Battlestations

by S. M. Stirling

  “At least the recipe’s simple,” he said, taking the dish from the oven. “You’re a good teacher, Iorn.”

  “It is my ghruhn to instruct you as you desired, sir Schlein,” the Gerson rumbled. This time he sounded as if he had gotten some actual pleasure out of fulfilling ghruhn. “I ask your pardon for my unfortunate temper before, when you dropped the dish. It goes against our way to keep a guest hungry.”

  “To say nothing of wasting good food,” Schlein replied. The smell wafting up from the cook pan was still rank enough to make him turn his head away. “Whew! How do you stand the stink of this?”

  “With the philosophy, sir Schlein, that at least they do not smell quite so bad cooked as raw.”

  “So you feed Ickie A to Ickie B, in installments, and contrariwise?” Schlein set the steaming dish on the counter, picked up a spatula, and poked the bubbling contents. He could have sworn that something poked back. “And, uh, how long do you think it’ll be before the two of them are all . . . done?”

  “Not soon enough.” Iorn’s expression was stern. “Word comes that Fleet has redoubled search efforts. There may not be time enough left until they are discovered. Their deaths are not my cause.”

  “Aren’t they, then? Because at the rate you’re going—I mean, they do have mighty healthy appetites, these fuzzybuggies. Do they know who—what they’re eating?”

  “From the start. They are untroubled by it.” It was no hard guess to make that Iorn wanted the Ichton to be very troubled before they died. “I do not understand their samespeech, as you do, but I would give my heart’s self to know why this is so, why they can live unsorrowed by what is an abomination among my kind, yours, nearly all sentients I have known.”

  “Look, Iorn, I don’t pretend to speak fluent Ickie, but I’m willing to hazard a could-be for you,” Schlein volunteered.

  “I would be obliged.”

  “As you were for kitchen privileges; I know.” Schlein kept a lid on his esophagus, trying very hard not to think of what it was Iorn had been cooking in the same oven as the family man’s food. “You see, though it’s not a custom we Terrans are any too proud of, we have been known, in times past, to nibble the odd fellow man. Strictly ceremonial reasons. In the far-gone oldens, when you defeated an especially valiant enemy, you did him the honor of eating his heart, thereby gaining his valor for your own. Or if he’d been cunning, you munched his brain. D’you get the idea?”

  “I do.” Iorn nodded sagely. “And if he was admired for being the father of many young, then you—”

  “Oh, no, no, no, no need to get carried away, is there? Ahahahaha.” It almost sounded like laughter. “However, we don’t do that anymore.”

  “No?” The ursinoid’s brow furrowed. “We do not abandon our own customs so lightly. Meaning no offense, sir Schlein.”

  “Don’t suppose it was custom that made you coldcock me so’s you could drag me downball just to meet your—ah—first-come guests?”

  “I admit it was the inspiration of the moment. I was rather put out by the loss of my so carefully prepared dish, through your mishap. It did mean I would have to procure more of the raw material, thus lessening the time I would have to entertain my honored Ichton guests according to their merits.”

  “Just so,” said Schlein, turning greener by degrees as Iorn spoke of “raw” material, knowing what he did of Iorn’s “entertainment” of the Ichtons. “Spur-of-the-moment forsooth. I mean, it was hardly the sort of invitation one reads about in all the best etiquette books.”

  Iorn showed teeth. “Would you have come had I invited you any other way?”

  “Not this century.”

  “And it is our custom to take mortal offense when our offers of hospitality are declined. So you see . . .”

  Indeed he did, especially the way in which Iorn pronounced “mortal” so that it almost rhymed with “fatal.”

  “Well, all that aside, I’m glad you asked me to drop in.” Schlein regarded the still-seething surface of the Ichton casserole grimly. “I only wish you’d done it earlier on. I’d’ve had a chunk of Ichton au poivre myself, just to get the ball rolling.”

  “You would devour them, sir Schlein?” Iorn looked puzzled. “But I believe you said that Terrans no longer—”

  “We don’t eat people. These are Ickies. And since you did say your goal wasn’t to destroy their bodies so much as their minds—though there’s a lot to be said for shredding the fuzzybuggies straightaway, Fleetledeet strategy be damned—maybe the sight of a mere human chowing down on their formerly private property might shake ’em up like they deserve to be shook.”

