Once the Marines were suitably arranged, no one said a word. Either the Vaaach would respond to the message, or they would activate their antimatter cannon and vaporize the Cumberland. Max had to will himself to relax his grip on the arms of his chair. He was sure his fingers had left permanent impressions in the metal. The wait seemed endless. Time oozed forward like a tired snail going uphill.
BEEP.
Because of the usual murmur of voices in CIC, the soft electronic alert from the Comms console was generally inaudible to anyone but a man sitting right in front of it. This time, it sounded almost as loud as the general quarters klaxon. Every man let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
“On Commandcom, sir,” Chin said.
“PRECISELY IDENTIFY PREY YOU CLAIM TO HAVE WOUNDED AND SPECIFY DAMAGE INFLICTED TO IT BY YOUR VESSEL BEFORE ENTERING VAAACH SPACE STOP MESSAGE ENDS.”
At least it wasn’t a blast from their antimatter cannon. Max typed. A bit longer than last time. “Send this.”
“Aye, sir.”
“PREY IS KRAG MEDIUM CRUISER UNION NAVAL REPORTING NAME CRAYFISH CLASS STOP DAMAGE INCLUDES DESTRUCTION OF METASPACIAL TRANSCEIVER ARRAY DAMAGE TO MULTIPLE MISSILE TUBES AND PROBABLE SMALL HULL BREACH STOP QUERY DO YOU WISH US TO MAKE SENSOR SCANS OF KRAG VESSEL OR SENSOR RECORDS OF BATTLE AVAILABLE TO YOU STOP MESSAGE ENDS.”
Again the waiting. Clouseau stood up and stretched languorously, investing the familiar series of motions with the unaffected sensuality possessed only by cats and sexually confident human females. He sprang lightly to the deck and, continuing to stretch while he walked, sauntered onto the command island and lay down with his head resting on Max’s left foot.
Max could not help but smile at the situation: the domesticity of having a cat using one’s foot for a pillow, not in a living room in front of the fire, but on a heavily armed warship at battle stations facing possible annihilation by an advanced alien race nearly a thousand light years away from the blue and green world on which the respective owners of the head and the foot had evolved.
“Sir?” It was Ensign Bales, the seldom-heard-from officer who oversaw the ship’s computer systems and data network.
“Yes, Bales.”
“It’s hard to tell, but I think that the Vaaach just pulled a dump from our computer.”
“What did they get?”
“It looks like they scanned the whole MDC,” he said, his voice tinged with incredulity.
Most of the heads in CIC turned at that one. The Cumberland’s main data core contained a stupefyingly enormous quantity of data. The most rapid data transfer technology available in the Union—the fastest computer in existence reading the data, transmitting it over a high-bandwidth, 2.5 million channel, polyphasic quantum-differentiated laser “pipeline”—could probably accomplish it in half a day. The Vaaach had done it without permission in nearly undetectable fashion, from kilometers away, without any physical connection, and in only a minute or two.
“I would not have spotted it at all,” Bales explained, “but we did a super high-resolution scan of our data drives after the last encounter and came up with a subtle signature made by the kind of sensor they use that gets left in the nanomagnetic substrate. Basically, they employ a sophisticated quantum scan to take a snapshot of each one and zero molecule orientation in the memory matrix, which would mean that their sensor resolution is down to the molecular, if not atomic, level.
“Then, they just convert the scan back into data, using some kind of translation algorithm. If that’s what it is, they have sensor technology like we never imagined. Of course, we may be sitting here for a while waiting for any response—it will take them hours just to resolve the image into a machine-readable data stream, and I can’t begin to predict what it will take for them to work their way through the operating system, find the files they want, translate them into their own language, and read them.”
Max shook his head. “No, Mr. Bales, I don’t think it will take them long at all. I think I may have time to take a leak, though. Barely.” Max got up and went to the head.
He had just come back, had sent midshipman Gilbertson fetch him some coffee, and had taken a few sips, when Chin announced, “Skipper, I’m receiving a request to establish visual communications, channel 7.”
