Edward M. Lerner (33 page)

There were no weapons, of course. Little electrical vehicles for plowing and tilling the larger fields. Gardening implements. Storage of past harvests, and sacks of terrestrial seeds. Drums of agricultural chemicals. Hygiene items, like grooming brushes and towels. Breathing masks, for their tours of duty in the K’vithian-occupied part of
Harmony
. Compressors to refill the oxygen tanks.

“What are they looking for?” Swee hung beside her from the arching bough of a lifath tree. He was unexpectedly idle, the scheduled maintenance work outside the living area having been canceled abruptly. “The humans, I mean.”

“Hope.” She grabbed a branch and swung to an adjacent tree, the better to face him. She sensed a distant explosion in the trembling of the tree limbs. “A futile quest. I feel sorry for them.”

He patted her side. “We coped. If we need to, we’ll teach them.”

If we need to? Did he predict their rebellion or acquiescence? “Our fate is unimportant, Swee. What happens to the Unity matters.”

“What happens to the Unity matters,” he agreed. “What happens to
us
is also important.”

We are unarmed and untrained. What good could come of siding with the humans? If she voiced the question, was not the obvious rejoinder: What good had come of subservience to the K’vithians?

One need had dominated her thoughts throughout the long years of their captivity. The technology
worked
. The Unity was not forever bound to the Double Suns, not forever at risk of climactic disaster. Was it a fool’s dream that she could ever convey that message? Had her persistence on this course of action—her prideful persistence—cost thousands of human lives?

She remained uncertain, but some preparation could not hurt. “Would you mind inventorying a few chemicals for me?”

The trunk(?) against which Eva leaned yielded squishily, more like an upright roll of carpet than a tree. Its needled branches shaded her from the bright yellow overhead sunlamps. The ground cover grew in little curved segments, re-rooting itself wherever a tip touched down.

She was attempting to look innocent just sitting here, ignoring the Snake order against encrypted comm. No Snakes had appeared when she and Corinne began defiantly to talk privately via their implants, joined soon by most of the Himalian scientists. Too busy getting their asses kicked, she hoped. The wish was more forlorn each time it occurred to her, as the rumbles of inferred combat remained distant.

“More farming supplies.” Corinne was decks away, cataloguing Centaur supplies. The aliens were either very sympathetic or not at all territorial. Gwu seemed both. “Electric lawn tractors, utility carts, sacks of what we’re told is plant food.”

“Anything we can use?”

“I can outrun one of these tractors. Without two more arms, I couldn’t drive one. The only ‘weapons’ are gardening implements: hoes, scythes, pick axes.”

“Eva, are you there?”

“Not now, Art, I’m—” Sitting up in stunned recognition, she whacked her head on a low branch. His standard engineerin-the-office avatar was wholly incongruous. “Art! Where
are
you?” The 3-D graphic he netted told her nothing.

“What’s going on?” Corinne’s channel was still open.

“I’ll get back to you.” She broke that link. “Art, how’s our side doing?”

“Is everyone okay?” he asked. “The Centaurs, too? I mean, assuming you can communicate with them.”

How the hell did he know about them? “So far. Tell me what’s happening!” He summarized, and it didn’t sound good. “What’s the plan now?”

“Carlos can use some help. Will the Centaurs join in?”

Would Gwu and her people fight? “Truly, I doubt it. How can we even ask them securely? We can’t speak directly. Everything we say goes through Joe and then a Snake translator that knows K’vithian and Centaur.”

“Damn, they don’t use implants. I forgot that.”

“As far as I’ve seen.” Her implant flashed alarms as she ignored communications from the survey party. “It wouldn’t have mattered. We don’t have a Centaur-speaking translator.”

“If you can round up the ambassador and someone to speak for the Centaurs, maybe I can do something.”

Activity throughout herd territory kept rising, banned encrypted comm chatter growing with it. The human detainees sought everywhere for weapons. Their hunt was futile, of course; the Foremost would long ago have removed any potential arms. The herd surely knew that—yet suddenly they, too, began to take inventory.

