Though relatively young, Veera was possessed of an excellent mind and knew the human wanted to convert the Thraki to his cause, rather than the Hoon’s. But she was also smart enough to know that escape, if such a thing were possible, was more likely to result from her relationship with Jepp than from any connection to the Hoon. She decided to comply.
The request stuttered through the ship’s fiber optic nervous system and made the jump to Vessel 179621 where the Hoon was currently in residence. Not just any residence but the one time electromechanical home of the ill-fated Hoon Number Two.
Having received the request, the machine intelligence spent a quarter of a second thinking about it. The idea had obviously originated with the “human” soft body, and while it seemed like a waste of time, there were reasons to approve it. True to its nature, the Hoon listed them in descending order of importance: The being called Jepp had not only been useful where the elimination of Hoon Number Two was concerned, but had proven his willingness to slaughter the Thraki, and never stopped advocating the necessity for other others to do likewise. Add that to the new soft body’s ability to communicate via code—and the Hoon was ready to indulge the strange twosome. Veera cocked her head, listened, and made the translation. “The Hoon says ‘yes.* A shuttle awaits.”
Jepp gave a whoop of joy, jumped into the air, and landed with a thump. “Come on! Let’s get ready!”
Veera uttered the Prithian equivalent of a sigh, waited for Sam to scramble up onto her shoulder, and followed the alien toward his quarters. Once again, her father was proven correct: humans were a pain in the posterior.
The control area was neat, but homey, as if those assigned to it lived there, which they basically did. There were monitors, gently curving control panels, and holes into which the pilots and other crew members could insert their hands. Once positioned within a laser beam matrix, the ship’s Navcomp
“read” the complicated hand finger signals that controlled not only the vessel itself, but the various subsystems of which it was comprised.
Convoy CommanderPolBaySeph struggled to maintain her composure as alarms sounded, hatches hissed closed, and her crew went to battle stations. She should have been focused on the situation, on the fact that her forlorn group of stragglers had been overtaken by what appeared to be the entire Sheen fleet, but was filled with self-pity instead. Why now? After so many years had been left behind? After the fire that once burned in her eyes had dimmed? Why had the gods waited till now to fling the challenge in her face? Not that it mattered, since even a younger version of herself would have been helpless in the face of such an enemy.
Subcommander Ith Tor Homa shook her shoulder. It was a serious breach of etiquette and a sure sign of how desperate he was. “Commander! Every captain in the convoy requests orders . . . what shall I tell them?”
Seph glanced at a display. Once the Sheen were detected, she had ordered the convoy to land in the hope that they could avoid detection. The ships were arrayed around her. There were no signs of life on the airless planet, and the enemy was closing in. She felt like telling her captains to pray, since there was nothing else they could do, but she knew the unyielding younger version of herself, would almost certainly disapprove.
Seph was about to offer some sort of meaningless platitude when a holo popped into existence in the upper right hand quadrant of her command space. The technical looked worried. “Commander, I have an incoming message ... A Sheen envoy is on the way.”
Seph was surprised. Very surprised. Not by the arrogance involved—that was expected—but by the act itself. Why send an envoy when there’s nothing to negotiate? The Sheen never took prisoners, never made deals, and never showed mercy. The convoy was doomed. What were the machines up to? There was no way to know.
An envoy implied time, however, time the officer never expected to have, and she was determined to make good use of it. Years seemed to drop away. She felt younger and filled with energy. “Homa, you wanted some orders? Well, here they are: I want every youngster under the age of sixteen to suit up, grab what they can, and head for the hills. Any hilts. Got it? Good.
“The minute that effort is under way have the technicals alter all of the crew manifests, supply inventories, and other lists to reflect the reduced muster.
“While the technicals work on that have someone clean out their cabins and destroy anything they can’t take with them. And Homa...”
“Yes?”
“Prep some class two beacons. I want them to activate thirty cycles from now. Maybe, just maybe, one of our ships will happen along.”