“By all means, Mr. Chin. Let’s not keep the mighty hunters waiting.”
Chin nodded, and Max’s Commandcom display and a dozen other displays around CIC punched into that channel showed the furry face of the Vaaach commander. It looked like the same one they had encountered a few months before, but it was hard for humans to tell one Vaaach from another. Basically, they all looked like koala bears. Enormous, ferocious, carnivorous, long fanged, very short-tempered koala bears. Koala bears that made an Earth grizzly bear look like the kind of bear you tuck under the quilt with your four-year-old-daughter at bedtime.
The average fully grown Vaaach was 4.5 meters tall, with razor-sharp, retractable claws the size of carving knives, six fangs about as long as bayonets, and hard-staring, yellow-green eyes that looked as though their owner were deciding how you would be at your most flavorful: fast grilled, slow roasted, or raw.
The Vaaach began to speak: a series of growls, roars, snarls, and similar sounds, like a fight between a polar bear and a mountain lion. Lagging by about ten seconds, the computer provided a written translation on an adjacent screen, occasionally throwing in what was intended to be helpful explanatory material. The first few growls sounded as though there were some Standard words in there, mangled by the Vaaach’s incompatible vocal apparatus.
“Lieutenant Commander Maxime Tindall Robichaux, Union Space Navy, of the planet Nouvelle Acadiana, I greet you. [Voiceprint matching positively establishes that the speaker is Forest Victor Chrrrlgrf, encountered by this vessel on 22 January 2315 in the Tesseck A system.] Our statement that you entered Vaaach space in a dishonorable fashion is no longer operative. We received your transmission. A member of my crew logged it improperly. The individual responsible is undergoing punishment. Does this satisfy the affront to your honor?”
The Vaaach leaned back in his seat and flexed his claws over and over: extend, retract, extend, retract, extend, retract. Each cycle took nearly a second. Max wondered what those claws would do to human flesh.
“Not much of an apology,” DeCosta observed.
“For a Vaaach, that was practically groveling in abject guilt.” Max keyed the audio pickup for transmission. “Forest Victor Chrrlgrf of the Rawlrrhfr Forest, Victor of the Battle of Hrlrgr, I greet you. I consider honor to be satisfied in this matter. I hope the punishment being given to the individual who made the error is not too severe. We were not greatly harmed.”
When Max finished talking, he leaned back in his chair, adopted the most relaxed posture he could make himself adopt, and watched Chrrlgrf read the translation. At one point, he stopped flexing his claws, extended them fully, and made a slight sweeping motion with one of his hands. Intel said that the motion indicated anger—a suppressed reflex to reach out with his hand and rip open his opponent’s chest. He finished reading, considered for a moment, and looked up, those alien and yet so obviously intelligent and perceptive eyes leveled right at the camera. He could only imagine how intimidating it would be to have the immense, powerful Vaaach in the same room.
The Vaaach, gave off what sounded like a sigh. An almost pensive sigh. What’s that about? Then, the polar bear versus mountain lion match resumed and translation started to scroll up the display.
“I am no longer to be addressed as ‘Forest Victor.’ My present rank is ‘forest commander’ [a rank believed to be roughly equivalent to rear admiral]. You are blameless for the error in addressing me. Such changes are military matters we do not often reveal to fruit eaters.
“Regarding the negligent member of my crew, his punishment is not a matter to be discussed with frivolous monkey offspring. Be satisfied with knowin
g that neither you nor he has been put to death. Do not give me cause to regret either decision. As to what to do with you, because the Krag vessel just destroyed here died bearing the marks of your claws, there is a fine point of honor and the Hunters’ Rules we must resolve, based upon a further review of the computer records we have obtained from you. We will advise you when we have decided. It should not be long, even for one with a primate attention span. Do not attempt to leave. This communication ends now.” The carrier cut off, and the displays tuned into it went blank.
