Prophet of ConFree (The Prophet of ConFree) (29 page)

"Prophet, it is simply remarkable. Almost unbelievable. Bird has drafted me to assist him in this project. I am so excited about this. Our Assidic friends have accomplished a miracle here. Now it's up to us to help them exploit the ship and the prisoners."

Ambassador Wester managed to convince General Aran that Bird was not a spy, and there was no security leak. The general was not easy to convince but he finally believed us after listening to Bird's life story in detail. Bird is a likable guy and he is now fast friends with the general, who sent him back to work on the ship with the Assidic techs.

"Have some of that green stuff, it's pretty good," Smiley said. The Assidic native food was different, quite spicy, but tasty. There was plenty of non-spicy stuff as well, so we were all happy.

"Look at him," Bees said, glancing over at Saka. He was at a separate table, full of Assidic officers and techs and even a couple of uniformed Assidic girls. "He's in his glory." The A's were evidently fascinated with Saka. They were all grinning it up and chatting happily with him. The girls seemed to be worshipping him. They couldn't take their eyes off him.

"Looks like those girls are in love," I said.

"Don't laugh," Ice said. "I've already received a marriage proposal, and it's my first day here."

"You're kidding!" Arie exclaimed. "Did you elbow him in the throat and kick his feet out from under him like last time?"

"Very funny. He didn't grab me by the ass, he got down on one knee and asked for my hand in marriage. There's a difference."

"Wow! When did this happen?"

"About an hour ago. You missed it. It was so sweet. He was a young officer, surrounded by his friends. He approached me and handed me a bouquet of flowers, then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him in this really flowery language. I told him that I could not marry him because I was already engaged to someone else. He was crushed. I felt so sorry for him."

"Are you really engaged to someone else?"

"Yes. I'm engaged to the ConFree Legion."

"This is good duty," Scout said. "Doggie, will we be staying here long? Any word?"

"Get set for a long stay," Doggie replied. "Word is the Wasp is departing tomorrow, and Wester will be staying here. So will we. And all of CAT 3 will be joining us – all five squads. Of course, they could recall us at any time, but I'd say this project is tops on ConFree's Things To Do Today list. As long as Ambassador Wester is here, I guess we'll be here, too."

Δ

And that was the beginning of Site 888, also known as Site S – for Sajerdhavana. The place is famous now but in those days nobody had even heard of it. In the beginning, people arrived there but never left. Security was so high that we didn't even reveal what planet 888 was on until after people arrived. It was a cosmic secret installation that rapidly became the galaxy's foremost research center for cutting-edge science, but the science was not shared with anyone who was not part of the project. It was also an open-ended assignment. You didn't leave until the mission was over – that was understood. You could send starlinks but they were heavily censored. Nobody outside Site 888 knew about the project, and we didn't want the word to get out. They sent so many brilliant, highly renowned civvie scientists there that Wester had some problems keeping them happy. But most of them were fascinated by the work and threw themselves into it with great eagerness. The A's did all they could to keep everyone happy. The living conditions were pretty good. So we didn’t have too many problems, even with civvie scientists. We made sure they understood that it was all for the people of ConFree. We showed them action shots of an Omni city being attacked and erased by the Demons. It was quite graphic. Good motivational material.

Δ

"I'm encouraged by the progress. It's slow, but steady," Prof declared. We were sitting in airglide chairs in front of one of the Demon cubes. By now, we had little segments of the cube plex surface that were two-way. The Demon inside could see out a narrow portal to view us. We made sure he couldn't see what was happening with his adjacent comrades, and we turned the viewport on and off at our will, but we wanted him to see who he was dealing with. He was dealing with a good guy, of course – the Professor. The good guy had one bad guy assistant – me, and one neutral observer/sex object – Kimmie. Kimmie was a language development guru from the University of the Confederacy. She was a cute, slender little honey with short blonde hair and so wrapped up in her specialty that she appeared to be inexperienced in dealing with real people. She was under siege from flocks of handsome young Assidic officers who wanted to marry her, and she was unsure what to do. The A's liked blondes, that was certain.

