Lorre grinned. “Funny that your mind should go there. Maybe you ought to visit one of the brothels on your way out, take the edge off. The women or the androids there wouldn’t care about your scars. Which, incidentally, relates to my question.”
“Either ask or shut up,” said March. He never liked discussing women or his scars. He knew it was a weakness, but it was still a weak point.
“Do you really believe in it?” said Lorre.
“Believe what?” said March.
Lorre gestured with his cigarette. “You used to be an Iron Hand, part of the Final Consciousness. One of our elite soldiers.”
“That’s right,” said March.
“And then you defected,” said Lorre. “You abandoned the Final Consciousness and joined the Kingdom of Calaskar and the Silent Order.”
“Was that the question?” said March. “Do I believe that you’re going to waste valuable time by recounting the obvious? I wouldn’t have, but it seems I was wrong.”
“But to join Calaskar and the Silent Order,” said Lorre, “you would have been baptized into the Royal Calaskaran Church.”
“It’s the state church of the Kingdom of Calaskar,” said March. “It’s one of the laws. Only those baptized into the Royal Calaskaran Church can hold military positions or civilian office.”
Lorre leaned forward. He looked almost fascinated, like a man poking at a scab. “But do you believe it?”
“The Church?” said March.
“All of it, I mean,” said Lorre. “It’s an ancient religion, dating back to before mankind even knew how to build an internal combustion engine, let alone a hyperdrive. So, do you believe it? Do you believe in God and Jesus and the resurrection of the dead and all that?”
March said nothing. His membership in the Royal Calaskaran Church did not come up on a regular basis. He did believe in God, usually, though sometimes he wondered if God was indifferent to humans or if God actively detested them. As for the rest, he alternated between doubt and hope. According to the Church, Jesus promised forgiveness of sins to all who followed him. March at least hoped that part was true. He had enough blood on his hands and soul, most of it from his time as an Iron Hand, but some of it from his service to the Silent Order.
But there was one thing March knew beyond all doubt.
He hated the Final Consciousness and the Machinists, hated the hideous thing that wished to conquer all mankind and absorb every living person into itself, and he would take the Royal Calaskaran Church over the Final Consciousness without a second’s hesitation.
“Yes,” said March, staring at Lorre without blinking.
“Huh.” Lorre leaned back, bemused. “Really. Maybe the Calaskaran surgeons scrambled something when they removed your hive implant. A former Iron Hand claiming to be a member of a church? And after you have known the glory of the Final Consciousness in all its unity and power? Utter madness. You must be suffering from a brain injury of some kind…”
“What about you?” said March.
“Do I want to join the Royal Calaskaran Church?” said Lorre. “Another obvious question.”
“No,” said March. “Do you believe in the Final Consciousness?”
Lorre raised his eyebrows. “The Final Consciousness is a tangible entity that rules an interstellar empire. Faith is hardly required.”
“That’s not what I mean,” said March. “Do you believe in the Machinist doctrines? I know them all. I was raised in them. That the Final Consciousness is the next phase of human evolution. That all mankind will be joined as one in the Final Consciousness, and there will be no more war, no more religions, no more strife, no more starvation and hunger and pain.”
“What do you think?” said Lorre, smiling.
“It’s a lie,” said March. “It’s all a damned lie.” He leveled a finger at Lorre, angrier than he would have liked. “I saw what the Final Consciousness was really like. Twenty percent of the population can be joined to the hive mind, and the remaining eighty percent are enslaved. I saw the labor camps and the extermination camps, and I saw people worked to death and their bodies dumped into the organic decompilers to be harvested for protein.”
“That’s right,” said Lorre. “You grew up on Calixtus. A rebellious and reactionary planet. Making someone from Calixtus an Iron Hand was a mistake.”
“And once I was an Iron Hand,” said March, “I saw what the Final Consciousness did. The assassinations. The corruption and subversion of governments. The genocides and the mass slaughters. The Final Consciousness is a blight, a cancer spreading from world to world and leaving only death in its wake.” Lorre looked more and more amused. “I’ve seen all that, and you’ve seen all that. And after all that, do you believe the Final Consciousness’s bullshit?”
