“Yes? Yes, you’re a skangat?”
“Correct. My translation device tells me that skangat is a term humans use on each other to communicate disappointment in the other’s behavior, or to indicate aggression, possibly leading to physical combat. Is this correct?”
“Right on both counts, pal.”
“Thank you. Then I am a skangat.”
“Frakk! I can’t even insult you.”
“That assessment is probably accurate. Without long practice, inter-species communication is significantly less rich than between sentients of the same species. However, I estimate that if we communicate regularly over a period of no less than several weeks, and if you apply yourself to your task, then it might be possible for you to insult me.”
“Is that’s what’s gonna happen? We’re going to be stuck together for weeks?”
“No. I have completed my examination. You will leave shortly and only see me on one more occasion.”
“Then why…? Oh, what’s the use? Tell me this, then. What did you see inside my mind? What is my path?”
“It is best that members of your species are not given details of predestination. Your species is not evolved for that.”
“And yours is?”
“Correct.”
“Why?”
“Defense.”
“So you — what? — see a threat coming and change the future so you avoid getting tropied?”
“The broad thrust of your speculation is correct. Our precognitive capability is an adaptation of our feeding process. It is why my kind has an understanding with the species you call White Knights. They feed and guard us. We tell them the future.”
Arun thought back to the conversation with Little Scar. The Jotun had said Arun was important, another human too. Maybe two. “Luring me here,” he said, “was that part of your defensive instincts?”
The Night Hummer made no reply. It rolled back a few paces before coming to a halt. Then it rolled forward again before repeating the pattern. Was it pacing?
It took three minutes before it answered: “yes.”
“Then I do what? Do I shoot an invader who would otherwise have killed you?”
“Probably not.”
“But I am important to your future?”
“Yes.”
“Do I save you?”
“No. You are my killer.”
Arun’s vision reddened momentarily as combat rage took a hold of him. If the Hummer had brought his killer here, it could only be for one reason: the creature saw Arun as a threat, one to be eliminated.
Arun leaped at the blob. He had to kill the Hummer before it killed him. He sailed through the airless space aiming to bring his hands together in the place roughly corresponding to a human’s neck. He penetrated the outer orange skin easily enough but then… he was gripped! The blob rolled back, absorbing his momentum, but his hands were held fast.
Arun pushed up until his feet were pointing at the ceiling. Then he swung himself back down in an arc pivoting on his hands. He never finished the maneuver. A cavity appeared in the center of the Hummer. A split second later, Arun was sailing through the vacuum to land on his back a dozen paces away. The thought just had time to run through his head that to throw him such a short distance showed restraint and skill before he hit the floor and was rolling back like a ball, and kept on rolling until he gently smacked into the wall.
The Night Hummer, meanwhile, had effortlessly kept pace with him, propelling itself by waving its surface in contact with the floor. He’d seen vids of Earth snakes move like that. It made sense if micro-g was your natural habitat.
“You misunderstand,” said the Hummer when Arun had come to rest. “You are my killer, yes. But it is not your intention to kill me. You try to save me. You will fail. Probably. Hopefully.”
“Hopefully? Why hopefully?”
“Because then your path is not what I foresee.”
“And I’m important, right?” Arun scrambled to his feet. “Hold on! If I’m important, that means I won’t get Culled, right?”
“Probably not. But the future is a forest of potential paths. You can change your future to make that more likely. This is why we stay aloof. Interference rarely works well. I have a personal interest in you because you kill me.”
“What do I do that is so important?”
“You should not hear predestination.”
“Who is the purple human?”
“You cannot make me tell you your destiny. Nor can you cast words and phrases in my direction, fishing for my reaction.”
Okay, buddy, we’ll see about that. But first, a change of tack. “Is this your natural habitat? Do you live here?”
“This facility is readied for occupation by a troop of my people. Sadly, my companions are not arriving. The White knights treat us like vegetables, to be planted in gardens such as this and tended, and weeded, left to grow information. But we are not vegetation, and I do miss company.”
“So what are you telling me? That all the hell I’ve been through these past day… more… it’s so you have someone to talk to?”
“No!” A pressure wave coursed through the Hummer, striking the floor hard enough to lift Arun a few inches off the floor. “I am not so trivial. I must have you here to see deeper, to see the pattern of what you call past and future. Understand, human child. Your cultural history talks of the pattern of the future being a vast tapestry woven by the Fates. Each sentient life is a single thread.”
“You’re quoting the Loom of Thessaly, right? The Earth supremacists are always going on about the importance of Classical Greek culture.”
“Perhaps they are correct to do so. The Loom of Thessaly remains the most accurate model your species has yet devised to explain the nature of reality. In this model, individual sentients are caught in the tyranny of the tapestry’s pattern. They can struggle but never break free, and if you stand back a little, the struggles of individuals are invisible against the purity of the larger pattern. But sometimes special threads arise that… Your model suffers from a critical lack of dimensions at this point. Let us say that these special threads tie off the old pattern and influence the Fates to begin weaving a radically new design.”
“And I’m a special thread, yeah?”
“You might be.”