Homa considered the possibilities ... Death at the hands of the Sheen—or by slow starvation. Which was worse? The decision was made, so it didn’t matter. He saluted, said “Yes, ma’am,” and turned away.” His daughter was on one of those ships . .. and there was no time to lose. Like the Sheen shuttles Jepp had used in the past, this one was equipped with a small almost perfunctory control space consisting of little more than a view screen, minimal controls, and a pair of uncomfortable seats.
Unlike previous outings, however, was the fact that Veera had agreed to accompany him and, after a quick survey of the lifeless control panel, had warbled a series of seemingly random notes. The human watched in annoyance as four additional displays appeared. One showed the relative positions of the shuttle, the planet they were about to land on, and the Thraki ships. The second consisted of colored bars that fluctuated in length. There was no way to be certain, short of asking Veera that is, but Jepp figured each bar was associated with one of the shuttle’s major systems. The third display shimmered with color but remained blank, as if not in use, and the fourth, which the human found to be especially interesting, scrolled through line after line of alien hieroglyphics. Jepp had seen similar symbols before, printed on bulkheads, hatches, and other surfaces, but never obtained a large enough sample to attempt some sort of analysis.
He was about to signal Sam and order the robot to record the alien text, when the surface rose to meet them. The planet was barren and seemingly lifeless. A mountain range stretched from north to south. It rose sharp and jagged—like the teeth of a saw blade. And, judging from the nav display, twelve Thraki ships waited up ahead, grounded at the bottom of a monster crater. In order to hide? Probably, though the attempt had been futile.
Jepp remembered the text, turned toward the holo, and discovered it was dark. Then, before he could give the matter further thought, the shuttle flared in for a landing. The human sought his space suit. There were heathens to convert—and God was waiting.
There were sixty-seven youngsters in a line that wound away from the Spirit of Gatlw and out toward the perimeter of the crater. They were clad in spacesuits, bulky affairs with which they were well acquainted and decorated to their liking. Some bore markings, some sported text, and others had been painted in fanciful ways.
Lis was one of the oldest and, along with some other sixteen-year-olds, nominally in charge. It was her job to bring up the rear, urge laggards to greater speed, and keep an eye on the robot assigned to erase their tracks.
A little one, no more than five, tripped on something. He went head over heels, hit the dry, powdery soil, and sent a wail over Channel Two. Were the machines listening? It was best to assume that they were.
Lis hurried to pick the youngster up, rapped on his faceplate, and gestured for silence. Wonderfully, amazingly, he obeyed. She put the cub down and looked back over her shoulder. The sweeper, oblivious as to the reason behind its current assignment, continued to run backwards, as it erased its tracks. Satisfied that the machine was operating properly, Lis turned and hurried to catch up. A male named Rak had set the pace—and the little ones had a hard time trying to keep up. Legs pumped, arms windmilled, and dust marked their passage. Would it settle before the machines arrived? And did she really care? Subcommander Homa was her father—and would die with all the rest. No, they hadn’t told her that, but didn’t need to. It, like most of the really important events
in her life, needed no explanation. Another youngster went down. A pair of ten-year olds pulled her back up, and the column wound in among some ancient rocks. Many were quite large. The ground sloped upward now, reaching toward the crater’s rim, leaving the flat behind. Lis slipped, managed to regain her footing, and looked back over her shoulder.
The robot had stalled. Its drive wheels threw plumes of dirt up into the airless atmosphere as it struggled to find purchase. Lis said a word she wasn’t supposed to say, directed the youngster to proceed without her, and waited to make sure. He waddled up the slope. An eight-year-old saw and took his hand. Conscious of how the seconds were ticking away, Lis dashed down the slope, eyed the robot, and knew the situation was hopeless. The maintenance unit had been designed to operate within the confines of a spaceship and couldn’t handle the uneven terrain.
Something flashed off to the east. The sun reflecting off a rock face? Or the hull of an incoming shuttle?
Lis threw herself forward, hit the robot with her shoulder, and pushed to machine over. It hit the dirt and struggled to right itself. She slapped the kill switch. The robot went inert, the youngster showered the machine with dirt, and fell facedown as a shadow slipped past.