“Every word,” said Lorre. He leaned forward, his eyes glittering. “That’s what someone like you doesn’t understand. It’s all true. And no faith is required. I’ve seen the Final Consciousness and its power with my own eyes.” He ground out the butt of his cigarette in the ashtray. “And all the things you’ve seen? The genocides and the slaughters and the conquests? You think they’re a bad thing? They’re not.”
“Really,” said March, a flare of hatred going through him. That was bad. Hatred could impair his judgment at a critical moment.
“Can I tell you something?” said Lorre.
“Would you stop if I said no?”
“One of my first assignments,” said Lorre as if March had not spoken, “a long time ago, I needed to kill a man who threatened a cell of Machinist sympathizers. I set off a bomb that disabled his car. It killed him, but his pregnant wife was riding with him. She was…seven, eight months along, I think. The blast drove some debris into her abdomen, and she miscarried in the wrecked car. When the emergency crews cut her out of the wreckage, she was covered in the blood from her dead husband and her dead baby. The way she screamed...you wouldn't have thought that a human throat could make a noise like that.”
“Why the hell are you telling me this?” said March, cold anger burning inside him. He did not like the satisfied look on Lorre’s face. If he could have taken his metal fist and turned that smug look into bloody pulp and crushed bone, he would have.
“Do you know what I regret about that?” said Lorre. “The one thing I wish I had done differently?”
“What?”
He smiled. “I wish I had killed the woman with her husband and baby. One less enemy in the path of the Revolution of the Final Consciousness.”
“You and the Final Consciousness are murderers,” said March, the words hard and cold as a knife’s edge.
“No,” said Lorre. “We’re culling humanity. We’re purging it. We are burning away the dross and leaving the gold that can become part of the Final Consciousness. And when we’re done, the weak and the stupid among mankind will be dead, and the rest of mankind will be one in the Final Consciousness. Humanity will be unified as it never has been in our entire history, and we shall conquer the rest of the universe. See, March, we’re a lot alike, you and I. I suppose in a way I’m just as religious as you are. Except my god is real. My god will triumph. You had your chance to be one of us, and you threw it away.”
“I was one of you,” said March, “and then I saw you for what you really are.”
Lorre inclined his head. “And we have come to an impasse. The point where questions are no longer decided by words, but by force.”
March stood. He’d heard enough. “Thanks for the cigarettes.”
“Think about my offer,” said Lorre.
“I’ll do that,” said March, stepping back from the table.
“I hope so,” said Lorre, leaning back in his seat. “It’s your last chance to leave the Eschaton system alive.”
March walked from Tanner’s Tavern without looking back, brooding over the conversation. Why had Lorre invited him for that talk? Why tell that vile story about the pregnant woman and her murdered husband? It didn’t make any sense. He knew that Lorre�
�s offer had not been genuine. The Machinists would not suffer the Tiger to leave the system, and if the Final Consciousness was willing to sacrifice an entire task force recover the device, and the Machinists would also be willing to sacrifice their ships to destroy the Tiger, the device, and all the witnesses to the machine.
So why had Lorre wasted time talking to March? It couldn’t have been curiosity about March’s religious leanings and personal loyalties. Lorre had to know that March hated the Final Consciousness too much to ever return to the Machinists. Lorre must have known that March knew the offer had been a hollow one. And why tell that story about the murdered man and his wife? Surely Lorre knew that would only anger March further.
Delay. Lorre must have been trying to win a delay to accomplish something. But what? Had the Machinist ships been doing something? Or did Lorre have other agents on the station?
March adjusted his earpiece and tapped a command into his phone. “Caird?”
“Here,” came Caird’s voice a moment later. “How’d your chat with Mr. Lorre go?”
“Just as fun as you would expect,” said March. “What’s your status?”
