His radio buzzed. “Sir,” one of the Marines said, “I think you should take a look at this.”
Charles located the Marine on the datanet, then walked back to one of the buildings in the centre of the camp. Corporal Glen was standing by a hatch, pointing to it with an armoured hand. Charles followed the pointing hand and frowned as he saw English letters written on the metal. Robert A. Heinlein. For a moment, he puzzled over it before recalling one of the endless briefings he’d had to attend before boarding Ark Royal. The Heinlein had been a colony ship, owned by a consortium of settlers who wanted to leave the rest of the human race far behind… and they’d done it too. They’d left human space before Vera Cruz had been settled and had never been seen again, until now.
“Interesting,” he said. Had the settlers gone far enough to encounter the aliens? Had that been First Contact, not the attack on Vera Cruz? Had the settlers somehow provoked the war? “Take all the recordings you can for the analysts.”
He stepped backwards, staring at the buildings. Now he knew about the Heinlein, it was clear that the POW barracks were little more than prefabricated human buildings from a previous era. The aliens, for whatever reason, had given humans human buildings. It was yet another oddity for the social scientists to puzzle over, he decided, making a mental note to see to it that some of the more reliable researchers received a full report. Some of the civilian ones made mistakes, misreading situations… and then refused to confess to their errors. And some of those errors had cost lives.
His radio buzzed, again. “Sir, we captured a handful of aliens,” Captain Jackson reported. “I think you’re going to want to see this.”
“Understood,” Charles said. He couldn't help a flicker of excitement. “I’m on my way.”
* * *
James watched in horror as the first POWs stumbled out of the shuttles and onto the deck. They were naked — drawing the attention of most of the shuttlebay crewmen, he noticed — but they walked like zombies, rather than human beings. Even the children, young girls and boys, stumbled about as though they needed to be prodded in the right direction to keep them moving. The reporters, who had hoped to make history by conducting the first set of interviews with alien POWs, stared in horror.
He'd been worried that the POWs might pose a threat to the carrier. As XO, it was his job to worry about such possibilities. But right now, looking at their blank faces, he knew that they posed no threat. The real problem was keeping them alive long enough to get to a proper medical facility. Ark Royal’s sickbay was huge — frigates and other smaller ships were meant to ship their casualties to the carrier — but it wasn't large enough to handle three hundred former POWs.
“Get them sedated,” the doctor ordered, briskly.
“Move them to another room first,” James ordered, silently grateful for the over-engineering Ark Royal’s designers had indulged in. There was plenty of space for the POWs, once they were away from the shuttlebay. “The shuttles have to go out again.”
His communicator bleeped. “You’ll need to secure the brig,” the Captain ordered. “They caught some aliens.”
James nodded, grimly. Aliens… aliens might well pose a real threat.
He turned and directed the reporters to help the doctor and her staff urge the POWs out of the shuttlebay and into their new quarters. For once, they didn't argue.
* * *
The alien buildings were right next to the shore, Marcus saw, as he followed Major Parnell towards the odd-looking buildings. Human prefabricated structures were ugly blocks — designed that way to encourage the inhabitants to work towards building something more aesthetic for themselves — but there was something oddly attractive about the alien buildings. They glimmered an eerie green and gold, shimmering faintly in the sunlight. But it was the aliens themselves who really caught his attention.
He'd seen images of the bodies that had been recovered from the wreckage Ark Royal had left in her wake, but this was different. Up close, the aliens were a shimmering multitude of colours, some bright green, others orange or even yellow. Compared to them, the difference between white and black humans — or even his father’s brown and his mother’s yellow — looked imperceptible. He felt a chill running down his spine as he saw one of the aliens staring at him, his — or her — black orbs meeting his and refusing to look away. It was impossible to escape the feeling that he had been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
Somehow, he managed to pull his gaze away from the alien eyes and inspect the rest of their bodies. There was something oddly snake-like about their bodies, ululating slightly as if they couldn't stay completely still, despite the weapons pointed at them. They wore no clothes, as far as he could tell; their skins seemed faintly watery, as if they were used to swimming through the sea. Perhaps they were, he guessed, as he saw one of the aliens turn to look at the shore. Chances were they could swim far better than the Marines, no matter how intensely the Marines had trained.
“One of the shuttles has been diverted,” a Marine called. “They’ll take the aliens up into space.”
“Good,” Parnell said. He switched his suit’s speakers on, then addressed the aliens. “Can you understand me?”
The aliens seemed to flinch backwards, but said nothing. It was impossible to tell if they were playing dumb or if they genuinely didn't understand. Their bodies were still quivering faintly; fear, Marcus wondered, or was he trying to interpret their actions in light of human body language? There was no way to understand the meaning of their motions.
“Maybe the POWs know how to speak to them,” he said, out loud.
“I doubt it,” Parnell replied. “The aliens would be fools to let the POWs learn their language.”
Markus smiled. “I had a friend who had no gift for languages at all, but married a Malay girl,” he said. “He insisted she talked to him in English. Maybe the aliens think the same way.”
