Thunder & Lightning

by Christopher Nuttall

  Warag hesitated. “You have a female here,” he said. “Who is she?”

  The human female seemed to hesitate. “How do you know she’s here?”

  “I can smell her,” Warag said. “Who is she?”

  “You’ll meet her later,” Laura said. She led the way down the corridor. A handful of other humans, some of them carrying weapons, appeared behind her; Warag reminded himself to be as docile as possible. He didn’t want to be shot. “It’s time to find out how your body works.”

  Carefully, Warag trotted after her.

  Chapter Forty-Three: History

  Seeker for Truth, Earth Orbit

  “I believe that we were talking about the Caliphate,” Oolane-Researcher-Seeker said, as they met again in the place Samra had come to think of as the conference room. It had been adapted slightly for human comfort; a chair that had to have been brought up from Earth – it was just too human for the Oghaldzon to have made – had been placed in the room, which she shared occasionally with Reynolds. It had made them both uncomfortable at first, but these days – she wasn’t sure just how long they had been on board the Seeker for Truth – it was almost normal. “Why exactly did it develop in the way it did?”

  Samra paused to consider her answer. The Oghaldzon had bounced all kinds of questions at her, some of them making little sense to her, others just plain silly. No, she had never met the Caliph, or any of his elected successors; no, she hadn’t met the American President either. She couldn’t imagine how they thought that she might know either of them, or the leaders of the other Great Powers as well; the questions had not been repeated. Reynolds had guessed that the Oghaldzon were starting to pull together a more accurate idea of how human society had developed over its expansion, but sometimes they were just… well, alien. She had tried to explain the concept of Islam to Oolane; the Oghaldzon female had applied logic and reason to it and the conversation had gone downhill from there. Leaps of faith just didn’t seem to be an Oghaldzon trait; there might have been much to admire in them, but in the end they had launched a brutal invasion of Earth…

  It was impossible to hate Oolane; the alien reminded her of a cross between a student and a teacher, learning from her at the same time as Samra taught her about humanity. The other Oghaldzon came in and asked questions relating to a specific subject – normally human weapons or defence priorities – and left again; Oolane had remained with them throughout their… stay on the alien craft. It was impossible to hate her, but it was all too easy to hate her race.

  “They wanted to change the world,” she said. She had grasped, barely, that that was something the Oghaldzon were far less keen on than humans… and some humans could be very conservative. Bad ideas could spread through parts of their society like lightning under the right conditions; they tended to view new political concepts with caution, although they were far more enamoured of technology than most humans. They had survived in a very dangerous environment when their race was young; it had been technology that had lifted them out of a potential extinction-level event and they had never forgotten it. If humans hadn’t forgotten it, it might have been a human starship that had gone to wherever the Oghaldzon came from, rather than the other way around. “They thought that the current leaders had blundered.”

  She stumbled through an explanation as best as she could, covering the rise of Helium-3 as a replacement for both oil and fission plants, how the United States and the other Western nations – and their nominal enemies the Chinese and Russians – had cooperated to mine the moon, and then use the resources to end their dependence on oil. The mullahs in Iran – she had to stop to explain the concept of religious governance as well – had cost Iran its chance at being powerful; instead, they had repressed the population and the population had pushed back.

  When the collapse had come, the reformers had been the targets of an attempted extermination campaign; it had pushed them into striking first and terminating the rule of the mullahs, before spreading the concept of Reform Islam right across the Islamic World. Caught up in chaos, abandoned by friends and enemies alike, the dominos had started to fall; Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey… and, as the Caliphate grew in strength and power, they had even started to absorb immigrants from Europe who were attempting to escape the growing pressures there to integrate, get out, or die.

  She paused at the end. “Why do you want to know?”

  “We want to understand how to change human society,” Oolane said. “Your leaders attempted to destroy our forces on the surface of your world. During the fighting, nuclear weapons were deployed on the surface.”

  “Right on,” Reynolds said, leaning forward. “How many died?”

  “We believe that thousands of humans died in the fighting,” Oolane said, dispassionately… or perhaps she wasn't dispassionate and it was only the effects of the translator she used. “Several thousand of our own kind died. The battles were victories, but they came at a high cost. It leads to an interesting conclusion; humans are not oddly shaped Oghaldzon, are they?”

  Samra thought that that was obvious.

  “Your forces in space also launched an attack,” Oolane continued. “That assault was targeted on two of our colony ships, containing a population of well over five hundred thousand civilians. The resulting disaster killed many of them in the darkness of space.”

  Samra looked at her for a long moment. “There were millions of humans killed by the asteroids that struck the surface of the planet,” she said. “Why did you not expect our kind to hit back?”

  “We expected you to be reasonable,” Oolane snapped. There was a hint underlying the translator voice, a hint of real emotion hidden under the cold dispassionate speech. “Why did your people target civilians?”

  Reynolds leaned forward. “Why did your people target civilians?”

  “We didn’t mean to kill them,” Oolane said, her voice returning to cold dispassion. “Why did you not have the asteroids rigged to self-destruct?”

