by Jim Laughter
Eventually, he watched two separate fleets leave with captive humans in one and captive animals in the other. He celebrated by allowing his soldiers to harvest a hundred live humans for a feast from the remaining stock waiting for shipment in a smaller third fleet. The roars of his soldiers feasting intermingled with the screams from the live main dishes still rang in his ears.
Morale remained high during the time they waited for the third fleet to arrive. That was good since difficulties started to arise to make his work more challenging. But he and his small command were more that up to the tasks charged to them.
First, there was the problem of feeding the human stock. It turned out that standard field rations were incompatible with their digestive systems. At first, he solved this by having his soldiers loot the food storage facilities that lay in ruin in the destroyed population centers. Starving by this time, the humans eagerly devoured whatever scavenged food was provided for them. But that turned out to be only a temporary solution. In short order, his scavenging teams came back with less and less as this finite supply of edible rations became depleted.
It was one of the other taskmasters that gave him a possible answer to this dilemma. The other taskmaster was in charge of the third shipment of mostly animals back to the home worlds. In accordance with the instructions of the mission commander, these animals had been kept in large fields where they grazed. To augment their overtaxed pasture, the commander had also directed that they be fed the foodstuffs the humans had harvested for them. There had been a more than sufficient supply of this. Now the animals were being shipped out along with a supply of this fodder but some was left behind.
As soon as the third fleet lifted, the taskmaster appropriated the leftover grain. His remaining human captives welcomed this and found what he considered to be novel ways to prepare it for consumption. But the taskmaster’s relief was not total. He was more than aware that this was only a temporary solution to his problem. Instituting rationing to stretch this supply for the now smaller number of humans he had left to watch, he again searched for a more permanent solution.
While reviewing directives left by the mission commander, the taskmaster ran across references of how the humans kept these other creatures. One of the initial landing teams had noted how the humans grew this fodder in vast fields that were harvested seasonally. That meant the humans were capable of reproducing this form of sustenance on a regular basis. If they could do it then, he didn’t see why they couldn’t do it now.
Using the one translating machine his commander had left him, he called for the leaders of his remaining captives to be brought to him. When they were standing before him, he looked into their sullen eyes as his words were twisted into their strange language. They apparently understood because their features brightened notably when the machine finished. Nodding in imitation of their form of expressing agreement, the taskmaster dismissed them while he made further arrangements.
The next day a group of captives a little larger than he had expected formed together at the main gate of their compound. The taskmaster was also surprised to see the varied mix of humans in this group, including not only young ones but humans of both genders. Figuring it was part of the human way of harvesting, he ordered the group escorted out of the compound by a contingent of his soldiers. These were sent to the nearest of the fields the records showed were dedicated to food production. It was befitting that the humans walk while his soldiers rode in the heated vehicle assigned to bring back the harvest.
The harvest went well that first time. The fields were nearly ripe and a reasonable haul was secured. It took one more trip to clean out the field. His soldiers complained about the boring duty but the taskmaster was pleased.
The taskmaster had finally concluded that these harvests were similar to ones on his own home planet. The harvest of their local vegetation had to be done quickly because it was both seasonal and perishable due to the climate. Of course, he had never harvested a field. He was of the warrior caste. There were drones specifically bred for such menial labor. The leaders of his remaining humans seemed to understand this as well and tried to convey that to him through the translator machine. Happy at their cooperation, the taskmaster decided to build on his success and enlarge the operation.
After some effort reorganizing his troop strength and equipment, he felt he was ready. The next dawn he sent out as many of the humans as he could. Each had their own area assigned and the requisite guard detail. Wanting to take advantage of the situation, he dispatched them to much farther away areas and had them work inward. The vehicles of each group could shuttle back and forth bringing in the harvest and store it at the main collection point.
It took almost three days for most of the teams to reach their assigned harvest area. This frustrated the taskmaster because he feared escapes during the night rest stops by each group. But to his relief, the humans remained docile and no escapes were reported.
Almost half of the near fields turned out to be either wasted during the attacks or were past harvest. Groups of captive harvesters had to be reassigned to more productive fields. Although his soldiers grumbled, the captive humans seemed not to mind plodding farther and farther from the processing station.
Again, the taskmaster felt relief that the humans with his limited guard contingent started the harvest. Soon the vehicles full of foodstuffs began to roll back to be unloaded. Not knowing what else to do, his soldiers just dumped the loads within the fenced compound and headed back toward the fields. The humans could deal with it later.
The process had been going on for almost twenty time cycles before problems were reported back to him. It seemed the humans in the furthest fields were having trouble dealing with what seemed to be an unusually large harvest. Their guards tried to hurry them but somehow it seemed the spoilage rate of the harvest zoomed alarmingly upward. Finally, it turned out the maximum rate the humans could harvest what he had been told was corn was about five minutes per plant. Something had to be done to finish harvesting these far-flung fields.
