly. ‘Ever since I heard of this place, I’ve rehearsed this meeting, Martial Sister,’ she said.
‘Really?’
‘I’ve longed to greet you with something like, “So, you’re the maniac who ordered an all-out attack on an extraterrestrial base.” ’
She could see Barabadar was amused. ‘Well, here I am,’ said the Marshal of Space.
‘You also,’ Oomoing said, ‘went about it in the most unbelievably unprepared manner. You were woefully ill-equipped. The facilities your people have used to imprison the extraterrestrials are jury-rigged. You brought nothing with you that could have been used to make a more secure holding area. Your main supplies all turned up days later. You couldn’t have planned this whole thing on the understanding that exactly two extraterrestrials would be captured. You weren’t expecting prisoners at all.
‘And,’ she added. ‘You did it without any kind of ritual of challenge. Not an honourable act by anyone’s standards.’
The amusement evaporated and Oomoing knew she had struck home. ‘Then what was I doing?’ Barabadar said coldly.
This was a leap in the dark for Oomoing, but she only had one hypothesis that made any kind of sense.
‘You were—’ she began.
A call signal interrupted her. Barabadar waved her to silence and took the call. ‘Worthy Son?’ she said.
Stormer’s features appeared on the display.
‘I’m sorry for interrupting, Martial Mother,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d want to know as soon as possible that we’ve discovered another ship.’
Four feet
, Joel thought sourly.
What a bloody silly
number.
Of course, this wasn’t an entirely worthy idea, and part of him was grateful that he still had this capacity for rational thought. But honestly, Boon Round could be so . . . so . . .
So
.
Joel supposed he was glad to see Boon Round rallying. The Rustie was spending less and less time in his hammock, which unfortunately meant more and more time moving around the Commune Place and complaining about . . . well, everything.
Which was what you’d expect from having two completely different species working side by side, Joel thought privately. You couldn’t really have the Commonwealth without the First Breed, the Roving being their home planet and all that, but he sometimes thought there might be a case for having all the First Breed stay at home and let the humans do the spacefaring. Let both sides play to their strengths.
Joel passed his time doing exercises and thinking, which were really the only two options open to him and had the advantage that they could be done simultaneously. Escape was the main thing to think about, though exactly how was another matter. He kept hoping the big, friendly alien would return and let him out again. If he could somehow win her trust enough to get near a weapons locker . . . or
something
. . .
‘I wish you’d stop that bouncing to and fro,’ said Boon Round. Joel had devised the exercise of kicking gently off the floor of the Commune Place, doing a somersault in mid-air and landing on the ceiling feet first, to repeat the process indefinitely. ‘It’s deeply distracting.’
Joel stopped exercizing and sulked in one corner. For the thousandth time he triggered the image on his ident bracelet and gazed into those blue eyes. So freakin’ typical. It had been as if every moment, every experience, every lesson of his life had been in preparation for meeting
her
. And before he had time to work out if he really was reading the signals correctly, he’d been sent to SkySpy.
‘I wish
you’d
come up with some helpful suggestions,’ he muttered.
‘Why bother? These creatures murdered my siblings without pity and they greatly outnumber us. Our only hope is to die with glory, taking as many as we can with us.’
Boon Round sounded as if he approved of the idea. Perhaps he did. A Rustie in his situation would have nothing left to live for. Joel had a great deal to live for and he wore the proof around his wrist.
‘Fine,’ Joel said. ‘Jump the next one to come through that airlock and die gloriously. Me, I’ll hang around.’
‘Humans are meant to provide us with leadership. Why do you not show moral support? The Ones Who Command would have worked out what to do long ago.’
‘Oh, drop dead.’
They both knew the Commonwealth would react as soon as it heard from the survivors onboard Lifeboat B. Neither of them knew how long had passed since their capture but surely it would be soon. A starship would turn up, its translator banks programmed with what SkySpy had gleaned of the XC language, and their captors would be ordered in their own tongue to hand any captives over, or else.
Whereupon, quite possibly, the XCs would slaughter their captives anyway and then die their own glorious deaths. So, while sitting and waiting was a possibility, escape did seem the preferable option.
Hence, it was with a sense of detached reality that Joel saw a couple of XCs come in – Boon Round did not jump them as suggested – bearing bundles which they carefully left hanging in mid-air and then backed away from. Those bundles were Joel and Boon Round’s spacesuits.
‘Amazing!’ said Oomoing. The cavern was well lit with lights brought in from Barabadar’s ship and the object of interest took up most of the open space. She wasn’t an expert on spacecraft but still there seemed something distinctly
extraterrestrial
about it, even though it was essentially a long tube, flat at the end that faced space, tapered at the inward end. It exactly matched recordings of the other ship, the one that got away.
The layout of the place confirmed her hypothesis about artificial gravity – there was quite clearly a platform of some kind running the length of the bay and down either side of the ship, with a safety rail to prevent anyone falling off. A rectangular hole showed dark against the craft’s hull three quarters of the way down, and a small ramp led up to it.