  There was a pause. “Because, unless I miss my guess, the contingency plans called for one of the planetary defence platforms to blast an asteroid to little pieces of dust if one of them ever tried to fall out of orbit,” Reynolds said. Samra could hear the frustration in his voice and placed a hand on the back of his; he shrugged it off angrily. “You destroyed the planetary defence centres!”

  Oolane said nothing.

  “You killed over a billion humans and you’re complaining about the bare loss of half a million?” Reynolds asked. “You told us you hadn’t come all this way to start a genocide.”

  “Your race is too dangerous to be allowed to spread across the stars until you reform,” Oolane said coldly. “You form little groups which try to dominate other groups; the idea of cooperation is almost alien to you. We will teach you to become more civilised as a race.”

  Samra spoke before Reynolds could respond. “How do you intend to do that?”

  “We will bring other humans here and teach them, as we teach our own children,” Oolane said. “You will assist us.”

  “Don’t you understand?” Reynolds asked. “It’s too late! You can exterminate the planet below, but the humans who are already in space will head out into the stars, too many of them to stop, and then one day they will kill you all!”

  “Then it is all the more important that we bring large human populations into our race’s unity,” Oolane said. “They will assist us in civilising humanity.”

  * * *

  The human voice tone was one step too low for Oghaldzon comfort. “Don’t you understand? It’s too late! You can exterminate the planet below, but the humans who are already in space will head out into the stars, too many of them to stop, and then one day they will kill you all!”

  “You heard that statement,” Dataka-War Commander-Fleet said shortly, clicking around the conference room. “Does this represent a real possibility or a mere statement of fiction?”

  “It may represent a fluid state
of personality within the human race,” Takalak-Researcher-Seeker said, after no one else had stepped forward to comment. As Head of Researchers, Takalak’s voice was technically equal to every other speaker at the metaphorical table, but the researchers were generally a quiet, contemplative breed. Rapid action they left to others. “We have seen enough evidence to deduce that human mating patterns have an effect on how their society formed; our researchers have observed interesting dynamics in certain camps where we kept our interventions limited. Some humans who were in couples stayed together; some other humans, mainly unmated males, attempted to take the females for themselves. The mated males resisted this, but they were often forced aside; had we not intervened, it would have had unfortunate effects for the females.”

  He paused. “Certain deductions can be made from the vast mass of data we have collected,” he continued. “Human mating groups, entered willingly, form the basis of their families; an unwilling mating – what the humans refer to as a rape – does not convey the same… blessing on future relations. Most human groups consider rape to be a crime deserving punishment; we must consider it to be a form of ThrillKill. It is not, of course, one we can commit ourselves. Regardless, mating patterns are important; we have seen cases of attacks mounted against us by humans who have lost their mates to us. We may have already seen such an attack on a large scale, one intended to gain nothing for humanity but cause pain for us.”

  “The attack on the mothership,” Dataka said. “You are suggesting that we will see further attacks like that?”

  “That is the most likely outcome,” Takalak confirmed. His sonar clicked a regretful pattern around the room. “The objective is to hit us where it hurts, if you will pardon the expression; it gains nothing for the human involved and may cost his or her own life… but it hurts us.”

  There was a long, uncomfortable pause. “You mean…something like the outbreaks of ThrillKill memes among a handful of isolated soldiers on the ground?” Reata-Soldier-Command said. “This might affect humans it might not be logical to expect it to affect?”

  “It is a close enough comparison,” Takalak said grimly. “The soldiers on the ground had lost their families and found themselves battered by human weapons designed to reach inside and scramble their brains, pushing them right to the edge of pure madness; we were lucky indeed that the only manifestation was the deaths of a few human prisoners. One of us, as a victim of ThrillKill, is fairly easy to spot; a human adherent might be impossible to detect until it was too late.”

  “The surviving human attacking ship is heading towards their belt settlements,” Dataka said slowly. “Do you believe that there will be further attacks against the motherships?”

  “It might be worse,” Takalak said. “The humans have been building a starship.”

  The Oghaldzon didn’t like silence. It made them feel uneasy. For an Oghaldzon to stop using their sonar, even for a few minutes, was a worrying sign; it indicated complete shock or total incomprehension. Dataka himself found it hard to grasp; they’d come in time to save the human race from itself – or, more practically, save the Oghaldzon from the human race – and now they were grappling with the idea, no matter how unlikely, that they might lose everything.

  “They cannot be allowed to head to Dhoz,” someone clicked. “They don’t even know where Shuneshu is, do they?”

  “They would start looking, perhaps, around stars comparable to Sol,” Takalak said. “However, they would have a vague idea of which direction we came from, and they would certainly have considered all of the possible target stars. If they actually have some of us to study” – enough dead were unaccounted for to leave Dataka wondering if any of them had fallen into human hands, alive or dead – “they may be able to deduce what manner of star our homeworld orbits. If they do that…”

  “But… that would be madness,” Gafalae-Speaker-Seeker objected. “They couldn’t attack Dhoz and hope to escape with their lives.”