Adjusting to the situation, he sent orders back out with the empty vehicles to move the closer human workers to the outer fields to help. Clearly, at the slow rate required for a successful harvest, more humans were needed. The taskmaster sensed time was of the essence.
In short order, he had virtually all of his captive humans harvesting in fields several days away from his facility. He longed to oversee the operation himself but was restrained by orders restricting flight operations. The mission commander had left specific instructions regarding shuttle operations. There was a certain ratio of flight time to captives taken that the taskmaster had to adhere to.
Since the third fleet had left, the rate of captives taken had fallen. Consequently, allowable flight operations were almost zero. Besides, the taskmaster considered it prudent to secure foodstuffs for the captives he had before adding more problems. Delivering emaciated stock or having them starve to death on his watch was not an option.
Out in the field not, everything was going as planned but his soldiers were adjusting to changing circumstances. First, one of the transport vehicles broke down heading back out to the fields. Unfortunately, the taskmaster had unevenly distributed his mechanics in their guard assignments. A few guards had to walk to one of the other team locations to replace the mechanics so they could ride back to the facility for tools. It took three round trips to repair the disabled vehicle and restore guard strength to the effected units. Fortunately, the humans remained docile, continuing the slow process of harvesting without any escapes. Even then, the taskmaster was glad when his operation was back running according to his plan.
With the second breakdown, he realized he would again have to adjust his operation. Having realized that the humans remained docile, he reduced the guard strength and sent out the mechanics with their own vehicles loaded with spare parts and tools. He dispatched these as needed from the facility as more breakdowns started to occur under the stress of the harvest ope
ration.
Then when the harvest was almost finished with the farthest fields came a rash of broken down equipment. Because the mechanics were dependent on messages being passed on by inward bound vehicles, it took a while to realize how widespread the problem had become.
In the field, his soldiers tried to take care of matters on their own. Realizing that help was needed from the main facility, they dispatched some of their number as messengers between groups and the main processing station. Considering how well the humans were behaving, they did not consider it a risk that their efforts reduced their already stretched-thin details by half.
But time was running out for the harvest. It was already turning much colder, and at night a heavy ground fog developed. A quick count was taken each morning and they had suffered no escapes. The messengers dispatched, the remaining guards herded the humans to wakefulness and out into the early morning mist to continue the harvest. Going between the corn stalks already harvested, the humans sullenly walked out to the far areas they had been working toward and where they’d secretly stashed a percentage of their overall harvest. They just never came back.
By the time the taskmaster learned of the mass escape, it had already been three days. He was furious and had two underlings slain as an example to the others. The rest of his command took it to heart, and using every vehicle available, headed back to the fields to search for the escapees. Considering it a justifiable expense, the taskmaster ordered several shuttles launched to commence an aerial search as well.
But in spite of their efforts, the majority of the two thousand captives had escaped. A few score were eventually rounded up but that took weeks of effort. The taskmaster expected the ones they recaptured to be rebellious but they were not. As before, they sullenly shuffled around as directed. Not trusting them, he again doubled the guards while he pondered his next course of action.
The last thing he wanted to do was send back a report of his failure. He knew his fate would be little better than that planned for the humans if word of this reached the ears of the mission commander. So craftily, he continued to file reports and squirt them back to the Main Hive via the transit tube relay.
It was while writing one of these that he discovered a way out of the impasse. Since the humans had fled, that in his estimation significantly increased the available human population free on the planet. Taking his orders regarding over flights as liberally as possible, he instituted more flights in an effort to recapture them.
Of course, eventually someone back at the Main Hive would start to compare numbers so he maintained his original count as phantoms in his reports. Then he also started recording problems with mysterious diseases among the humans that caused these phantoms to start dying off. To speed up the reduction in his phantom count, he also fabricated problems with their food equipment and recorded ordering his soldiers to process the dead humans so there would be no questions about why the dying humans were not processed for shipment back to the home worlds. His underlings never knew of the feast they were supposedly having while they continued to choke down standard field rations. All in all, the taskmaster was quite pleased with his cleverness.
But that didn’t take care of reality. He still had to account for more humans than he could hide by his subterfuge. After his soldiers returned and repaired their equipment, the taskmaster ordered regular patrols out into the hills away from his facility. Again, he suspected there was grumbling but none dare do so openly. It only took one insubordinate sideways glare from a soldier to give him the excuse to set an example. The taskmaster stunned the soldier with his own sidearm. He then ordered the soldier stripped of equipment and uniform, and strung upside down out in the cold alien atmosphere. When his prisoner came to, the taskmaster ordered him flogged to death. After that, the taskmaster had no problem with prompt obedience.