“We’re back at the Tiger,” said Caird. “Tanner arrived with his mechanic and his workers, some guy named Colder. Tanner left, and Colder and his techs are in your engine room installing the new reaction chamber. Vasquez is keeping an eye on them, and Perry’s guarding the outside of the ship.”
“Any trouble?” said March.
“Not yet,” said Caird. “Colder and his men at least look honest, and your pseudointelligence says that haven’t tried to sabotage the ship or install any malware.”
“Did anyone approach the ship?” said March.
“No one,” said Caird. “Just Tanner, Colder, and his workers.”
March let out a breath. “I don’t know what Lorre wanted, but I think the point of the conversation was to distract me long enough for something else to happen.”
“What, though?” said Caird.
“Damned if I know,” said March, looking around the concourse again for another cargo drone. “But I’ll be on the ship in another ten minutes.”
“Roger that,” said Caird, and ended the call.
March made another call, a secure one directly to Vigil.
“Captain March,” she said.
“Status report, please,” said March.
“Mr. Colder and his crew are installing the reaction chamber,” said Vigil. “I have been monitoring them, and the procedure is within acceptable parameters. No one approached the ship during your absence, save for the return of Caird, Vasquez, Ulm, and Rogan. There have been no incoming communications, save for the unauthenticated message I sent to you earlier, and there have been no attempts at unauthorized entry or hacking.”
“Sergeant Perry and his men,” said March. “What did they do while I was absent?”
“They remained outside the ship and guarded the entry ramp,” said Vigil. “No suspicious activity was detected.”
“All right,” said March. It was an unlikely possibility, but he was not willing to discount the idea that one of the Covenant survivors was a traitor. Until they safely returned to Calaskaran space, he could not lower his suspicions. “I’ll be back at the ship within ten minutes. Call me at once if anything unusual happens.”
“Acknowledged, Captain March,” said Vigil, and he ended the call.
At last, March spotted a cargo drone, and he headed towards it, intending to ride it back to Bay 997. As he did, he heard a sudden rapping noise, the sound of something hard and sharp tapping against the metal of the deck.
Like claws.
He whirled, his hand twitching towards his pistol, and saw a dozen Ninevehk running towards him.
They were fast, far faster than a human. A Ninevehk with a level surface and no obstructions could run sixty kilometers an hour in short bursts. For an instant, March thought they were going to knock him over, but the Ninevehk soldiers came to a stop several meters away, watching him with their yellow eyes.
Hunt Commander Tashnakha was with them, and he stepped forward, the massive scythe-like claw on his right foot tapping against the deck.
“You are Captain Jack March?” said Tashnakha.
“Yeah,” said March.
“You shall accompany us to our vessel for questioning,” said Tashnakha.
“That right?” said March.
“My statement is correct,” said Tashnakha. “You will accompany us of your own will, or you will accompany us by force.”
March stared at the Hunt Commander, his mind racing. The Ninevehk were predators, and they thought like predators. Their entire culture and society had been built around their predatory natures. The Ninevehk thought nothing of their political and military leaders killing each other in duels, so long as it was done openly and according to the proper forms.
And the first rule of dealing with predators was to never show weakness or fear.
“You presume to command me?” said March, stepping closer to Tashnakha and looking the Ninevehk in the eye. “By what right do you command me, Ninevehk?”
“By right of force,” said Tashnakha, gesturing with a clawed hand to his warriors. They spread out around March in a semicircle, their dusty, serpentine smell filling his nostrils.
“Use your weapons and the Custodian will turn you to ashes,” said March.
“Weapons are not required,” said Tashnakha. “Our strength is superior, as are our claws and fangs.”
March drew himself up, strode right up to Tashnakha, and leaned down to look the Ninevehk in the eye. From this close, he saw the many sharp fangs lining the alien’s long mouth. Tashnakha could have bitten off March’s face had he felt inclined to do so.
“Then do you challenge me,” said March, “as a hunter?”
A ripple went through the Ninevehk soldiers.
“You are not a hunter,” said Tashnakha. “You are human.”