“What the hell was that about?” Everyone was staring at the doctor not just because of the unaccustomed vehemence with which he stated his question but also because he almost never uttered any kind of curse. “None of that makes any sense at all.”
“Actually, Doctor, it does,” Max said calmly. The sometimes excitable Sahin injecting additional fear and anxiety into the CIC was the last thing he needed. The men were nervous enough with the ship caught like a bug in a jar, waiting to know whether the entomologist with his hand on the lid was going to set them free or dissect them.
“The Vaaach are bound, on penalty of swift death, to a strict code of honor, which they apply consistently and—by their standards at least—fairly. Sometimes, the right thing to do can depend on some seemingly trivial detail, just as in a law case. So, they’re looking at what happened. In detail. It won’t take them long to make up their minds. They are decisive. They make Admiral Hornmeyer look wishy-washy.”
A few people chuckled at that. Good. If people are laughing, they aren’t too scared to think. And they should always be thinking. “They’ll learn what they need, announce what they found and what they decided based on what they found, and then they’ll act on it.”
Only a few minutes passed before Chin announced, “Carrier on channel 7, sir.”
“Let’s have it.”
Chin made the requisite connections causing the bizarre interweaving of complex geometric patterns and color progressions that the Vaaach used for a test pattern to appear on a dozen or CIC displays. He tied the CIC visual and audio pickups into the transceiver, which notified the Vaaach that the Cumberland was ready to engage in communication. A moment later, the test pattern was replaced by Vaaach commander, his fuzzy face and tufted koala bear ears looking cute and cuddly as ever, with his dagger-like fangs and deadly, alien, yellow-green eyes even more dangerous. A few short roars and a snarl followed.
“I greet you, Commander Robichaux,” said the translation.
“I greet you, as well, Forest Commander Chrrlgrf.”
“We have reviewed your activities since we last met, including your recent battle with the Krag. We will not kill you. Not today.” Max could feel an immediate dissipation of tension in the compartment, like a spring uncoiling.
“We are pleased to learn of your decision.”
A few short, barking growls, perhaps the Vaaach equivalent of laughter. “Of course you are. You will continue to hunt the Krag. We hope you kill many of them. It seems you were born for that purpose, as Forest Commander Vllgrhmrr said twelve seasons ago when you spent time among the Hunters of Vermin.
“Now, regarding the hunt, you have forced us to do something for which there is no precedent. Although a Vaaach youngling inflicted some wounds on the prey, you killed it. And when the youngling encountered it, the prey was suffering from many wounds, including wounds you—not just your hunting brothers—but you and your ship, inflicted on it. And of all the wounds suffered by this prey, the ones inflicted by you and your ship were the most recent. We now also know that the prey was fleeing you when the youngling pounced on it. Under our law, although the hunter who controls the territory in which a kill is made has the primary rights to the prey, the hunter who kills prey in the territory of another hunter or who drives it into that territory where it is then killed has rights of blood, the right to take some of the meat from the kill.”
The forest commander paused once again. He contemplated one of his claws. Perhaps it was duller than the others. Perhaps it was sharper. Perhaps there was something about its wicked curvature and its long, knife-like cutting edge that he found particularly appealing.
After a few seconds, the CIC transducers started to put out more feeding time at the tiger cage sounds. “Unfortunately, you cannot exercise this right in the usual way because the kill has been made and the prey utterly destroyed, to the last atom. Even so, failing to grant your rights of blood would be an act of extreme dishonor and is not even to be considered. I have just spoken with the Loremaster and the Lawspeaker on our homeworld, and they are in agreement with me and with each other: our traditions and law allow no exception. You must share—in whatever manner is possible—in the meat from the beast, even if you are a tiny, pink, fangless, scampering primate.”
At least the Vaaach was being insulting. That was always a good sign. He broke eye contact with the camera for an instant, as though he were concealing an emotion. Amusement? Feigned reluctance to do something he had planned to do all along? Reading humans is hard enough, but a fur-faced, technologically advanced, tree-dwelling, carnivorous alien?