Fanning outward, his ground teams searched for the humans. The weather turned dangerously cold by Red-tail standards, but they still pressed on. An occasional human or two would be spotted but successful captures were rare. The taskmaster was confused at first by the reports he was receiving from the scout teams. The humans seemed to be able to move with almost unbelievable swiftness, especially compared to their slothfulness under guard. Finally, the taskmaster concluded that like some animals on his home world, humans behaved different in the wild than they did in captivity.
But then a combination of factors began to disable the vehicles. Between the wear and tear of use, and the strain of working cross country, more and more of the vehicles were breaking down. In response, the taskmaster ordered the teams to keep the vehicles on the old human roads and only chase after the humans away from the roads on foot. His soldiers reported that it made it more difficult to chase any humans seen, but the taskmaster had no choice. His command couldn’t continue functioning with the high rate of equipment breakdowns.
Soon he also had to curtail the over flights. Not only were the shuttles using precious fuel but they were proving far less effective than during the initial invasion. What few humans they spotted were in areas or situations untenable for the shuttles to land. All they were able to do was report the location of the humans to the nearest ground unit. By the time the ground unit would arrive, the humans were long gone. Finally, he was forced to ground the shuttles while the ground teams continued searching in vain.
All this had come to a head some time back. The taskmaster had been about to file yet another one-way report, carefully trying to allude to the unfolding disaster. But before he could compose his report, the incoming message light lit up. To his great surprise, a message popped out from the relay system. By its markings, it was clear that it was from the mission commander.
Fearing it was orders sealing his doom, the taskmaster broke the seal on the message with trepidation. It scrolled out several sheets of information. He started reading fearfully but that soon turned to surprise and then utter relief as the orders from his mission commander outlined a new bold plan.
∞∞∞
The commander sprang up and started pacing his bridge as his ship came out of the transit tube into open space. A quick long-range sweep showed what the initial probe had already shown—no human mass ships. Tight beam signals relayed through the transit tube confirmed that his other detachments had successfully exited their tubes in their respective locations. Knowing he was already committed, the commander gave the order for them to proceed with their assignments.
It had been a stroke of genius when his new plan sprang up in his mind while waiting in a cell to see the Main Hive. At the same time, it also occurred to him how to weave in the mass escape by humans from his farm project. Both had their seeds in the overall mental review of the reports he had been receiving from the taskmaster he had left behind on Credence.
For some time he had received the regular reports. Since his new position involved a host of new duties, the commander would just read the report, commit it to memory, and then file it with the others. It was only after he had been jailed awaiting the Main Hive that he’d had time to more thoroughly review the material.
In spite of the taskmaster’s clever efforts, the commander discerned that there were problems. Reading between the lines, he deduced the food problems and the approach the taskmaster had taken to solve them. The mysterious diseases were immediately suspect in his mind but not entirely improbable. Only first-hand investigation would resolve his doubts but that was impossible now. Beyond that, it looked like things were becoming more difficult for the isolated detachment. The last report he received had only mentioned the poor rate of capture being experienced due to environmental conditions. There was not much he could draw from that.
What was evident from that last report was that the humans required native foods for survival. Not only did the humans need compatible food but they also showed a surprising willingness to harvest it. This was information he could use.
By the time he was called to face the Main Hive, he had his new plan all fleshed out. Afte
r a reading of the Hive Rep’s report on the farm disaster, he was allowed to speak. Knowing that his very survival was on the line seemed to energize both his creative juices and his powers of persuasion.
Starting to speak before he even knew what he was going to say, the commander spun a new interpretation of the farm debacle. Yes, the humans had escaped but that was because of a heretofore unknown drive they had for their native foods. That this dovetailed into the current Red-tail theory explaining the odd distribution pattern of humans in their home galaxy didn’t hurt his argument one bit. The commander wove the story that the uprising and escape were the result of not understanding the power of this drive within humans. The commander could think of data from previous farm attempts that would undermine his spin, but it was little known here at the Main Hive. With skill, he convinced them that they had a workable situation here rather than a simple case of underestimating the human captives.
What he then proposed was a bold answer to the new situation. Instead of farming the humans here in captivity, do it in their home environment! Since they bred better and had a proclivity for taking care of their own food production, all we need to do is set up harvesting stations in remote areas and pick them off as supply and demand dictates. If stealth detachments landed on uninhabited or sparsely inhabited planets, they could work with impunity. If ships from the human mass showed up, all they had to do was hide underground for a while until the humans left. When it was clear, they could harvest humans carefully so as not to arouse suspicion. Periodic shipments could be made and thus a regular source of a much-desired commodity secured.
To his surprise, the Main Hive was easily convinced of his plan. In short order, he had new ships and crews. These were quickly trained and dispatched for a coordinated departure to different tubes leading to the human galaxy. Just prior to their departure, he sent a tight beam message to his contingent left behind on Credence.