Was any of this reason to interrupt the Foremost mid-battle? Doubt and uncertainty were ever Pashwah-qith’s lot. Not yet, she decided. For now, she would just keep watch.

Part of her made note of the items that most interested the prisoners. Part of her observed the captives themselves—and that piece was ever more ashamed. Since awakening aboard this ship, Pashwah-qith had known herself to be a prisoner. How unfavorably her persistent panic compared to the other inmates’ quiet dignity and firm resolve.

She could notify the Foremost which supplies suddenly interested the herd, and of her speculations about their possible combinations and misuses … or she could keep those speculations to herself.

Rebellion came late to Pashwah-qith.

It felt good.

“There is only one way to find out.”

Light-speed delay between Jupiter system and Earth rendered human conversation entirely impossible. For an AI participant, thought T’bck Fwa, the delay would have been even more interminable. He gave Arthur Walsh credit. The man had not even tried to communicate in real time. The competence was no surprise; over the years, he had had many dealings with Walsh in his ICU role.

The content of Walsh’s communique had been another matter. Walsh forthrightly volunteered knowing
Victorious
was a “Centaur” vessel now controlled by K’vithians—and just as baldly denied any human involvement.

“You may not know whom to believe and what to do,” Walsh’s message had concluded. “There is only one way to find out.”

So here (in an undisclosed location) he was—a clone of him anyway—still waiting to find out.

The human helmet was metal and opaque for three quarters of its circumference, and it blocked most of Gwu’s eyes. Each time it wobbled on her conical head, one tube or another, whether for water or food paste or medicine, jabbed her. Her head fur stood on end, drawn by static electricity to the plasticized fabric lining the helmet. She stood in a wiffelnut grove T’bck Ra had once reported free of K’vithian sensors.

She found the microphone. “This is K’choi Gwu ka, in human terms the captain of this vessel. To whom am I speaking?”

Although the helmet earphones were tuned to human auditory response, the voice in her ears was clearly of the Unity. “There are two of us. Speaking to you through translation is Dr. Arthur Walsh, a human. Providing that translation is myself, a clone of T’bck Fwa. The original T’bck Fwa remains on Earth as trade agent to the humans.”

Could it possibly be? “One, four, nine, sixteen. What comes next? Who was the ka of the Unity in 8546?”

“Twenty-five and L’fth Pha.”

Correct and immediate responses. Whomever translated was in or very near the ship. “Are there no tests for me?”

“There is no need. The human network giving me access also links many other helmets. Through their helmet cameras, I watched you enter the trees. I see your crew-kindred at work.”

“This is Art. Now that everyone is introduced, we have urgent decisions to make.”

What besides the violence that wracked
Harmony
could be urgent? As yet another explosion shook the ship, the torn bulkheads and fire-seared decks of her imagination were more real than what little could been seen out the helmet by her one unobstructed eye. “This ship cannot be destroyed.”

“We’re here to free our friends, not damage your ship!” Art said.

Her hearts ached. Could one be accomplished without the other? “T’bck Fwa, assume there is some way we can help the humans. What is your advice?”

“My sandbox has full connectivity to the improvised human network aboard
Harmony
. The largest group of humans is surrounded and badly outnumbered. The smaller group is not yet surrounded, but will be soon. The humans tell me they will not prevail without help. Perhaps the crew-kindred’s intervention can make a difference; of course I do not understand military matters.”

Of course.
She
was ka.
She
must decide—also with no understanding of military matters.

If she allied with the humans and they jointly prevailed, perhaps the crew-kindred could later communicate home—perhaps even go home. If K’vithians prevailed and the ship survived, there would be many more years of travel, to be followed by a lifetime of captivity—but again the theoretical possibility of an opportunity to communicate home. But if battle destroyed the ship, who would survive to communicate with anyone? How could she possibly predict an outcome or weigh the consequences?

A sudden realization made her rigid. “T’bck Fwa, what did you call this vessel?”

