“We won’t flash for some sleeps yet,” he said, almost as an afterthought. “Decant another seven.”
His voice had not died out before three sixes were attending to the unfortunate seven, and an eight jumped to send a comm to the Hatchery.
***
Coming out of the flash was the same as it had been described by the techs, the same as it had been the previous three times: first, absolute nothingness; then an instant—too short to be counted by any time measurements—in which there was the faintest awareness of constituent molecules re-joining into muscle and tissue; and finally the almost overwhelming effect of life-experiences reconstituting themselves as memory.
Torq stretched. Nothing felt quite as good as a post-flash stretch, he decided, wondering how many times he would be blessed by the God to relive such moments.
The God.
She would be reconstituting as well, perhaps already resuming her never-ending calling of providing new Koleic for new worlds. Torq felt as if he could commune with her mentally, imagining her stretching her vast length—fully one-quarter the length of the ship itself—then consuming the tens that would have appeared as if by magic by her side. She would need the nutrients to begin laying eggs.
Torq depressed a switch on his control module. If there were anything wrong—Gods forbid—in the Hatchery, he would be notified immediately.
For the moment, though, command deck was empty. As with all of the seeding ships in all of their flashes, the crew would not appear for some short while, enough for the commanding name—Torq bristled slightly with pride, perhaps his only vice—to be assured that all was functioning normally.
As it should be!
His eyen scanned multiple monitors simultaneously, his tarsi seeming to fly over the command board as he checked and re-checked readings from the flash.
All normal.
He relaxed slightly. For the moment, he was alone, truly alone in ways that almost none of the Koleic ever experienced. Alone with himself and with his thoughts.
His eidetic memory flashed pictures almost as rapidly as the drive had transported the ship through the emptiness of space to an unknown sun-system, where another planet orbited, waiting for its new overlords.
The first world. Desert. Sand, although of a curiously odd brown, quite unlike the emerald sands of the Koleic home. Very little moisture, but that meant nothing; that would change once the apparatus got under way to create a more congenial atmosphere. Otherwise, the seeding proceeded as outlined, no problems at all. In fact, slightly boring.
Then the second flash... and the awakening.
The second world was different. Almost all water, deep and scarlet, tinged by some unknown microscopic creatures barely more complex than the fringes of plant life that surrounded the scattered islands. Again, though, the task was completed with little difficulty. The apparatus settled securely on one of the islands, the egg cases prepared for the moment when the environment would awaken sensors and the grubs would emerge, followed shortly thereafter by the newborn God, already prepared to multiply and fill her world.
The third flash... and the awakening.
The third world... ah, that was a memory that would have made Torq smile had his physiology allowed such a contortion. As it was, it was sufficient to generate a repetitive tingling along his ventral plates, a vibration almost—almost—as pleasant as what he had experienced that once and only time as he and his God shared essences during their brief mating flight.
He consciously pulled his mind away from that premier moment in his life, never to be repeated, and concentrated on something nearly as wondrous.
There had been living beings on the third world. Strange, multi-limbed creatures that resembled nothing Torq had ever seen or imagined. But they were marginally intelligent, instinctive builders on a vast scale that had dwarfed even the greatest Koleic nests.
As far as the eyen could see, structures, above-ground structures, into and out of which the creatures had scuttled when the lander first cleared the atmosphere. They seemed not to have known of the ship hovering above them, even though the most rudimentary of equipment would have alerted them... but apparently they had had no interest in such things. After the cleansing, nothing resembling the needed machinery was found amid the rubble.
But the first sight of the new world was not what had brought Torq such pleasure.
No, it had been the smell and the sound. Torq had never experienced such things, never imagined such pleasures.
The smell—the piquant scent of flesh, alien though it was and disgusting to look upon, as it was consumed by the meticulously aimed bursts of energy from the ship. Everywhere, every transpiration... ambrosial, although in truth the God lacked the senses to enjoy it even had she been planet-side during the aftermath.
And the sounds—first the screams, full-bodied screams ripped from hot-blooded throats as the bursts struck buildings and creatures alike, the echoes of terror as the uncouth brutes dashed mindlessly around, more often than not running headlong into another wall of flame. That was pleasant.
But even better, the slight crackle of roasted tissue as Torq and his numbers strode triumphantly across the blackened landscape, treading on the remains of the now-vanished people.
His ventral plates quivered rhythmically.
What a blessed memory.
And now, the fourth world drew near.
***
As he stood at his console, reliving his conquests—and his God’s slight nod of acquiescence as he had reported to her of the three successful seedings—the numbers appeared at their terminals, silently, already seeing to the millions of minor tasks that the ship required.
They did not speak.
They knew their jobs.
And they knew that Torq would handle everything exterior to the ship that might...
“My lord.”
For an instant, Torq could not quite comprehend what had happened.