The shuttle, which shimmered with light, dropped toward the ground. Had the machines been able to spot her? Lis didn’t think so—but hurried anyway. The ground rose in front of her, the incoming air rumbled in her ears, and sorrow filled her heart.
Convoy CommanderPolBaySeph met her visitors at the main lock. They were different from what she had expected: two biologicals and a robot of Thraki origins. Where were the firebreathing shiny-assed machines? It really didn’t matter, not if the aliens had the power to negotiate for the machines, which apparently they did. Both removed their helmets. The larger of the two spoke. His robot handled the translation. “Hello, my name is Jepp, Jorely Jepp, and this is Veera. The Hoon asked that we speak with you.”
Though a bit misleading, the human felt the lie was justified. He realized that the Thraki was female, guessed she was older rather than younger, and saw the intelligence in her eyes. She offered some sort of gesture. “You are welcome ... especially if your presence will help to avoid bloodshed.”
“It may,” Jepp answered agreeably, “God willing.”
“One never knows what games the gods may play,” Seph said politely. “Come ... let’s find a more comfortable place to talk.”
The Thraki led their guests down a passageway, and Veera, who had no role in the negotiations, took everything in. She noticed that in spite of the fact that the ship was in good repair the fittings bore the patina of hard use.
Another item that attracted the Prithian’s attention was the considerable number of robots deployed throughout the ship and their degree of sophistication Based on travels with her father, Veera knew that most spacefaring sentients had such machines, but couldn’t remember another race that was quite so dependent on them or had taken the science of robotics so far.
It seemed that most members of the crew had what amounted to pet robots, which scurried, pranced, rolled, and jumped wherever they chose. The result of all this activity was a sort of benign chaos that Veera found annoying but the Thraki seemed completely unaware of. Not Sam, however, who uttered a squeak of delight, jumped off Jepp’s shoulder, and joined a round of wall tag. Veera had the distinct feeling that these observations all added up to something, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. Commander Seph took a turn and led the visitors into a relatively large space. It looked and felt like a communal living room. She gestured toward some amorphous looking chairs. “You are welcome to sit... although I’m not sure how comfortable you’ll be.”
Jepp eyed the furniture, decided it was too small to support him, and did his best to sound friendly. “I’m afraid you arc correct. Besides, our pressure suits would get in the way, and we don’t have enough time to remove them. May I be frank?”
“Of course,” Seph answered smoothly, wondering how the youngsters were doing. “Say whatever’s on your mind.”
“Thank you,” Jepp replied. “Here’s the situation . . . The Sheen are governed by a machine intelligence called the Hoon. It has orders to destroy the Thraki race.”
Seph felt a crevasse open at the pit of her stomach. Contrary to the dictates of both logic and common sense, she had allowed herself to hope—that the stories were wrong, that the machines had changed, that something good would happen. Fur rippled away from her eyes. “Then why did you come? To tell us our fate?”
The words had a hard almost metallic edge to them. The human didn’t blame her. “No, that was not our purpose. I came to ask that you embrace the one and only all-knowing, all seeing, all-powerful God.”
Like 99 percent of her race Seph believed in a pantheon of gods and considered the god the alien described to be patently impossible. After all, how could one god, no matter how capable, possibly handle the running of the universe? The idea was laughable. Still, there were the Children to consider, and if the alien proved sufficiently gullible, the rest of the convoy as well. “One god? What an interesting notion. Tell me more.”
Veera, whose father had trained her to look for lies, watched in silent amazement as the exprospector turned amateur messiah not only fell for the Thraki’s attempt at deception, but proceeded to spew the same line of nonsense he had tried on her.
It took the human the better part of twenty minutes to rattle off all the stuff about how the machines were a gift from God, the mission to which he alone had been called, and the opportunity that stretched before them. “I can save your souls,” Jepp said importantly, “and deliver them to the Lord.”
“We accept,” Seph answered earnestly. “What should we do?”
