Trang (45 page)
Authors: Mary Sisson
The chirping continued, and the
four Hosts startled.
Max looked at Philippe. His
expression was one of utter bafflement. “This cannot be a true thing,” he said.
“What is it?” asked Philippe,
trying to keep the crawling hysteria out of his voice.
Max’s expression of bafflement
slowly and painfully changed into one of despair.
“The attackers are the Cyclopes,”
he said.
Half an hour later, Philippe was sitting on a low platform
in what were allegedly guest quarters in the defense station. Shanti and George
were sitting alongside him.
“Well, Philippe,” said Shanti, “you
were right about the Cyclopes.”
“I’d give my left arm to have been
wrong,” Philippe confessed.
“At least it wasn’t Earth who
attacked,” said George. “As it is, most of the Hosts didn’t seem exactly
thrilled to see us.”
They sat for a moment.
“Their weapons fire looks
bizarre,
”
said Shanti. “It looked like they use beams of some kind.”
George nodded with enthusiasm.
“Yeah, yeah, I saw that, too, right before we came in. There were explosions
but also all these
beams
, of light or something. You think it’s lasers,
or something else?”
Philippe looked at them, puzzled.
“I didn’t see anything like that—I mean, I just thought I saw some flashes.”
“You missed
that?
” asked
Shanti.
“He doesn’t have—” George pointed
two of the fingers on one hand at his eyes. “You know, Nature Boy.”
Philippe looked around the room,
feeling suddenly ashamed of his eyes and their sad lack of artificiality.
There wasn’t much to see,
though—the room was bare. It was lighter in color than the diplomatic station,
but otherwise similar in design to Max and Moritz’s office.
They were probably sitting on a
desk, Philippe realized.
He remained seated anyway.
“It’s weird not knowing what’s
going on,” he said. Shanti and George looked at him. “Outside, I mean. It’s
weird not to know how the battle is going.”
“Not really,” said Shanti, as
George shrugged. “You usually don’t when you’re fighting. You don’t have the
big picture; you just know what you’re doing.”
They fell quiet again.
“That must have been what they were
after!” Philippe exclaimed.
The other two gave him puzzled
looks.
“The Cyclops who attacked me—he was
trying to take something from a merchant’s room,” he continued, excited. “And
then the merchant we traveled here with, he told me that the Cyclopes wanted
information from him about how he conducted his trade with the Host planet.”
They stared at him in silence for a
moment that was long enough to make Philippe feel rather silly.
“It’s—” he began
“Defense information,” said Shanti,
slowly. “Of course.”
Philippe nodded. “Defense, or maybe
navigation. Something like that.”
“How
did
they get here,
anyway?” asked George.
“
That’s
a fucking good
question,” Shanti replied.
“They didn’t go through the
portal,” said George. “We would have seen them.”
“Maybe they snuck through earlier,”
said Philippe.
“An entire invasion force?” asked
Shanti.
“Um, maybe they’ve been sneaking
through for a while? Just a couple of ships at a time?” he replied.
Shanti mused for a moment.
“You saw the defense system here. I
don’t think that’s possible,” she said. “And they would have had to sneak an
entire armada through the space near the Host’s diplomatic station. Also not
possible, even if you’re just doing a couple of ships at a time. That space is
crawling
with surveillance—ours, theirs, and everybody else’s.”
She stood up and began to pace, her
brow furrowed.
Philippe watched her as she walked.
“Did they find a new portal?” she asked her pacing feet. “One that the Hosts
don’t know about? One that just happens to lead here from their planet? No. Not
unless they are the luckiest sons of bitches alive.
“They must have some new
technology—better engines, something that lets them travel faster than light.”
She pivoted on a foot, and smacked one hand into the other. “They want to
attack the Hosts, to show them who’s boss. They develop this technology, but
they need intelligence, information about the defenses and maybe the exact
location of the planet. So they make a couple of runs at that first.”
“But that didn’t work,” said
Philippe.
“As far as we know,” said George.
“They might have tried something else that we don’t know about that did work.”
“Or maybe not,” said Shanti, still
pacing. “Intelligence is never perfect. Maybe they got tired of waiting.”
“Maybe there’s something political
going on at home,” said Philippe.
Shanti stopped suddenly, pointed at
Philippe, then dropped her hand and resumed pacing.
“Right, like an election or
something where the politicians wanted them to rush in and attack
now,
and damn the intel,” she said. “And why not attack as soon as the ships are
ready? Even if this attack doesn’t come off, if the Cyclopes have a
faster-than-light drive and the Hosts don’t, the Cyclopes are in an excellent
tactical position. They can reach the Hosts however they want, but the Hosts
can only reach them one way, through the portal. That’s good choke point—I bet
the Cyclopes have incredible defenses around their portal now.”
“If that’s the case,” said George,
“why not make some small attacks first? Probe the defenses or send
surveillance?”
“Surprise,” said Shanti, smacking
one hand against the other.
“They don’t want the other aliens
to know and intervene?” ventured Philippe.