“My lord.”
He turned his left eyes toward the bank of terminals.
A five was staring at him, quivering (although, thankfully, not retreating into insentience as had the pre-flash seven). Its compounds were all trained on Torq.
That was enough to let him know that something truly unanticipated had occurred. The rule-of-tarsus was that at least one-half of one eyen should remain trained on the monitor.
Unless the name required full attention.
This time, though, the number had initiated the communication.
Now it was trembling in every limb, first and second arms nearly useless even had it tried to perform some small bit of business.
Torq waved a first leg. Permission to speak granted.
“My lord, there is... there is... something... unusual about this system...” The number stuttered to a halt.
Torq chose not to help it out. He waited in silence.
“My lord, there is a... I feel a terrible... disturbance... in the... charges that...”
“Feel?”
“My lord, yes, my lord. Nothing... certain... It is as if there is... something both... there... and not there.”
Torq felt his ventral plates quiver. “Like the old conundrum about the twelve in the closed box? Neither dead nor alive, but both?”
Wisely, the five did not respond.
Keeping a good three quarters of his compounds on his own consoles, Torq scanned the command deck.
“Other reports?”
No responses.
“Anomalies?”
Again, silence.
He turned his attention back to the five. It sill quivered violently but showed no other signs of retreating, in spite of the intense distress it had to be feeling.
“One last attempt. What have you to report?”
The five waved its second arms meaninglessly as its firsts raised helplessly above its head.
“My lord, I... the scans... sometimes they... and then...”
Soundlessly, Torq removed the thin metal rod.
A moment later, he said flatly: “Dispose of that.”
Then: “Decant another five.”
***
It was more than unusual for his God to demand that he attend upon her personally. This would, in fact, be the first time he had seen her since his farewell address in the portico near the ship, where she had lain in silent grandeur on a long, drapery-bedecked structure, built specifically for her body to recline upon during the ceremonials. It had been burned the moment she had left it, lest some lesser Koleic deign to touch it, much less rest upon it.
Such was standard for all of the seeding ships and their Gods.
Torq, in spite of being the Chaptain of the ship, had never expected to see her face-to-face again.
One did not see one’s God face-to-face... and live.
Just ask the tens that attended upon her.
No, wait. There would be no answer. They were—eventually, to be sure, but invariably—dead.
Now Torq stood within the Hatchery for the first time since the ship was completed. Then, it had been little more than a huge, empty chamber, lined front, back, and both sides with narrow shelves into which eggs would be inserted and sealed.
When the time was right, when the ship had reached a promising world, the correct number would be decanted—although the official term for these eggs was released—along with a prepubescent God, and placed in special containers until planetary conditions were optimum for their survival.
If they survived.
Torq had no way of knowing how many seeding ships had actually succeeded, how many worlds might even now harbor nascent communities of Koleic. But neither had he any interest in knowing.
He merely guided this ship and served his God.
As she commanded.
“My God.” He said no more, merely stood waiting for her to acknowledge his presence. She did so with a flicker of a handful of her compounds, the rest remaining focused on some unseeable spot on the ceiling... or perhaps into the future, or the past.
The Gods only knew.
He took the flicker as permission to speak.
“My God, I have come as you have requested.” One never spoke to the Gods about commands; to do so reeked of insolence.
The flicker returned, rested on him momentarily, then drifted away again.
“My God, how may I please you?”
The flicker returned once more, but this time the compounds remained trained on Torq. He could feel her wisdom surrounding him. It made him immensely uncomfortable.
“I... have... heard,” she said finally, taking deep breaths every few word, “...of the seven... and the... five... Why?”
“My God, the first curl— withdrew into itself until nothing more remained of it. I performed a mercy.”
There was a long, nearly painful passage of time, as if she were considering each of his words for every possible level of meaning. Suddenly, Torq found himself almost empathizing with the unfortunate seven. He almost wanted to curl himself.
He stood straighter.
“Accept... ed.”
He waited a moment, then: “The five. That was more troublesome. It appeared to have... broken... in some unaccountable way. There are no records from other ships of such behavior.”
“I... have... seen... and heard...” A long release of breath. “It... troubles...”
“The five...” Torq said, then stopped.
She had turned fully half of her compounds to him.
“Not... the... five... They live... to serve. If... broken?... they die.”
“Then what?”
“The... other.”
“The oth—. My God, there was no other. Only the broken five reported—‘felt’—anything. All other monitors read clear. I warrant this to you.”
“So... be... it...” She remained silent for a long time, too long for Torq to feel anything approaching comfortable. The only sounds in the huge chamber—now fully half full of sealed eggs awaiting planetfall—were her labored breaths.
And something more.
Something tiny, insignificant almost.
A soft, wet plop just before each exhalation.
Every time.