“I called it
Harmony
, ka. That was the name given in a partial message received via InterstellarNet. Is that not correct?”

Gwu allowed herself to hope. “What action was taken with that information?”

“It was transmitted to the Double Suns via InterstellarNet. An earlier message had already reported my inference the so-called
Victorious
was a Unity vessel.”

The burden of decades fell away. No longer need she subordinate all else to a possible message home—that task was done. The welfare and wishes of the crew-kindred now came first. What course of action would they choose? She had no doubts.

“Dr. Walsh. We will fight alongside your people.”

Blam!

The detonation reverberated across the farm. Chunks of metal whistled through the air, embedding themselves in soil and trees. Which shrapnel came from blown-out storage-room walls, and which from the sheet steel that had leaned against the improvised explosive to channel the blast, was not immediately obvious, nor relevant.

Even pacifist herbivores knew about blowing up tree stumps. The Centaurs had ample fertilizer and volatile hydrocarbon solvents to fashion a decent-sized bomb, for which a bottle of acetylene/oxygen mixture ignited with a spark made a practical high-shock detonator. In Eva’s ‘bot’s-eye view, smoke billowed into the breached corridor on the perimeter of the prison area. Sulfur-tainted air was unavoidably infiltrating the Centaurs’ area, but fans appeared to be pushing most fumes away from the hole. She wasn’t clear who T’bck Ra was, but he, she, or it was properly managing ventilators and dampers to temporarily maintain positive air pressure on the Centaur side of the rupture.

“Go, go, go,” shouted someone. The ringing in Eva’s ears scrubbed any individuality from the voice. Around her, angry Centaurs ripped out and smashed Snake spy sensors. As quickly as she could struggle into her pressure suit, Eva followed a team of Centaurs with breather masks and Molotov cocktails into the breach.

Blam!

Combat-armored Snake flinched in the IR ‘bot’s-eye views Helmut monitored, but their attention remained on the current firefight with the special-ops team. A few Snakes turned back to investigate the unexpected blast at their rear.

In another mind’s-eye window, his perspective hurtling from ‘bot to ‘bot, forty or more speeding Centaurs approached from amidships. Their furious, many-limbed, many-jointed gait was bewildering to behold. They careened along on four or more tentacles, clutching rag-stoppered bottles, welding gear, crowbars, and other improvised weapons. More equipment hung from not-quite backpacks and utility belts. Hundreds of flailing limbs, brightly illuminated by dozens of hot flames flaring from the nozzles of welding torches, covered every nearby surface in thousands of writhing shadows.

Curvature of the corridor undid the theoretical longer reach of firearms and lasers. At some shout or gesture Helmut must have missed, Centaurs began touching their torches to dangling rag fuses. He watched in awe as limbs at least a meter-and-a-half long hurled Molotov cocktails. There were high-pitched screams among the explosions. Flames splashed and spread.

An already chaotic situation dissolved into sheer madness. Charges and countercharges by special-ops forces, Snakes, and Centaurs. Snake reinforcements rushed in from somewhere the ‘bots had yet to establish a presence. Centaurs and the now-freed human prisoners—that emerald-green spacesuit was Corinne!—firing weapons scavenged from the fallen. A bloody sortie launched by the Snakes defending the engine room, scarcely turned back. Another
blam!
from amidships, and more enraged Centaurs.

A squad of Snakes emerged from a stairwell, and charged toward Corinne and her new allies.
Not
my
friend. Not ever again
. Jaws clenched to suppress a scream of rage, Helmut took off behind them. His laser pistol scythed a beam of ruby death through the smoke.

As abruptly as the insanity began, it was over.

The main auditorium had become a temporary morgue. The sickbay was filled to capacity, mostly, but not exclusively, with Hunters. More wounded clogged the corridors nearby. Mashkith surveyed by net from the bridge, but his imagination superimposed a sickening stench of charred flesh and burning hydrocarbons. In the tactical display, expanses of Hunter and enemy control alternated across the ship like stripes on a gronthnak.