"We're getting there," Kimmie said. "I run these audios constantly, and all associations are noted and the vocab grows every day." The brainscans were on as well as the audio and video, as we showed our captives various items to stimulate thought and speech. To encourage speech, we interacted with them and gave them rewards. Silence on their part was actively discouraged.

"Sex you rearend," our autotrans said, in a metallic voice. Dewey had just screeched at us, and that was the closest translation we had at present for the noises he produced. I figured it was his way of saying screw you up the ass. Those had actually been his first understandable words to us, a few weeks ago, and no parents could have been prouder of their baby's first words than us on that occasion.

One of the first things we succeeded in identifying was the Demons' individual names. The screeching chirping audio of the three names sounded to us like Hwoo-ee, Lhwoo-ee and Dhwoo-ee. After a little thought we dubbed them Huey, Louie and Dewey after some cartoon characters.

"We sex you yellow hair rearend!" Dewey insisted. That was for Kimmie. All three of our captives were males. We weren't the only ones paying attention to these creatures. While we were working with Dewey, several techs, Assidic and ConFree lifies, were emptying out Huey and Louie's void chambers. These were open cavities set into the plex floor and suggestive enough so the Demons used it for its intended purpose. Collecting the stuff was a dirty job but somebody had to do it, and examining Demon excretions and urine would tell us a lot.

"We yes you go goodplace," the Prof said. Unfortunately we could only use those words that we were certain of. The translation unit screeched out the phrase inside Dewey's cube.

"We kill you go goodplace," Dewey responded. That was clear enough.

"You kill bad no go goodplace," the Prof countered.

"Sex you rearend."

"You no ship no go goodplace." Good point, Prof! Kimmie was compiling a good basic Demon vocab for us. The way it worked was we would associate a Demon brainscan image with whatever he was shown – say, an image of his ship – and try to get him to name the item orally, then we would look at the brainscan again and if the brainscan image was the same when he said something while looking at the ship image we could associate image, sound and brainscan – and we had a new word.

"You open ship, go goodplace," the Prof said. We weren't sure how to say "home". We had no images of their home and had no idea what their dimension looked like. Their brainscans did register some confusing location associated with the word "good" so that's how we came up with "goodplace".

"You open ship," Dewey replied. Touché! We had to keep reminding ourselves that these Demons were not apes – they were highly intelligent, even if they did coat themselves with worm crap.

"We open ship we break ship. Bad. Break ship you no go goodplace," the Prof replied.

"We pee you."

"We feed you."

"We sex you rearend."

"Brights talk good. You talk bad."

Dewey fell silent. Every time we mentioned "brights", he seemed concerned. We knew it was a sensitive subject. We had no idea what a "bright" was, but the brainscans made it clear that, whatever a "bright" was, it was a focus of intense hatred, concern and fear. Dewey had first mentioned it as a word, asking us to turn down the spotlights. Brights bad, he had said. Later it seemed that brights was a noun, not an adjective, and it was not a spotlight. It seemed to be associated with living things.

"Brights bad," he repeated. That was about all we had so far gotten out of him about brights.

"Brights good," the Prof said. "You bad. You talk bad. Brights talk good."

"You no talk brights!" Dewey leaped at the viewportal, snarling, wild, his hair suddenly standing on end, his whole body shaking, spittle flying.

"Well well well," the Prof said. "This is interesting. Looks like we hit a nerve."

