The Immortal Game (Rook's Song)

by Chad Huskins

  “I’m sorry to have to do this to one of your number. But I think in my shoes, you’d do the same.”

  Rook selects the one most appropriate, the body of the pilot. If anybody would’ve wanted to contribute to sabotage, it’s another Sidewinder pilot, he figures. The body doesn’t have to do much, only perform as a dummy if anyone happens to get a peek through the viewport before the ship meets its end. And if the Cerebs run a bio scan, they’ll at least find readings of human tissues.

  Rook sets the pilot in his seat, looks him over. He makes sure the sound system works before he leaves, and that it can play music. He stands and says, “I don’t actually believe you can hear these words. I don’t believe in an immortal soul. But…it helps me to say this. To hear myself say it. I’ll probably be the last human to ever say this to anyone, and nobody will get the chance at my funeral, so…” He swallows. “Thank you for your sacrifice.”

  The corpse says nothing back.

  When Rook steps out of the ship, Bishop is waiting on him. The alien says, “I could hear what you said in there. You really don’t believe anyone will ever speak for you after you’re gone? You’ve given up hope of finding anyone else ever again?”

  “Let’s say I believe somebody’s out there. But I also alternate between the degrees at which I believe it. Right now, it seems pretty unlikely.”

  They’re back inside the Sidewinder, a thousand feet in the air and angling the ship so that the graviton gun can target the ghost ship on the ground. Targeting and graviton excitement goes off without a hitch, and as they pass through Kali’s exosphere, towing the derelict up with them, Rook begins applying the math he worked out weeks ago from orbit.

  “Factoring in gravitational constant,” he says. “Remotely activating derelict ship’s thrusters to align with predetermined orbital vector.” In order to achieve insertion into a stable orbit (which is essential since the damaged ship only has thrusters to make minor adjustments to angle and virtually none to overall speed), the ship must hit a certain speed at a certain level of altitude. Rook checks the Sidewinder’s AI’s feedback. He needs to add about 2.4 miles per second to its current 5.3 mph orbital velocity. He speeds the Sidewinder up, and informs Bishop to increase the g’s by which the derelict ship is being towed. They overshoot the speed a little, which might actually put the ship on an escape velocity, so Rook has Bishop disengage the graviton gun, and then engages reverse thrusters on the derelict to slow itself down just enough.

  “Beginning recycling of containment field,” says the alien. “How did we do with orbital insertion?”

  A look at his sensors. The AI agrees. “Looks like we’ve achieved it. Derelict ship is in orbit.” A few more checks of his holo-display. “Looks like its thrusters are working fine. It can make small changes, but we’ll need to keep an eye on it to make sure nothing goes wrong. If one of its thrusters malfunctions and it starts to plummet, it won’t be able to correct itself.”

  “Copy that. What’s next?”

  Rook taps a few keys on his gauntlet, activating the music player on the derelict ship now floating away from them in the darkness. “Next is tactical entry training.”

  The rudiments of tactical entry prove to be just another area where humans and Ianeth overlap. There are really only so many ways a person or a group of people can enter through a doorway or window. All they have to get down is what sorts of signals they’re going to use—for the sake of ease, Bishop agrees to using human hand motions. A hooked index finger indicates a “button-hook” entry, meaning the first person going through the doorway turns a sharp right and the person behind him turns a sharp left, both operative bringing up their guns. Crossing fingers indicates a “crossing” entry, where the first person through the door runs to cover the opposite side of the room from him, and the next person crosses in behind him. They run through “slicing the pie,” slowly checking around corners, and then running through tactical calls. “I’ve got deep” means the operative is covering a hallway. An “opening” refers to how many doors and/or windows are in the corridor.

  Even knowing all this, operatives have always had to train to get a feel for one another’s movements in tactical entry, so that eventually a minimum of hand signals is necessary and there’s a lot of “mind reading” of your fellow operative(s). Rook and Bishop run through various scenarios through the tunnels in the cave, working in both light and low-light conditions. Rook is familiar enough with the tactics, though he’s gotten a little rusty since the last time he trained them. Bishop has an eidetic memory so there are no problems there.