  “They wouldn’t want to escape with their lives,” Takalak said. “This madness is not uncommon in our own kind when MemeKill is involved, but the humans may see it differently; I have studied their wars through their own eyes and I have realised some grim details. One of them is that their wars either end in stalemate with some reduction of status on the part of the loser, or a complete collapse of the loser, which has had its defeat pounded into it so much that their leaders realise that they have actually been beaten, not something that happens that often, even on Earth. What we consider abnormal behaviour caused by MemeKill is actually common practice among the humans; they would have to be convinced that they had lost to even start working with us, and they would attempt to stall as much as they could.”

  He paused. “We may have misinterpreted the actions of the humans on the moon,” he concluded. “They may work with us as long as we are strong, or they may decide to switch sides again, or they may try to keep apart from us. They may have recognised our primacy outside their world, but if we try to alter them too much, they will fight back against us.”

  “They would not win,” Reata-Soldier-Command said flatly.

  “That is not the point,” Takalak said. “The point is that they will fight if we push them too far. Human wars are not ended by the victors absorbing the losers; whatever happens, the losers are either exterminated, occupied, or allowed continued existence only in a subordinate state. The humans do not have a concept of the losers gratefully accepting their chance to join the winning side and signing up.”

  Dataka spoke as calmly as he could. “Are you saying that the war is futile?”

  “I am telling you that it may take Great Grand Cycles to complete the work,” Takalak said. “We are committed now; we may not retreat, or we will face angry humans in a Great Grand Cycle or two at Dhoz. We may not exterminate the humans below because their fellows in the asteroid belt will seek revenge, perhaps striking out for Dhoz and attacking our homeworld directly. We may have to raise an entire human population on one of the motherships and integrate with them before we can use them to integrate the entire planet.”

  Dataka grasped at the single straw. “Do you still believe that we can win?”

  “We have to push using the advantage we have been given,” Takalak said. “The first one is to open the offer of conditional surrender to the other human settlements on the other worlds of the solar system, and to repeat it to the human nations down below on the planet’s surface. We will not mention the attempt to evict us from the planet; we will treat it as if it was beneath our notice” – he ignored the anger of the military representatives – “and we will honour the offer if individual human nations choose to accept it. We will also extend the offer to any human sub-state that wishes to break away from the central authority; this will not only pressure the human central authorities, but perhaps start a process of weakening human unity.

  “Second, we will bring more humans to the ships, as we discussed, and start the process of integrating them into our systems,” he continued. “Clearly, we cannot trust them as if they were… well, our kind who had been defeated in a war, but it will allow them to produce human children who will grow up in a world shaped by our civilisation. The contraceptive implants the humans use can be removed quite easily using medical nanotechnology; the human females will become pregnant and start the process. We may adopt human… war orphans” – that too was an alien concept to the Oghaldzon – “to speed the process along.

  “This will take Grand Cycles,” he concluded. “We have the time, now, to act to prevent mutual racial destruction or further chaos that might prevent us from accomplishing our objectives. We must ensure that the humans know that we are here to stay; that alone will convince them to bow to our power and work with us.”

  “There is a final point,” Gafalae-Speaker-Seeker said. He leaned forward with all the power of his post. “We must seek out and punish the remaining human criminals who launched the attack on Mothership 17. That ship boosted for their asteroid settlements; tho
se settlements must be destroyed.”

  “That would be difficult at the moment,” Dataka said. “Warships would have to be redeployed, which would weaken our coverage of the planet in case of further sneak attacks.”

  “Then let it take as long as you must, but no longer,” Gafalae insisted. He glared around the room. “We must not let that deed stand, or we will face more attacks of a similar nature. No one can answer me one question; what is out in the belt that the villains fled towards it?”

  He had a point, Dataka admitted to himself; they had been lax about surveying the Belt. The Oghaldzon had used their belt as a source of materials; the human concept of it as a civilisation in its own right was… strange. Human materials seemed to be either admiring or insulting about the Belt, often in ways that puzzled the researchers; what was an "arse-bandit" anyway and why was their asteroid belt filled with them?

  “Very well,” he said. It would take cycles before enough units could be redeployed to ensure that the motherships were no longer uncovered, but it was necessary to keep the Speaker for Truth onside. If he decided to call for a conclave, it would be disastrous; the last thing they needed in the middle of a shooting war was a long discussion about the future. An Oghaldzon enemy would honour the traditional truce during a conclave; the humans wouldn’t even know what was happening. “We will redeploy and force the Belt to recognise our authority as soon as possible.”

  Chapter Forty-Four: Walking to Heaven

  Washington, DC

  If there was one thing everyone in the prison camp had been worried about, it was radioactivity following the nuclear blast, to the point there had nearly been a riot. The aliens had stated there was only a very limited rise in the levels of radiation in the area, but not everyone had believed them; as hysteria ran through the camp, the panic had almost killed several people. Only the thought of what the aliens might do to rioters had prevented one from actually starting.