“No, that doesn’t make sense,” said
Shanti. “They shut down the portal—they’ve cut the Hosts off from the other
aliens.”
“Unless they didn’t know that was
going to happen,” said George.
Shanti stopped pacing and stared at
him.
“How would they test a
portal-closing weapon anyway?” the doctor continued. “The Hosts monitor all the
portals that open to the diplomatic station, and the portal to the Cyclopes
planet has never closed, right? The Hosts are certainly acting like something
like this has never happened before.”
“I’m certain they would have
mentioned it if it had,” said Philippe. “They’re very attached to the portals,
and they watch them obsessively.”
“The only other explanation is that
the Cyclopes found a bunch of new portals that
don’t
lead to the Hosts’
diplomatic station, and then used them to test and develop a portal-closer,”
said George. “They’d have to be
very
lucky to have done that. I think
it’s more likely that they closed the portal by accident. Maybe these new
engines have that effect.”
“Wouldn’t they know?” asked Shanti.
“Only if they tested them near
their portal,” George replied. “And I can think of a million reasons not to
test a technology designed to fight the Hosts anywhere near a portal that leads
directly to the Host station.”
“We certainly wouldn’t,” said
Philippe. “And the Cyclopes are if anything more paranoid than we are.”
Shanti nodded. “It makes sense.”
She paused for a moment, thinking. “Assuming the Cyclopes closed the portal in
the first place.”
“It’s a hell of a coincidence if
they didn’t,” said George. “But I suppose we don’t know for sure.”
“We don’t know much of anything,”
Shanti replied, ruefully. She sat down and sighed. “But, boy, Max sure seemed
to think
you
knew something, right, Philippe? About the portal, and
about that prophecy? What’s that all about, anyway?”
Philippe thought for a moment. Her
question was more rhetorical than anything else—she was trying to commiserate,
not trying to get an answer.
But he might be able to
find
answers.
And considering the circumstances, it would be immoral of him not to try.
He took a deep breath.
And he told them.
Everything.
It was amazing how liberating it was—Philippe felt a growing
thrill of exhilaration as he talked, as he told the
whole
truth. It was
a shame that he hadn’t felt this way in so long.
The truth will set you
free,
he thought as he spoke, feeling the full power of those words.
And then he was done.
Shanti and George did not look
nearly as elated as he felt. Shanti got on her feet and walked quickly to the
far side of the room. Then she walked back and stood in front of the doctor.
Her voice was low, but furious. “He
told you all that, and you didn’t say shit to me?”
“He didn’t tell me all
that,
”
George replied.
“I edited,” said Philippe, eager to
defend George.
“Edited?” Shanti snapped, whipping
around to him. “That’s one word for it.”
“Shanti, please,” said George,
adopting what Philippe now recognized as his professional persona—the calm,
confident medical professional who could surely fix your problem.
He turned to Philippe, allowing a
hint of a concern to creep into his expression.
Damn, he’s good,
thought
Philippe.
“I wish you had told me all this
sooner, Philippe,” George said. “I’m not upset with you, and I’m not judging
you, but this is worrying to me. It’s not that you saw something that wasn’t
there; it’s that you’re allowing a hallucination to govern your decision
making.”
Philippe tried to match George’s
sensible demeanor—the more rational he seemed, the more likely it was that they
would believe him. He had a professional persona, too.
“I don’t think it is a hallucination,
George,” he said, calmly. “Patch saw the alien, too, he told me about it. I
thought that was just coincidence, but—did you tell him, or anyone, about my
problems?”
“I maintained your
confidentiality,” George said, as though that point were inconsequential.
“No shit!” Shanti burst out. Her
composure was nonexistent. “Yes or no, George—did he go back to Earth on your
orders?”
George gave her an exasperated
look. “It was my recommendation that Philippe take a vacation, yes.”
“Your
medical
recommendation,”
Shanti replied. “And you didn’t tell me—I thought it was just a normal
vacation. You asshole.”
“He didn’t tell you that he wanted
me to go back to Earth?” asked Philippe.
“Fuck, no,” said Shanti. “I thought
you were going on holiday, not a fucking rest cure.”
“He’s one of my patients, not one
of your soldiers, Shanti,” said George, firmly.
She opened her mouth to reply, but
Philippe interrupted. “If George didn’t tell anyone, then why did Patch see my
Host when he was on Earth? He was—” He paused for a moment, but then realized
that everyone present knew quite well how Patch usually spent his leave. “He
was flying, and he saw a golden, glowing Host who was very anxious and who
repeatedly asked him about me—how I was, how I was feeling, if I was OK. The Host
wanted Patch to tell him why I was dreaming the things I was dreaming.
“And he was able to tell Patch
about one of the nightmares I’d had. I hadn’t told anyone about it, not in that
kind of detail. But Patch knew all about it, about his birthday party that went
wrong and the torture. And the Host wanted to know why all that was in my mind,
why I kept seeing such horrible things.”
“He wanted to know about
Guantánamo,” Shanti interrupted, quietly.
Philippe paused, not quite believing
his ears. He looked up at her.