“Can be? What must I do to become this be this new-pattern guy?”
“You must make a choice. The pattern you make possibly saves your species from extinction and elevates the status of humans everywhere. Many other races too benefit in this future.”
“Sounds nova. Where’s the catch?”
“You must make an oath. It binds you to the future that saves your people. If you break your oath, the path diverges. The pattern corrupts, and you may accelerate your extinction.”
“Go on.”
“Do you promise to adopt my people as the client species of the humans? You must re-house, guard and cherish us. There are future times when you will choose between your friends and your promise and you must choose your promise, or the future will corrupt.”
Arun laughed. After all he’d been through. Such madness! “Hummer, that’s crazy talk. That’s treason, for starters. The White Knights would sterilize the entire planet if they got wind of it.”
“You are correct.”
“I don’t believe for a nanosecond that I could make this happen even if I was insane enough to try.”
“I know. Yet you must promise sincerely. Saying meaningless words is not sufficient. The oath must be real.”
“And in any case. The White Knights get you these hollowed-out rocks to live in. You have your understanding with them. Why change that?”
“Because the White Knights cherish randomness, mutation and the potential of creative destruction. We represent a predictable future. Our nature is utterly repugnant to them. They loath us more than any other species, and yet they cannot ignore our usefulness. Within a century from this time, we are labeled scapegoats for White Knight setba
cks. They exterminate us.”
“And you want me to protect you?”
“Yes.”
“From the White Knights, the most powerful species I’m aware of?”
“Correct.”
“You’re mad.”
“I can see into the future.”
“You’re also a liar. You refused to tell me the future because I’m not evolved enough, apparently. But you’ve just told me what will happen. ”
“I have. I only reveal small details. They are obvious. You learn them yourself soon.”
“Good for me.” Arun’s stomach rumbled in irritation. He hadn’t eaten solid food for almost two days and his stomach wasn’t one for philosophy and long-laid plans. Without food, Arun wasn’t saving mad orange blobs or anyone else.
“If I refuse?”
“That is unwise. A tragedy. But you will eat and drink and the shuttle returns you safely to your home.”
“Food! Where?”
“Follow.”
The Hummer shimmered over to the far end of the room, to the portion that had been hidden behind the curtain. If the blob had lips, Arun would have kissed them because there was a pressurized accommodation bubble. Through the clear plastic walls he could see a table and chair. There was a hotplate with steaming sauce and meat…”
“There is beer too,” said the Hummer. “I am told humans enjoy beer — although you soldier-children are denied the experience. And roast meat and other palatable items. There is plenty of air, and an inflatable bedroll for you to sleep upon. When you are refreshed, tell the shuttle to return you home.”
Arun knelt down to unseal the outer door of the airlock. As he started to crawl through to this one-man chow-hall, the alien spoke through Arun’s helmet speaker.
“Human!”
“What?”
“Your oath. Will you swear to protect my species? To guard and cherish us?”
What was this, a marriage ceremony? He supposed it was. Perhaps this was the most important moment in human history since President Horden signed the Vancouver Accords that had bought Earth White Knight protection by selling human children into slavery. Maybe this was even more important than Vancouver.
Or maybe this was the rambling of an intelligent blob driven insane by loneliness.
He sighed. On the far side of the airlock was dinner. That was far more real than all this speculation.
“Well,” said the Hummer. “Do you swear?”
“I do so swear.”
The airlock flashed a blue light and slid opened. Arun was inside, lifting off his helmet and smelling rich aromas of meat and vegetables and gravy. He shrugged. Aliens! If only they were all such dumbchucks.
—— Chapter 52 ——
“Since your return from the auxiliary, you have not spoken of traitors and drugging.”
Pedro was lounging in the lamp heat of his basking station, his face regarding Arun with expressionless eyes as always. While the insectoid’s face was physically incapable of smiling, frowning, snarling and all those other human expressions, Arun was certain he was learning to pick up on the alien’s other cues, from body posture, linguistic phrasing, those tireless antennae and who knew what else?
If he was reading the signs right, Pedro was saying that this was a topic they had buried for too long.
Arun shook his head. “Not going to happen, big guy. Too dangerous.”
If only they had somewhere private to talk then Arun would dearly love to ask his friend for advice. But that first trip to the orbit could be put down to meeting on neutral ground. Meeting there regularly would look like plotting insurrection.
“And I’ll tell you another thing that’s dangerous,” Arun said, “continuing these little chats without you opening up. You won’t tell me anything about your military capability, your population numbers, or give me a detailed map of your nest. Hell, you refuse point blank to tell me what they did with Hortez when he hung up his microphone. Colonel Little Scar hasn’t yet asked me to report back on my liaison mission. But he will. So far it’s been all one-way: I give you info; you confuse the hell outta me. You’ve helped me, for sure, but you’ve given me nothing that I can give to the colonel. You call yourself my friend, but on this you’ve let me down. Badly. Possibly fatally.”
Pedro’s legs were folded underneath. Each pair in sequence now pushed him up a little before dropping back down. The result looked as if Pedro were bobbing atop ocean swell.