He felt his smile widen as the shuttle swept down from high overhead, eventually coming to rest on the sandy beach. Despite over three hundred years of effort, the human race had yet to develop a viable AI… and without one, automated language translators were fundamentally unreliable. And that was when human languages were taken into account. Who knew just how complex an alien language would be? And the POWs would have ample motives to learn how to speak to their captors. How else could they tell the aliens they were in pain?
But if they had been drugged, he asked himself silently, how would they know they were in pain?
The aliens started to produce hissing noises as soon as the Marines started to prod them towards the shuttle. Markus wondered if they were trying to talk to their captors, but no matter how hard he listened he couldn't make out any understandable words. He quickly checked to make sure that it was all being recorded — later, perhaps, he could get a translation — and then followed the protesting aliens as they marched towards the shuttle. One of them broke free and ran, with a curious waddling motion, towards the water. A Marine shouted after him, then shot the alien in the leg. The alien toppled over and lay still.
Markus swallowed hard as the alien was recovered by two Marines, then carried bodily into the shuttle. The remaining aliens didn't show any further reluctance to move; they inched into the shuttle, then sat on the deck. Markus watched the Marines secure them as best as they could, then sit back and wait for liftoff. Moments later, the shuttle shuddered and lurched into the air.
He heard one of the aliens let out a keening sound and winced, feeling an odd twinge of sympathy. The aliens had been living with the POWs, performing odd experiments on the POWs… and yet he couldn't help feeling a little sorry for the nine aliens. They were going to be delivered to a secure facility in the Sol System… or, perhaps, wind up killed by their own people if the aliens caught up with Ark Royal. It was easy to believe that they would never see their home again.
“He ran towards the water,” Parnell mused. “There could be an entire alien settlement under the waves.”
Markus stared at him. The orbital sensors hadn't detected any settlements… but they hadn't looked under the water. How could they?
“You think they stay in the water?”
“They’re certainly built for it,” Parnell said. “They remind me of that character from the TV show… the guy who was a merman or something. But thousands of them could be under the waves, hiding from us.”
Markus shuddered. He hoped the Marine was wrong.
Chapter Thirty-One
“There will be a review, of course.”
Ted nodded, glumly. There were strict rules for handling POWs, rules that would logically be applied to their alien captives too. Humanity’s treatment of POWs tended to range widely, but the war wasn’t old enough for common decency to be forgotten — and besides, the aliens would be a source of intelligence in their own right. There was no need to mistreat them even if there wasn't a political lobby that would rise up in arms at the merest hint the aliens weren't being treated gently.
“Under the circumstances, I think we can agree that no action is required,” he said. It was legal to use all necessary force to prevent prisoners from escaping — and while he was sure the Marines would face a great deal of second-guessing, the Admiralty would probably take their side. “And the other aliens? Are they healthy?”
The doctor sighed. She’d been irked at being called away from the rescued POWs in order to tend to the aliens, even though they were valuable prisoners. “I am no expert in the care and feeding of alien life forms,” she said, “and nor is anyone else in the navy. We have no baseline for what is normal for their race and what isn’t. There are steps we can take to ensure that their quarters are suitable for them, and we think we can provide them with proper foodstuffs, but there are too many unanswered questions for us to be completely sure.”
She gazed down at her terminal. “I’ve used medical nanites to start building up a profile of a living alien,” she added. “I’m reluctant to risk more invasive procedures until we have an excellent idea of how their bodies will respond. The injured alien has been placed in a stasis capsule until we can work out how best to proceed with treatment. For the moment, sir, there isn't much more we can do.”
Fitzwilliam smiled. “Should we place them all in stasis?”
“If we had the capsules to spare, I’d recommend it,” the doctor said. “As it is, I'm worried about the condition of several of the former POWs. I’d prefer to put them in stasis if their condition worsens.”
Ted sighed. “What is their condition?”
“Drugged, mainly,” the doctor said. “Varying levels of dosage. My subordinates and I have had a chance to inspect a handful of the POWs; there's very little actual damage, but there are signs that the aliens took blood and skin samples. I don’t think they did anything more invasive themselves, at least to the surviving prisoners.”
“Anyone they killed might have been forgotten,” Ted commented. Drugged as they were, the prisoners might not have noticed if they’d lost friends or family to the aliens. “Or simply held at another compound.”
“We will ask them when they recover enough to talk to us,” the doctor assured him. “For the moment, however, we can only treat their withdrawal symptoms and pray none of them die.”
“I have a question,” Fitzwilliam said. “Couldn’t we drug them ourselves?”
“Keep them on the drugs, you mean?” The doctor shook her head. “Quite apart from the violation of medical ethics, Commander, the human body isn't designed for long-term addiction to anything. Nor do we have the supplies to start easing them off the drugs. All we can do is let them slowly clear their own systems and clean up the mess.”
“Understood,” Ted said. “Dismissed, doctor.”
He watched the doctor leave the compartment, then turned to Fitzwilliam. “Is there an alien city, after all?”
“It looks that way,” Fitzwilliam confirmed. “There’s nothing to be detected from orbit, but we flew a couple of drones over the ocean and picked up low-level emissions from below the waves. We don’t have any suitable probes to drop into the water…”
“We could put one together,” the Chief Engineer suggested. “It wouldn’t take too long, if we recycle a number of spare parts.”