“According to the Loremaster and the Lawspeaker, before you may receive your meat, you must first be proclaimed a Hunter. We do not suffer hard-won meat to be passed to the scavengers. As the leader of the hunt in which you took your first Kill of Honor, it is my duty to give you a Hunter’s Name. It is a duty I must fulfill well, as the name’s fitness for the hunter is a measure of the honor of he who bestowed it.”
The Vaaach paused, as if pondering something. He bared some of his lower teeth, revealing that they were all needle sharp. A smile, perhaps? “Your records tell an interesting tale of your hunts since we last met. You have been a busy little primate, very much a bglrrmlmp [a burrowing parasite, much like a tick, that causes extreme irritation to Vaaach skin and is very difficult to remove] in the flesh of the Krag. Your nature as a hunter and a warrior is clear to me. I know the kind of name to give you, but I have not had time to find the words in your primitive, poorly organized database. So, I must ask you: What is the primary form of terrain near the place of your birthing?”
“Wetlands primarily. Swamps, marshes, bayous. Some low-lying plains and grasslands. Occasionally woods,” said Max, wondering where this was all going.
“Swamp. Very well. I also need to know the name of a creature on your world like our hrllarlemar—virtually all complex ecosystems have such an animal. The hrllarlemar is small, quick, and crafty. It has a peculiar kind of genius for getting through fences, for entering and raiding closed outbuildings where we keep our small domestic animals, for defeating and penetrating the most elaborate means used to keep it out. When hunted, it is highly elusive and has a great many tricks for evading and escaping hunters. It doubles back on its trail to send us in circles. It leaps from tree to tree so as to leave no scent. It leads our hunting animals into bogs and then scampers away. In our language, its name stands for its qualities. We often say that a crafty warrior is a sly old hrllarlemar. Do you have such an animal?”
“We do. It’s called a fox.”
“Fox. The name suits the beast. Come to your feet, Hunter to Be.”
Max stood. This was starting to feel as though it might be important.
“Maxime Tindall Robichaux, of planet Nouvelle Acadiana, henceforth and so long as claws and fangs shall yearn to find the flesh of prey, you shall be a Hunter of the Vaaach. Your current rank is that of peer [the lowest rank in the Vaaach Hunter hierarchy]. You shall be called by the name ‘Swamp Fox.’ Is that an acceptable name?”
“Forest Commander, I’m afraid that it has been used before. That was the nickname of General Francis Marion, an American Rev—”
Max was stopped in mid-word by an almost deafening roar so loud that it triggered the sound system’s protective circuits to prevent damage to the crew’s hearing. Max looked anxiously down at the translation.
“I accept the name.”
He made a few more of the short, barking growls that Max was even more convinced were laughter. “Wise choice. Here is your share of the meat. May it give you strength for many hunts. The voices of my ancestors whisper to me that your hairless face awaits me around many turns of my life’s journey. I have no doubt that I will find you as much a nuisance then as I do now. Until then, hunt well. Unless you seek swift and certain death, leave our space immediately by the most direct route. This communication ends.”
The carrier cut off, the grappling field collapsed, and the enormous black, menacing arrowhead of the Vaaach vessel pivoted in its own length, pulled away from the destroyer, engaged its compression drive, and was gone.
“What does ‘Here is your share of the meat’ mean? I don’t see any meat anywhere.” The doctor sounded irritated, as though he had been looking forward to meat furnished by the Vaaach.
“I think I do,” said Gilbertson, pointing to two dark green boxes on the deck right behind Chief LeBlanc’s station, in the precise center of CIC. They had apparently appeared out of nowhere. Clouseau was standing near them, his back arched, hair standing on end.
“Fantastic,” blurted Bhattacharyya. “Positive confirmation that the Vaaach have matter translocation technology!”
Everyone looked at him as though he had started reciting Tri-Nin courtship poetry. Seeing all eyes on him, he raised his hands defensively. “That’s been a major intelligence question for years.”
For Honor We Stand (Man of War Book 2) Page 38