Arun knew this meant the insect was delighted at Arun’s words. Dongwit aliens! He’d been trying to tell off the Trog.
“I am not permitted to reveal certain secrets,” said Pedro when he’d finished bobbing, “but I have nearly finished the compilation of a dossier containing everything we know about ourselves, from our earliest history, through our pheromone language, and on to the best examples of our love poetry. Expressing the essence of my people using your human language proved more difficult than I thought, which is why this took far longer than my initial estimate. The greatest challenge was to transform information into understanding. Human understanding. The dossier will be uploaded to the base network tomorrow, and access granted to your softscreen account.”
Arun didn’t know what to say. The more he replayed Pedro’s words, the more stunned he became. “You did all this,” he said when the faculty of speech returned, “for me?”
Pedro curled his antennae in amusement. The bulky alien was laughing at Arun’s expense. “No,” Pedro said. “I did not do all this. A team of over five thousand assembled this for me. The majority of the nest’s research capability was diverted to serve your needs. Now do you believe I have let you down? Badly. Possibly fatally.”
Arun grimaced. “Sorry, Pedro. Horden’s Children, big guy. Look at you. You’re an overgrown ant, and yet you’ve made me feel ashamed. How the hell have you managed that?”
Pedro tilted his head down and folded his antennae flat against his head. He was in deadly earnest now. “It is not my people of the nest who have made you feel guilt, it is your human sense of empathy. This is important, Arun McEwan. You are important. We have offered similar information to the Jotuns on many occasions, but they lack the mindset to understand. You humans are far more socially elastic, you can accept and bond with us. Jotuns are admirable in many ways but they are culturally rigid, brittle even. They can only relate to you humans as dwarf Jotuns missing a pair of arms, and with limited intelligence. And it is because they relate to you as orphaned and mutilated Jotun children that they are so protective of you — more than you realize.”
“And your lot? You’re tunnel-dwelling colony beings. Jotuns can’t relate to you at all.”
“Precisely. Which is why they wish to use you as a conduit, an intermediary to interpret the information we give you because they cannot.”
Arun was about to get up to convey his thanks by rubbing the insect’s head. But he held himself back because Pedro’s antennae were still tight against his head.
“I’m afraid I must raise again the subject of traitors and gun-running,” said the Trog.
“No. I thank you for your help, but you know as well as I do that tunnel walls hear everything.”
“That is not accurate,” said Pedro — still in super-serious mode. “I do not know this as well as you. I know this far better than you do.”
Arun barely heard the words. Despite the heat from Pedro’s basking lamps, the air had chilled.
“I have never spoken to you about gun-running,” he said.
“Correct. Listen, please, Human McEwan. This is important. It is not only tunnels that have ears. Did you believe the surface was unmonitored? And if your words have reached my ears, then any traitors who might exist will have heard them too.”
Pedro sure had a knack for springing ugly surprises. The only way the alien could top this was if Xin came walking through the chamber entrance to see for herself how the color had drained from Arun’s face. Arun trembled with fear. Any one of his comrades and NCOs could be a
traitor. Give him someone to shoot at and he’d fire back, no problem. But he hadn’t the courage to take this.
“I perceive you understand the danger,” said Pedro.
“No kidding.”
Pedro acted puzzled. “I agree. This is no time for humor. I believe that very soon, events will escalate into unconstrained violence. You need a refuge, and sending you pheromone passes in the mail is inadequate.”
Pedro sprang from his basking shelf, kicking a cloud of dust from the dirt floor. He jumped on Arun who was sitting in his leather sofa chair.
Arun was suddenly aware of how big his friend was. What did he weigh? Three hundred pounds? More?
Pedro ripped Arun out of the chair and flung his bulk onto the human’s shoulders. Arun’s vision exploded into stars when the back of his head thumped into the ground.
When the fight came back to Arun, it was too late. Pedro had him pinned down good and proper. He threw everything he had into a wild roll to the left, but he didn’t move an inch.
Frakk! This Trog was strong.
A sharp claw appeared at the end of one of Pedro’s upper limbs. Arun hear the claw snick through his shirt and then stared in disbelief as the claw peeled open his flesh. Then the pain hit him.
“Get off me! Get off!”
“Hold still!” Pedro ordered calmly. “This won’t hurt a bit.”
Arun relaxed a tiny degree. Then Pedro cut much deeper, flicking lines of agony into Arun’s chest cavity.
“Agghh!” Arun screamed continuously until Pedro paused to reach for something in his thorax belt. “I thought…” hissed Arun through gritted teeth, “thought you said it wouldn’t hurt.”
“I said it won’t hurt a bit. It will, in fact, hurt a lot. And if you struggle it will hurt a whole lot more.”
“Frakk! Arun must have been around aliens too long because he actually believed Pedro. Whatever crazy thing Pedro was doing, he wasn’t trying to kill him. Didn’t mean it wouldn’t, but it wouldn't kill him on purpose.
Arun activated his emergency meditation triggers, which transported him to a safer place in his mind, leaving the pain in his body.
Marine Cadet (The Human Legion Book 1) Page 33