This was a much different response from the one given by the earlier group that Jepp had encountered. He was surprised. Very surprised. “Really? You mean it?”
“Yes,” Seph lied fervently, “I do. Save our souls from the Sheen, and give them to the one all-knowing God.”
The words summoned up images of a triumphant Jepp presenting a gift to God. This was it! The moment he’d been waiting for! “God bless you. Commander—and all your people. My assistant and I will return to the shuttle where we can petition the Hoon. A warning, however—the machine is stubborn. It may be necessary to tell a few untruths.”
Seph struggled to control her expression, realized it wouldn’t mean anything to the creature in front of her, and let the matter go. The alien was an idiot, and she couldn’t imagine why the Sheen continued to put up with him. “Really? What sort of untruths?”
Jepp appeared hesitant. “That you and your companions are not only renegades—but willing to aid the Sheen.”
“Of course,” Seph replied calmly. “Do as you must.”
Jepp, victory almost in his grasp, was eager to leave, Real live converts! Doubters? Yes, almost certainly, but that would change. He knew that it would.
Seph saw the aliens to the hatch and waited for it to close. She turned to Subcommander Homa. “The little ones? Where are they?”
Homa, acutely aware of the fact that one of the youngsters was his, discovered the lump in his throat. He struggled to swallow it. “They made it to the edge of the crater—and hid among the rocks.”
Seph looked her subordinate in the eyes. She had never produced any offspring of her own—but could imagine how the other officer felt. “The alien is a fool. The Hoon will refuse. The Sheen will attack.”
Homa met her gaze. “If you are correct, and they attack from space, the little ones will be killed.”
“Exactly,” Seph agreed. “Unless we run.”
“Which would force them to chase us,” Homa said thoughtfully. “Saving the cubs but negating any possibility that the machines will accept your lies.”
“So,” Seph said gently, “what should we do?”
Homa felt a great upwelling of sorrow, for the daughter he would never see again, for himself, and for the entire Thraki race. Why? Why d
id the machines continually hunt them? The priests offered platitudes but no one really knew. All of it was so stupid and unnecessary. The words were little more than a croak.
“We must run.”
Seph, who felt strangely detached, bowed her head. “I’m sorry old friend—but I’m forced to agree.”
As the Hoon listened to the human’s rantings with a minute part of its consciousness, it also monitored streams of data from even the most distant parts of its far-flung body. That’s how the Al knew when the Thraki convoy started to power up. It seemed that the biological’s plan had failed, a rather predictable outcome that confirmed the Hoon’s preexisting bias: Though mostly harmless, and occasionally useful, Jepp was an idiot. That being the case, the computer intelligence ordered the human’s shuttle to lift, severed the incoming communication, and ordered his forces to attack. They confirmed the nature of his instruction, and insofar as the Hoon was concerned, the incident was over. Jepp staggered and nearly lost his footing as the shuttle pushed the planet away. Veera, who had been serving as interpreter, quit in midsentence and was quick to strap herself in. The human looked left and right. “What’s happening? I demand to know! Veera ... Sam ... tell the Hoon.”
The teenager warbled to the robot. It answered in kind. Jepp collapsed into the ill-fitting seat. “Switch to standard, damn you! And hurry up.”
“The Hoon broke the connection,” Veera said simply.
“That’s his way of ending a conversation.”
“But the Thraki!” Jepp objected, “They are under my protection!”
Veera could have said something regarding how much his protection was worth but chose to remain silent instead. Though not of his species, and not capable of tears, she knew how he felt. When the Thraki died, his dreams died with them.
Lis and the other youngsters watched from the rocks as repellors stabbed the hard oxide-rich soil. The ships hovered head high until the insystem drives were engaged. Then, with the precision born of long practice, the spaceships accelerated away. With them went fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, friends, and more, never to be seen again. The battle, if that’s what the massacre could properly be called, would take place on the far side of the planet where the thin, nearly nonexistent atmosphere gave way to vacuum. A small mercy—but a meaningful one.
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