by Steve Perry
Livermore Evanston knew human history.
Humankind was destined for this kind of conquest.
If he didn’t spearhead this effort through the means at hand, then surely some other great mind would. If not this century, then next. The stars were in reach, but the stars had to be grasped.
The history books were open and there was a gaping blank there.
If he didn’t write “Livermore Evanston” in them, large, then someone else would.
And maybe too late.
These new races… they were frightening, and they had to be nipped in the bud: get them before they got humanity.
What better way to kill them—and use the best, most terrifying qualities of one of them in the process—than to combine them into one easily controlled being?
It had been a stroke of genius that had been his genetic engineers’, not his, but he’d hopped onto it quickly and immediately implemented it into the growth of Evanstonville.
He thought, however, that he’d have more time.
Oh, well. He was not a stupid man. From the time he was a little boy, under the tutelage of robots and virtually ignored by his parents, he’d seen life as a playing field of diverging possibilities.
If something went wrong, you tried another tactic.
It was unfortunate about Noguchi. His hope for her had been that she would not only command his mercenaries in their efforts to control escaped bugs, but that she’d seek out and destroy this other race that had visited Livermoreland. It had been with his discovery of oddments of alien armor and clothing upon settling this planet that he’d realized that Evanstonville would need a significant security force, proper fences, and armament. He knew on a gut level that she’d dealt with the monsters before and had betrayed them. After a few years of employ he would gradually introduce the Augmented Warriors, and she would train them, and finally, perhaps, she would even become one of his right-hand generals.
Alas, it was not to be.
She was out in the wild, probably doomed. If the bugs didn’t get her, then the things she’d betrayed surely would. She didn’t have her android buddy to help her now, either. The idiot’s body was off on one of the scientists’ tables. He’d have it dissected and analyzed later. Right now there were other things to deal with.
As Evanston looked at the creature behind the glass, a recurring vision suddenly rose before him. He saw himself in a proud battleship in space, commanding a flotilla of vessels. From planet to planet would these vessels step, and upon each one, should it not surrender, should he need ground troops, he had only to let loose these creatures, controlled from afar—
Let loose the Dogs of War.
And then he could remake human civilization according to the ideas he knew were correct.
His personal comm button sounded. He sighed. There were many things to deal with before that time, but oh, when it came, it would be glorious; it would put all other human visions of conquest to shame.
Suddenly, without warning, as he was about to answer the comm, the bug leaped.
Leaped at Evanston.
It smashed into the reinforced glass, snarling and shrieking. It was as though it knew the purposes for which its species was being used.
Evanston flinched, but he did not move. He pressed a button that would summon more gas down upon it and quiet the thing.
Then he answered his comm.
22
“What the hell is going on?” Machiko demanded.
“I mentioned before that I was equipped with other ‘gifts.’ I merely placed some new programming into effect, accessing new weapons,” said the head. “I should explore my circuitry. It really is something that I should analyze.”
“Would you do that? It’s not that I’m ungrateful. It’s just that I really would like to know what the hell is going on!”
She spoke the words in a terse, urgent voice.
This android—what the hell was he? Truly?
She needed to know, and she needed to know right away. There was nothing in the manual about laser-beam support, that was for sure. But, then, he could project holographs. Why not deadlier light?
They were off by a tree. She had taken the break while the Hunters were conferring among themselves. Clearly, she had bought her life by defeating Shorty. She’d tried, as best she could, with the few words she knew, with gestures and mime, to present them with the facts. They did not seem to understand entirely, but they were picking up something of what she was trying to communicate.
Now a representative was coming out.
He was much bigger than Shorty; she just hoped that she didn’t have to fight him.
“You are accepted,” she thought the creature said. “However, we do not understand what you are trying to say.”
Or something like that.
A few more words.
The Hunt.
A state of Oddness.
Bad Hard Meat.
Well, at least they accepted the fact that indeed something was rotten in Blior. Nonetheless, there was still the same uneasiness with them that she’d felt at the beginning of her jaunt with that other pack. Despite her blooding from Broken Tusk, from Dachande, she was still an alien to these creatures and likely would always be.
Nonetheless, she was reasonably safe now.
She had allies.
Her whole life, in falling apart, had tilted onto the edge again…
And that, she found now as she looked on these creatures and this world with new eyes, was where she liked it.
“Machiko,” said the head, still within the confines of its carrying bag, “I believe I’ve come up with something.”
“Look, Til. I appreciate your help, I really do. But I’m the one who’s going to have to deal with these guys, okay? Maybe you’d better let me muddle through it on my own.”
“They don’t seem to be thoroughly accepting.”
“That’s something that I’ve had to deal with before… and something I’m going to work on now.”