Δ

"All aboard for Topsides!" Arie shouted, leaping into the cargo elevator. We followed, me and Saka, accompanied by a lovely sweet young Assidic girl who had attached herself to Saka's arm, and Ice and Bees and Smiley and three Assidic troopers who were by then friends and colleagues. Kwan was the fellow who had proposed to Ice. She had later smiled at him, and this had encouraged him again. He was politely keeping his distance, but it was clear he hadn't given up. The other two A's, Kee Ly and Sza Hwan, were our good buddies. We Legion types were in our formal blacks, which was the designated duty uniform for Site S. The A's wore their forest green formals.

"Hold on, wait a mo!" Doggie said, leaping aboard just before the wide doors slid shut. "I've got to see some sunlight." Site S was down in the hole, as we called it, and a trip to topsides was always a treat.

Once there, the elevator opened into a wide, open space under a camfaxed skycover. We headed away from a series of camfaxed buildings into the forest, along a narrow trail that led along the side of a mountain ridge. It was great breathing fresh air and walking in blue sunlight and shade. Terrific! We were ecstatic, running around in circles, making a lot of noise. Arie showed off some of his contact forms, to our applause. It was good being out of the hole. We called it Site S because we didn't want to call it Site Sajadhervana. In classified correspondence it was Site 888 or CITE 888, but in our own conversation it was Site S, or "the hole".

The A's were great people. I had the deepest respect for them. We were certainly seeing the best of them here, in this secret installation, where the A's sent their best and brightest. But it confirmed all that I had heard about Assidics. They were bright, goal-oriented, studious, disciplined, polite and determined to excel in whatever task they were given. And they were family-oriented, respectful of their elders and of the past and of their traditions. If they decided they felt serious about a girl, they proposed marriage. There was nothing underhanded about them at all.

And these young techs – Kwan, Kee and Sza – were good comrades. They wanted to know all about the Legion and ConFree, and it was genuine curiosity. At first I was wary, suspecting they might have been acting under orders but then I thought – what the hell, they have shown us their crown jewels, their most sensitive military secret, the alien ship and the captured Demons – and given us total access. These were friends, these were allies, not foreign spies.

"Behold the view!" Kee announced, leading us to the edge of the trail. We were on the side of the mountain and there was a spectacular view looking out over a great wild green forest far below, with a sinuous wide brown river snaking along the forest. That bright, blue-hot sun lit it all up for us – a glorious vista.

A little further on we came to a giant waterfall, dropping from a great height further up the mountain and crashing into a wide, icy mountain pool. The cold spray settled all over us. It was just like heaven. I stripped off my uniform blouse and trousers and kicked off my boots and dove in, wearing only my shorts. It was deliciously icy and tingled all over my body. The water tasted bitter and I loved it. As I floated there with the waterfall booming all around me, I saw Saka's girl stripping off her uniform – she was wearing a swimsuit! That's cheating! Then she tore Saka's blouse off. They dove in together. Saka was still wearing his trousers but had shed the boots. Ice and Bees stripped down to their undies and waded in together. Kwan remained on shore watching Ice anxiously.

Arie surfaced beside me. "Is this heaven or what?" he asked.

We were having a great time when one of the A's who had stayed out of the pool shouted out a warning. "Nobody move!"

I took a look. It was Sza. He was peering into the edge of the forest. "Wolves," he said. "Don't move!" He had a vac gun in his hand.

Smiley raised his own vac gun.

"No, don't shoot. Just don't move. They won't attack humans unless provoked," he said.

I could make out the wolves now, on the edge of the forest. A nasty-looking formidable pack of huge, dark wolves.

We stood there for some time. I was hip-deep in water. My own vac gun was in my trousers and out of my reach while I was in the pool.

"They're gone," Sza announced "Oh no, still one there. No, don't move."

Doggie was slowly approaching the wolf. He was not holding a vac gun.

"What are you doing? Don't move," Sza said again.

Doggie stood there, looking at the wolf.

The wolf stepped out of the forest. It was jet black, a magnificent animal with a thick, glossy coat. It was looking right at Doggie. The wolf had startlingly clear grey eyes.

Doggie went down on one knee, looking right at the wolf.