“Then you cower before my challenge?” said March. “Perhaps it is you, Hunt Commander Tashnakha, who is not a hunter.”
Tashnakha let out an angry hiss. “You court our destruction.” He gestured at the chrome sphere of a security drone floating over the deck a hundred meters away. “If we fight, the drones will destroy us.”
“Custodian!” shouted March. “Of my own free will, I challenge Hunt Commander Tashnakha to prove his worthiness as a hunter to me. Do you accept of your own free will, Hunt Commander?”
For a moment Tashnakha stared at March, his forked tongue darting over his fangs.
“I accept the challenge of the hunter!” rasped the Ninevehk.
The other Ninevehk soldiers reacted, spreading out to move into a wide circle around both March and Tashnakha.
“Good,” said March, flexing the fingers of his left hand.
“Do you understand the sacred laws of the challenge, human?” said Tashnakha.
“We fight with our bare hands,” said March. “No weapons. The first to use weapons is dishonored and defeated. The first to yield submits to the other. Else the combat is to the death.”
“We start twelve paces apart,” said Tashnakha.
March nodded and walked backward, and Tashnakha did the same. March balanced on the balls of his feet, his left shoulder aching, the fingers of his metal hand opening and closing. Ninevehk were fast, very fast, and their claws were sharp and hard. A flick of Tashnakha’s leg and that enormous scythe-like claw could open March’s belly like an envelope. But March had his own advantages. The interior of his leather coat was lined with a carbon-fiber weave. It was designed to stop knife blades, but it should also work on a Ninevehk’s claws. And while the Ninevehk were fast, they weren’t that maneuverable thanks to their long bodies and stiff tails.
“Subcommander Vastathak shall serve as the arbiter of the challenge,” said Tashnakha. “Is that acceptable?”
“It is,” said March.
“Very well,” said Tashnakha. “Subcommander?”
“Beg
in,” said one of the other Ninevehk.
Tashnakha hurtled at March in a blur of claws and scales and teeth, but March had been ready. He had thrown himself to the side the minute that Vastathak had spoken, and he just got out of the way of the Hunt Commander’s charge. As he did, he punched with his left arm, throwing all his cybernetic strength behind the blow. His left fist slammed into Tashnakha’s side with terrific force, throwing the Ninevehk Hunt Commander off his balance.
Tashnakha reacted at once, raking with his hands at March’s face. March snapped his left arm up and caught the blows on his forearm. The claws sliced through the leather of his coat with ease, but skidded off the mesh interior. March kicked for the weaker joint in the Ninevehk’s right leg, and Tashnakha jumped back. Tashnakha recovered and launched himself forward, his jaws yawning wide.
March punched with his left hand, driving his fist into the Ninevehk’s mouth, and seized Tashnakha’s lower jaw. The Hunt Commander tried, again and again, to bite off March’s hand, the powerful jaws closing with terrific force. Had March put his right hand into Tashnakha’s mouth, the Ninevehk would have bitten it clean off. As it was, the Hunt Commander’s razor-sharp teeth shredded March’s glove and sleeve but did nothing against the alloy of his cybernetic arm. Tashnakha heaved forward, trying to get the claws of his hands and feet on March, but March locked his arm, using its strength to hold the Ninevehk at bay. He tightened his grip, and inch by inch he started to force Tashnakha’s jaw open wider.
If the Ninevehk did not yield, March was going to rip off his jaw and let him bleed to death.
Suddenly Tashnakha dropped to his knees, breathing hard, and spread his hands, his tail thumping against the deck.
“He yields, human,” said Vastathak.
At once March released Tashnakha and stepped back, the shredded remnants of his glove falling from his metal fingers. He noted with annoyance that the sleeve of his coat was a shredded ruin. That was a pity. He had liked that coat.
His eyes remained on Tashnakha, watching for treachery, but the Ninevehk warrior only got back to his feet, breathing hard.
“You did not say,” rasped Tashnakha, “that you had cybernetic enhancements.”
Silent Order: Wraith Hand Page 11