“I hate to tell you this, Machiko. I can understand them, and they’re giving you about two hours before they decide to kill you again.”
She did a double take. “What…? You understand them?” She was flabbergasted. “Some newfound program?” Disbelief. Sarcasm.
“Yes,” said Attila.
“A program that allows us to speak in the Hunter language?”
“Yes.”
“Where the hell did you get that? Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“I didn’t know. I was not programmed to explore programs, and you never asked me to. You see, in many ways I am merely a machine. Actually, the program seems to be some sort of Universal Translator. From the information you’ve given me and what I picked up from listening in on the Hunters as they’ve spoken, I’ve been able to pick up deep structure and words. These are not complex creatures, I think. Their language is not complicated.”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean… Attila, anything else you’re going to spring on me?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps you’d better bring me over to them?”
“A head? Oh, they’re going to like that a lot. A talking head.”
“Just call me exactly what I am. Your assistant. A kind of robotic Swiss Army knife.”
The Hunters had stopped talking.
They were now staring over at them.
She had to do something, that was for sure.
“Okay, okay. Let me introduce you to the crew.”
She grabbed him up and took him over.
She pointed at him and said simply, “Attila”
“Attila,” barked back one of the Hunters, his expression unreadable.
“Yes. Attila.” She held him up. “Okay, Attila. Do your stuff.”
Immediately the android began speaking slowly but clearly. Machiko understood some of the words, but the way they were connected was different.
The yautja, however, listened with obviously surprised attention.
Well into t
he explanation, though, she could see they were increasingly reacting with gestures of rage and challenge. Not toward her or Attila. Clearly to the information they were being presented.
Finally, after a pause, Attila asked them a simple question that Machiko understood clearly:
“Do you know how this could have happened?”
The Hunters conferred among themselves.
A spokesman stepped forward eventually and said, “Yes.”
Then he told them his tale.
* * *
Machiko listened to it later from Attila as she sat down by a tree, eating the cooked meat and drinking the water that the Hunters had given her.
It was like old times. The rancid smells of the creatures, the ripe, yeasty taste of their favored meat, the sound of their harsh, grating, challenging language.
One big difference.
She had herself a translator now.
Only what else did she have on her hands, buried inside that inscrutable lump of circuitry that was Attila the Hun’s head?
Only time would tell. She was paying damned close attention.
“It does tie together,” said Attila. The android head was propped on a rock with a view of everything, and an ear cocked toward the conversations of the Hunters, in order to pick up new odds and ends of language to communicate better later. “The oddments of Predator uniform we discovered on Evanston’s ship—”
“Yes, of course. That figures in with the knowledge they have of the yautja. I’m not sure how that ties in with augmented kainde amedha. Question is, Where did they get them?”
“The answer is simple enough. Something we should probably have realized from the outset.”
“Okay. I’m all ears.”
“This planet has been in use by the Predators for a long time. For Hunting purposes. Not just bugs, either, but other beasts. And apparently there haven’t been the slipups that would have created a bug world either…”
“But the bugs are no strangers here.”
“Precisely. As for the Hunters, though—apparently, some years before Evanston and company arrived, the Hunters crashed a ship here. All aboard were killed, and the ship was considered a monument to their lives. The Hunters left for a while, as is their wont. When they returned to this world, they discovered an entirely new situation. This continent had been settled. And the monument to their dead had been plundered and taken apart. Alas, there were apparently preserved bodies of bugs there too.
“The Hunters bided their time. They watched and waited—and, of course, Hunted. Eventually, they came to realize what we’d speculated. They realized that Evanston was turning this into a hunters’ planet: a perfect place for them, an ideal situation in which to operate. They could prey on hunters, their favorite source of amusement, a perfect way to derive honor and excitement from kills.”
“And they killed that augmented bug we found?”
“Yes. But not before it killed their leader with a gun. Seems to have been an escapee. Crazy and out of control.
“So we can assume that this brand of bugs—let’s call them the ‘Buggers’—is not quite perfected yet. The Hunters spoke in rather intuitive terms—no concrete evidence.”
“However, they did not take this news well.”
“No. They are incensed. They spoke of revenge, destruction, terror—trophies. They see great honor in store for themselves here…”
“And the eradication of a threat to the galaxy,” Machiko added.
“Yes. They see themselves as the biggest threat to the galaxy, and that’s apparently the way they want to keep it.”
She nodded. “Yes. The yautja, the way I know and love them. The biggest badasses on the galactic block.”
“No great intellect here,” Attila observed. “However, I didn’t care to point that out.”
“And they’ve agreed to help us.”
“Yes. We need to formulate a plan that we can present to them.”
“We’ll get to that in one moment,” Machiko said. “What we need to talk about now, though, old chum, is this progressive improvement in your abilities.”