“We can't stay in this system for much longer,” Ted said. He considered it for a long moment, then shook his head. “We’ll come back, one day, and uncover the aliens then.”
“There is another possibility,” Farley pointed out. “We could drop rocks on the alien city from orbit.”
Ted was revolted at the idea, although he had the uneasy feeling that suggestions like that were going to become more and more common as the war raged on. The aliens had depopulated Vera Cruz and invaded New Russia. God alone knew what was happening on the surface… and, by now, they could easily have found other targets. There was no shortage of tramlines within two or three jumps from New Russia that would take them to more populated worlds.
“No,” he said, firmly. “As long as we believe the aliens aren't committing mass slaughter, we will refrain from committing it ourselves.”
“The Admiralty might disagree,” Farley pointed out, mulishly.
Ted swallowed the urge to bite the young man’s head off. Tired as they were, stressed as they were, that was pushing the limits for addressing one’s commanding officer.
“Yes, they might,” he said. He kept his voice very cold. “But we have received no specific orders to bombard alien civilian settlements and we will not act without them.”
And such an order would be illegal, he knew. Killing enemy soldiers was one thing, butchering civilians was quite another. If he gave such an order, his crew would be quite within their rights to refuse to carry it out. And if they did carry it out, the Admiralty would charge them as being accomplices to genocide. The entire crew might go on trial…
Would it ever be legal? The thought was terrifying. Even the most heavily-militarised human society hadn't managed to turn everyone into a warrior. But what if the aliens had actually succeeded in producing a completely militarised society? Would there come a time when genocide was the only way to end the war? He shuddered, remembering the debates and moral quandaries they'd been forced to study at the Academy. The Bug Scenario, they'd called it, a situation where humanity waged a war with a completely alien race, one bent on exterminating humanity. Should the bugs be exterminated to save mankind?
Angrily, he changed the subject. “Do we know where the prisoners came from?”
“Most of them are clearly Latin American in origin,” Fitzwilliam said. “We assume they came from Vera Cruz, although in that case several hundred more remain unaccounted for. The remainder… we don’t know yet. None of the DNA samples we drew matched with any of our records.”
Ted wasn't surprised. The Mexican Government hadn't been in the habit of sharing its files with anyone, least of all the major interstellar powers. They would have to ask the Mexicans once they got back to Earth, maybe sharing the other DNA codes with everyone else and seeing who got a match. Perhaps the aliens had jumped more than one colony mission before the attack on Vera Cruz.
“See to their care and feeding,” he ordered. He looked over at Parnell. “And the alien prisoners?”
“I have a squad of Marines stationed in position to provide security for the aliens,” Parnell reported. Left unspoken was the very real possibility that the aliens could be threatened by Ark Royal’s crew. “As far as we can tell, the aliens themselves don't pose a threat, but we’re taking every precaution regardless.”
“Good,” Ted said, silently blessing his ship’s paranoid designers. The quarantine ward was completely self-contained, to the point where the prisoners and their monitors could be completely isolated from the rest of the ship. If they had any viruses that could spread to humanity, they wouldn't get very far. “Make sure the guards are rotated regularly. I don't want to take any chances.”
“Lots of curious crewmen,” Parnell added. “We might want
to place recordings of the aliens on the datanet.”
Ted hesitated, then shook his head. He could understand the crew being curious about their alien captives, but he had no way of knowing how the aliens or their superiors would react to such treatment. Humans wouldn’t be happy when they found out about the nude prison camp, even if cold logic suggested the aliens hadn't meant any harm.
“No,” he said. He looked around the compartment. “Have we pulled everything useful from the penal camp and the alien base?”
“We pulled a few samples of alien technology from their base,” Parnell said.
“Aye,” Anderson growled. “I’m looking forward to studying it, I am.”
“As soon as we’re on our way,” Ted assured him. “And the camp itself?”
“There's nothing apart from the prefabricated buildings,” Parnell said. “We searched thoroughly and found nothing else from the Heinlein. I was hoping for a flight recorder, but…”
He shrugged. “I suspect the full story of their colony mission won’t be known until we actually manage to talk to the aliens,” he admitted. “Overall, if the prisoners hadn't been drugged, they would have been bored out of their minds.”
Ted nodded. Even when he'd been commander of a starship permanently stuck in the reserves, he'd had something to do. Ark Royal had had no shortage of repair or modification jobs… and when those palled, he'd had access to a vast entertainment library and the ship’s own production of rotgut. But staying in a prison camp for weeks, perhaps months, with nothing to do would have driven him out of his mind.
“Unless anyone sees a strong reason to remain in this system,” he said, “we will proceed to Tramline Two within the hour. That should take us back on a course towards human space.”
There was no disagreement. Everyone knew that the aliens had signalled for help — and no one knew how long it would take for help to arrive. If there was a large alien colony under the waves, help might well come sooner than later. Ted couldn't imagine the Royal Navy abandoning Britannia as long as there was a hope of saving it, or even Nova Scotia. No, the aliens would be on their way. The only question was how long they had before the shit hit the fan.
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