  After a full day of training, the two of them retire to the Sidewinder. They eat a meal together in the cockpit, Bishop in the co-pilot’s seat and eating with the hurried motions of a fly, pausing here and there as if he detects something amiss, then continuing with his frantic meal. Rook sits with his feet propped up on the console, looking away at the red-orange tendrils leaking down from Thor’s Anvil. “Are there many volcanoes where you’re from?” he asks to pass the time. The Sidewinder vibrates as Kali shakes.

  “Yes, but not as active as the Anvil there.” The alien answers between bites. He finishes off an MRE, then digs into another one—Bishop doesn’t eat often, but when he does it’s a large meal.

  “Ya know, I never actually saw one with my own eyes until now. Saw them in documentaries, in school we went inside of them in interactive holo-docs, but I never saw one like this.” He looks at it awhile quietly, adding, “It’s beautiful. It strikes me that Thor’s Anvil there, it’s all part of the same engine that shapes planets, and sometimes creates life. It’s been alone a long time, but now it gets to stand witness to what I would call a relatively important event. The final stand of two species.”

  “That sounds like poetry trying to come out.”

  Rook turns to him. “Do you have poetry where you come from?”

  “We do. But you wouldn’t—”

  “Be able to hear it, gotcha. So, you know poetry and your Progenitor encouraged you to sing. What’re the kinds o’ things you tried to express in your art?”

  “When we’re young, there are counting games, like you would teach your children. As we get older, there are hymnals to the Old Gods and the New, who fought violent wars that some believe created the universe.” The Ianeth finishes a fourth MRE, throws the package into a receptacle, to be recycled later by the omni-kit into usable resources. “My Clan of the Hidden Door teaches songs in riddles, meant to tease the mind, make it think more sharply. The engineer caste I belong to promotes clever songs of structure, finding the beauty in alignment, usually an allegorical reference to a well-built relationship with someone you cherish.”

  “Hm. There’s a notion. That we all might share a concept of love, also.” His mind touches on a memory, someone from his past, but it is too brief for us to see.

  “It seems only natural that most species would develop the concept, even if it is a construct meant only to describe a chemical reaction in the body. Out of the ‘love’ concept comes loyalty, and out of loyalty a certain structure. I would think the concept must be there even if there is no word for it. On my world, the Clan of the Red Face had no word for love, but they did have physical expressions of affection that were unique only to them. Your records show that on your world, up until the nineteenth century, the Japanese had no word for love, either, and yet there were other ways to express it, and they were also one of the most organized and advanced nations on Earth. The ‘love’ concept was there, I believe, lending structure. Yes, I would say the concept proves universal.”

  Rook nods. “Even among the Cerebs? You think it’s possible they have a concept of it?”

  “They almost certainly do. Though, it would not surprise me if their current system has diminished its importance.”

  This gladdens Rook to hear. That this strange creature should find importance in love and loyalty…But what if that is our weakness? What if that’s just another part of the battle of species, something all
species have to exterminate within themselves before they can rise to the permanent heights the Cerebrals have reached? What if love is something that must be lost? What if the Cerebs have such a vacancy, where love used to be…like…like…like the tailbone where primates shed their old, useless tails?

  It’s a haunting thought. After all, what Rook knows, and what Bishop fails to see, is that Japan was one of the most highly structured places on Earth, right up until it collided with Western culture and romance books started becoming imported. Japanese book translators struggled to get the right word or set of words to convey this word “love.” They had an understanding of the fluttering in one’s stomach when attracted, but they just didn’t know what it was. In fact, it was considered a feeling never to be trusted, neither man nor woman wanted such madness in their lives, and it had nothing to do with marriage. Then Western culture came, with its romanticism and, at times, strangely glib views on love, and changed everything. Was that wrong? Did we make a mistake? Did love make us weak? Did Nature select us for extinction based on that one fact?

  It’s a frightening thought, one that Rook repels as quickly as a full blast from the graviton gun might. And, like many humans who wanted to forget such troubling thoughts, he turns to a certain substance. “How does your race get wasted?”