It took Torq—name though he was, and Chaptain of this ship—a long while to figure out the sound.
And when he did, his chitin quivered with embarrassment, even though logically he should have known, should have anticipated...
She was laying eggs.
The mysterious rite only the Gods could perform and that few—outside of the comestible tens—would ever see.
He swallowed convulsively.
After what felt to him like at least an infinity, he was about to ask permission to withdraw, when she spoke again. Now that he understood more, each of her harsh respirations left him feeling...
But she spoke: “About... this... world.”
He recognized the intent of her words.
“My God, this is the nearest to a habitable planet we have found yet. Investigations suggest that air, water, land are all suitable for seeding.”
She may have nodded. At this point Torq wasn’t certain that he could trust his eyen.
“In... hab... it... ants.”
“My God, yes. Two legs. First arms only. Soft-bodied. Telemetry can only tell us so much.”
Another long silence.
Plop.
Plop.
Plop.
“Per... haps...”
When he was convinced that she had said all that she wished to, he responded: “My God, what do you wish?”
“Com... mun... i... cate.”
“The trans-comm? I mean, the translation-communicator? We haven’t used it yet. There were no inhabitants capable of speech on the first two worlds; and on the third, somehow the aboriginals seemed not to need language.”
“Not...?”
“My God, what remains we... found... indicated no organs of speech or hearing. That we could identify as such. And nothing suggesting writing. Nothing except huge buildings, bare and empty when we came, barren ash when we left.”
In spite of himself, Torq was particularly pleased with his answer. He almost preened.
“No... speech...?”
“No, my God. None.”
Plop.
Plop.
Plop.
“This... world... Try...” The final word tapered off into a breathy sibilant.
“But why... I mean, so be it.”
The compounds had flickered back. Now both eyen, and all of the faceted compounds within each, stared toward the ceiling. Toward the past. The future. Infinity.
Torq backed out of the Hatchery. He heard the door iris behind him but even then did not tear his glaze from the God.
He had spoken to her.
She had answered him.
All was well with the ship.
With his world.
***
“Report.” Torq’s voice sounded throughout the command deck, restored to perfect placidity after his meeting with the God. He hadn’t expected the meeting, much less the way... well, the way things might affect him. His eyen, however, skittered back and forth in a wholly uncharacteristic display, almost as if he had lost command of his compounds.
Even so, the crew knew immediately what was needed.
“My lord, approach is flawless.”
He had expected nothing less.
“My lord, except for...”
A thin voice from the far side of the deck struggled against the speaker’s natural impulse to silence.
Torq turned one full eyen toward the speaker, a six, who should have known better than to interrupt the Chaptain’s thoughts.
“Well?”
“My lord, something... unusual.” Torq wasn’t certain, but it did seem for an instant that the six flickered more than a few compounds toward the station where the previous five had been seated. The newly decanted five seemed not to notice.
But Torq did.
And that small movement disquieted
him more than the stuttering voice.
“More.”
“My lord, it may be a problem with the investigators, but there seems to be a... a shell of some sort.”
“Where?”
“My lord, surrounding the planet.”
Torq fell silent, unwilling to share his sudden apprehensions.
“Around the entire planet?”
“My lord, yes.”
“My lord...” This time the voice came from the other side of the deck. “I too... my monitors show... something I... they cannot explain.
“My lord, and mine.”
By now, half a dozen of the numbers were nodding slightly or waving second arms to indicate agreement.
“Silence!”
Perfect silence reigned.
“You, four, explain!”
“My lord, I can’t...”
“As best you can, then,” Torq said. His chitin quivered with exasperation. Truth be told, his tarsi flexed and involuntarily twitched toward his pouch, where the thin tube still rested, but he restrained himself. If this many numbers dared to speak, there must be something.
“My lord, my monitor, and, I assume, the others, show nothing.”
Torq started to interrupt but the four continued, speaking rapidly to get to its point.
“Nothing physical... at least nothing tangible. But it also reports that there is some kind of interconnected... field?... that begins at the atmosphere terminus. And it extends entirely around the world.”
“How soon?”
There was a distinctly awkward silence, even with the faintest shuffling of scales against hammocks.
“How soon?”
“Any momen—”
The ship lurched, hung motionless, then lurched in the reverse direction. Lights overhead wavered in intensity. First singly, then in sections, glowrods burst, showering the deck with glittering bits of crystal. Sparks flew everywhere, some igniting the material of several hammocks, which threw the nearby numbers into mindless panic. Three of them curled instantly, and before the sparks had died, black ichor had begun oozing through carapaces.
Half a dozen monitors winked black, flared with static, then resumed their normal purple. The ship twisted once again.
A single bulb on Torq’s terminal blinked on, accompanied by the sound of a different klaxon, one which no one on the ship had ever actually heard activated before.
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