“I thought we’d get around to that.”
“When I purchased you, you were guaranteed to have been wiped and then programmed to my specifications. Apparently this is not the case. The question is—who are you, Attila? And are you my friend, still… or an enemy?”
A chagrined look passed over the face of the android. “A friend. A dear friend, of course, Machiko.”
“An enemy would say the same. What was it your beloved Art of War author said about spies being the most important part of winning a war? It would seem that you, my friend, are the spy. The question is, what war am I in?”
“You must realize, this is all new to me. This programming has just kicked in. However, I will try to explain.” He sighed, an odd affectation for a creature without lungs. “There is more to human civilization than the Company…”
“Yes. Of course. Like Evanston.”
“Evanston? Livermore Evanston has deep ties to the Company. Who do you think has allowed him to grow and prosper? He is not independent. He is a puppet. And, in an ancillary sense, so is the program.”
“The Hunter’s World?”
“Masquerading the preparation of new warriors to confront threats, to destroy civilizations that stand in the way of the Company is galactic conquest. Why do you think it was so easy for Evanston to get you out of your contract? Because the Company felt you were needed here.”
“Okay. Assuming all this is true—where the hell did you come from?”
“Machiko, when you returned from your lark with the Hunter Pack, do you think that your work for the miners on that world was not noted?” Attila asked.
“Of course it was noted. That’s what saved my butt. Otherwise the Company would have crucified me.”
“As I was saying, there is more to present-day human civilization than just the Company. There are people, groups of independent thinkers within the Company itself—and without, of course—who do not agree with its policies and philosophies for the future of humankind.”
“Subversive groups?”
“Yes. And there is a selective group, linking these loose and very different people I will not burden you with their true name. Call them X Group.”
“Okay. X Group. Now what the hell does X Group want with Machiko Noguchi?”
“Your maverick tendencies were noted, as well as your loyalty to the human race. More important, your ties with this mysterious race of Hunters were noted. X Group realized that you had been noted by the Company as well—or at least by significant members therein. When you made inquiries concerning a training assistant, an android companion, that information was noted—and one was especially programmed for you.”
“Namely you.”
“Programmed to help you should just this kind of situation become reality. But also, ultimately, to contact you and induct you into its cause.”
“Wonderful. And I’m supposed to believe this garbage?” Machiko asked.
“Believe what you like. Right now I have sourced all my latent abilities and am here to help you do what you know in your heart is right: Stop this awful menace to humanity, to civilizations everywhere.”
“The Buggers, you mean,” she said, mulling the notion over. “Yes, you know, Attila, I must admit: I can’t think of something more worth stopping. And as much as I hate working for some secret subversive group… the present cause seems just and right… and about my only recourse now.”
“So you trust me, then?”
“You’ve really given me no cause not to, have you? Except perhaps hiding oodles of information from me.”
“That information was hidden from me as well,” Attila pointed out.
“Yeah. So you say.” Machiko looked back at the group of Predators. “What other resources do we have besides these boys?”
“This is not the only group. All told, they say they number fifty.”
“Hmm. Sti
ll not a whole lot. There are only fifteen mercenaries, true, but there are hundreds of armed security forces in Evanstonville. And I’m certain that now that they know I know what’s happening there, they are going to be on the cautious side.”
“They haven’t searched for you.”
“No. And probably wisely,” Machiko said. “Where am I going to go? No place but back, eventually. The question is, When? The sooner the better.” She shook her head. “The damnable thing is, some of the other mercenaries, if they knew what was going on, would help me.”
“Like dearest Ned?”
“Ah, that personality of yours remains sparkling, despite the new programs.”
“Twinkle twinkle.”
“Yes. Ned Sanchez would help.”
“He’s in this for the money, just like the others.”
“Yes, but there’s more to it, too. You can only take cynicism so far.”
“You’re absolutely sure about this?”
“Yes.” She shook her head. “How can I communicate with him, though?”
“If you could communicate with Sanchez, do you really think he’d help us? Because, believe me, we need all the help we can get, brilliant warriors or no. I’ve got the feeling that even as we speak, Evanston and Zorski are putting all their trumps in a row, just in case.”
“Yes. Yes, I’m certain.”
The android head said, “Fine. Because we have a trick up our sleeve as well. And I can play it tonight.”
“Is it a trump?”
The head smiled. “Oh, and more. That is, if it works.”
23
Leader!
Bakuub was the Leader now.
As he stood in the stark control room of his ship, he gloried in his new position exactly one second, allowing the pride and thrill to swell in his chest.
Enough.
There was important work to be done.
Bakuub turned to the communications controller.
“Open the lines to all fellows in the vicinity. Be sure it is on a wavelength not monitored by the oomans.”