  Bishop is halfway through a fifth MRE when he looks up, crumbs about his great jaw. “Excuse me?”

  “I have a confession to make. While you were working on the Turks I didn’t have a lot to do, and I found something interesting, so…I’ve, uh, I’ve set the fabricator and the omni-kit to work on something. I think I’ve just about got it finished.”

  They retire to the cargo hold, where a compristeel case contains a food mixer. Rook opens it up, and some of the cool air from the small fridge escapes in small tendrils of white. He takes out the small glass bottle, one with the label half peeled off and scratched up.

  “Is that what I think it is?” asks the Ianeth.

  “It took some doin’. I had to think about it, look up a few old articles in the ship’s database. I got the idea when I found a weird fungus growing around some electronics. Analysis showed it was something like a yeast—something the Cereb infiltrators probably brought on board with them. Anyways, I spent some time messing with samples in the omni-kit, studying them to see if they could tell us anything about their biology. When that proved a waste of time I started working with the omni-kit on the concept of brewing. It had some trouble with concepts of distilling, but, well, I guess it approximated the process at an atomic level, and viola.”

  “You made beer from something that might have fallen off a Cereb’s corpse.”

  “A lager, to be exact, which means I had to ferment it in the cold,” he says, indicating the fridge. He hands Bishop a compristeel cup. He starts to pour, then stops. “Wait, this won’t, like, kill you, will it? I mean, alcohol…”

  Bishop looks at him a moment, then holds out his cup. “My people also indulge in mind-altering substances, friend.”

  “Right on! There we go.” He pours it half full. “Now, I’ve scanned this several times, and there’s no visible sign of toxins or deadly agents. We should be good.”

  Bishop looks at the cup’s contents. “So, you’ve not actually tried this yet?”

  “No. I know it’s eighty-eight proof, though.”

  They look at each other a moment.

  “Alright, on three.” Rook salutes him with his own cup. “One, two, three.” They both down it, and all at once it’s like a fire is in each of their throats. The alien lets out a guttural sound, then roars like a lion and causes Rook to jump backwards, coughing and wincing, eyes watering. Rook’s skin tingles, his hairs stand on end. His throat screams at him. He opens his mouth wide and breathes deeply, as if trying to cool it off. “Wow! That’s…that’s hitting a spot!”

  “Wretched!” the alien proclaims. “Absolutely wretched!”

  “Another?”

  “Please.”

  An hour later, they have finished the bottle, and are suitably affected. Rook discusses the brews of his world, and Bishop tells stories of drinking traditions of his world. Eventually, they are sitting on the floor of the cargo bay, Rook chuckling about the time in the Academy when Grass, his co-pilot, drank too much the night before an important exam, and how she tried running through test landings and wound up crashing through the window of the ASCA Observatory. “And what amazed all o’ us was that she was always such a by-the-books kind o’ gal, ya know!” he laughs, slurring his words. “Always…heh…always talkin’ about, ‘The regs won’t allow this’ and ‘The regs won’t allow that,’ on and on with her, and she’s the one crashes through the damn Observatory, nearly takes a clerk’s head off! Her Sidewinder’s landing gear was trashed! Jesus, you shoulda seen it! And ol’ Badger, he goes through the roof!”

  The Ianeth doesn’t move. He doesn’t smile or show any sign of humor. However, the eyes bulge out of their sockets at times, then recede. If this is humor or a sign of inebriation, it isn’t clear. “What happened to this co-pilot?”

  Rook’s smile wanes, but his eyes continue to smile. “We were on Tyson when it happened. We were about to head out on a standard training op, just me an’ her. She was…” He trails off, laughs. “She was always tryin’ to overcompensate after her little fiasco, always eager for another STO.” His smile dies completely now. “Then we saw it. The Cereb armada, there in the sky. These concentric yellow rings fanned out across the sky, comin’ from each luminal. I felt the temperature jump. It got hot. An’ I mean hot as the eighth level o’ hell.” He looks at Bishop. “I’m sure you’ve seen it before.”

  “Affirmative. It’s surprising you managed to escape a world devastation event.”

  Rook swallows and nods. “I yelled for Grass to get inside the ship, to come with me…but she just stood there. I swear, she just…she just stood there. Didn’t move. I think she gave up, Bishop. Know what I mean? I mean, we were bein’ driven to extinction the whole way…pushed across the galaxy…an’ I think she just…she just…” Absently, he wipes away a tear.

  “It sounds like you had great affection for her.”

  “Hell, how could I not? She was my friend. My partner.”

  “You were…linked to her?”

  Rook looks at him. “Naw, man. Not like that. Not cool to date wingmen and co-pilots, ya know.”

  “It’s the other way for us,” says Bishop, downing his last drink. “We are encouraged to court only those we serve with closely. It means that you will fight harder knowing that your loved one is beside you.”

  “Huh. Ya know, I hear the Spartans did that. Formed units o’ same-sex couples so they’d fight harder next to each other.” Then, in his half-drunken mind, Rook suddenly has an unpleasant thought. “Wait…you are, like, a male in your species, right? And you’re, ya know, straight or whatever? I mean, I’m not, like, tryin’ to offend you, or say you’re hideous or nothin’—”

  “I have no romantic interest in you, not even inebriated.” He looks at Rook. “No offense.”

  Rook sighs visibly, then chuckles. “Jesus, look at us. Just a pair o’ military squares without any mates, an’ no interest in matin’ one another. Look, if we get outta this—”

  “When.”

  He gives the alien another salute with his empty cup and nods. “When we do, we gotta think o’ somethin’ to do with our time. Somethin’ besides chess. Somethin’ physical, ya know? Somethin’ to commemorate our two cultures. Like, I dunno, build a museum. Somethin’ that tells them what our races did.”

  Bishop looks at him. “And what you and I have done?”

  “Yeah, hell, why not? Why not lionize ourselves with great big statues? We’re heroes, right?”

  “On my world, we have a saying. ‘A true hero is one who lays down his life with the knowledge that those he’s saved will never know.’ I feel it holds true for avenging those that will never know, as well.” He salutes Rook back. “So yes, we’re heroes
.”

  That night, they sleep. In the morning they both deal with mild hangovers, but get back to work. They run a few more tests. Rook stares at their pycno and tritium levels, all too aware that they don’t have many jumps left before they can travel no further. This is it. Kali is where they make their stand. They have all their pieces in place and all that’s left is to make sure they don’t become dull with complacency.

  Days pass. A week.

  The two of them spend some time together, but eventually they begin drifting apart. They talk around meal times, but other than that they find other projects to occupy their time. Lots of troubleshooting the systems on the Sidewinder. There is some systems maintenance Rook has to do with the ship’s AI. Bishop and the repair bot spend time looking over the graviton gun; he starts programming the little bot with what to look for in the gun, so that it can raise alarms in the future if it sees something wrong.

  Another week passes. No sign from their enemy.

  Bishop, becoming more laconic than usual, spends more time down in the catacombs, gleaning every little bit of information he can get from the records. Rook never asks him exactly what he’s looking for, but he has a guess, and so do we. The alien is searching for the last known trajectories of the last ships that left here, though he knows much if not all of that information will be erased—his people wanted to be thorough when they left, leaving as little a trail as possible for Cerebrals to follow. Still, he must know. It’s the search that gives him hope.

  There’s another reason for Bishop to visit the catacombs, and Rook wonders how hard it is for the alien to go below and bring up the lifeless husks of his brethren and place them around the main cave entrance. Still, it has to be done. All part of the plan.

  Rook plays chess with Bishop but hardly ever speaks to him during the games. They are always focusing on opposite duties.

  One evening, though, while sitting in the cockpit and sharing a meal before the Sidewinder’s next night cycle, he allows Bishop’s sophisticated schemes to come to the foreground. Bishop’s chess strategy always begins smart enough, but quickly falls apart in an obviously purposeful way. Rook starts making a few unwise moves, which really gives Bishop no other choice except to take advantage. Before he does, though, the alien looks up at him and asks, “How long have you known?”