  The Gerson parsed all this slowly, then brightened. “An excellent idea!” he roared, and wasted no time in catching Peter Schlein upside the head with another most effective backhanded blow that removed all possibility of objection.

  “Look,” Peter Schlein said, trying to keep the shrill note of desperation out of his voice. “I was hungry.”

  Captain Conway stared at the skinny little family man before him and tried to link the pathetic picture he saw to the concept of “monster.” No use. Though the evidence garnered by the search party was irrefutable—they’d burst in and caught him in flagrante, trying to floss a piece of carapace out from between his front teeth, for pity’s sake!—some concepts still refused to merge in the human mind.

  Fleet or not, Captain Conway was human, even if the Hawking was his first “real” assignment. He took a deep breath and got a stronger mental toehold on reality before saying, “Schlein, in the Fleet we don’t eat our prisoners.”

  “Well, that’s all right, then,” Schlein replied, all sweet reason. “I’m not Fleet.”

  “But you are here on Fleet sufferance.”

  “So if I fuck up what happens? You send me home?”

  Captain Conway passed a hand over his brow. This was just the way the interview had been going ever since the leader of Team Crater had returned to announce that the prisoners were found and in what condition they had been found and then threw up all over Conway’s desk.

  “Schlein, what do you think would happen if I let it slip out to our allied eetees that you’d been—reducing the chances of us learning more about how Ickie minds work?”

  “I’d get a medal? A parade? All due respect, Captain, but Iorn’s hunger for privacy to the contrary, I’m wagering word’s already out about how your precious fuzzybuggies used their own captives. Children, sir! Fed piecemeal to their young. If we preserve them alive, we might someday learn all the wonderful, apparently rational-to-them reasons why they can take other beings’ babies and use ’em as meat for their own. Apart from the great and marvelous contribution to sweet, holy Science, who gives a shit?”

  Captain Conway pulled back involuntarily. Passion had transformed the wispy family man into something with backbone, something almost worthy of Fleet respect. What Schlein said about the Ickies was true, if you believed the Gerson survivors’ reports. Iorn was not the only one to tell that tale, though he had been hardest hit by it. Records were clear the futile rage within the huge ursinoid had triggered more than a few violent episodes aboard the Hawking—barroom brawls that ended just this side of needing a body count—until the psychs suggested placing Iorn in a position of service where Gerson ghruhn might siphon off the creature’s wild anguish into productive channels.

  Productive! There was a laugh. Unless you called adding a few truly arcane chapters to Child’s Guide to Intergalactic Cookery productive.

  “Don’t start looking for a place to hang that medal quite yet, Schlein,” Conway said. “Even if every eetee aboard agrees with what you did in practice, they’re compelled to object to it on principle. If we show ourselves to be no better than the Ichtons, can their victims ever trust us?”

  “Ah, the moral edge.” Schlein sounded weary. “Once upon a time, I liked to believe it’d cut warm butter, but I learned better. I did what I did. Hand me over to the eetees and let’s be done with it.”

  �
�But why did you do it, Schlein? And tell me ‘I was hungry’ one more time and you’re going to have an unfortunate ‘accident’ on your way to confinement.”

  Conway’s fist was truly impressive, particularly when held so close to Schlein’s gently bred nose. Schlein swallowed the first upsurge of instinctive panic, then said, “Call it . . . a favor to a friend.”

  “No good.” The list lowered. “Your friend Iorn’s in custody, too; him and his family.”

  “What?” Schlein sat up straighter. “Mate? Nn’ror? They’ve done nothing.”

  “The psychs thought it best to separate them. Unhealthy—family atmosphere cited.”

  “Separate . . . So Iorn’s in solitary—”

  “All three of them are. The psychs reported—”

  “One psych can kill more poor suffering bastards with his triple-damned reports than all you Fleetledeets and your bumblasters combined. Mate and Nn’ror did nothing, I tell you! Look, not even Iorn’s guilty here. It was—it was all my idea! I can prove it, too. Iorn was my servant, his ghruhn wouldn’t allow him to disobey anything I asked of him. He couldn’t have done any of it without me, my kitchen, my fucking start-to-finish complicity, for the love of Chomsky!”

  Schlein rose from his seat, his face contorted. “You march right out of here and tell your buddies to let Iorn’s family go, or at least lock ’em up together. That kid of theirs needs his kin. He’s teetering on the edge, and he’ll take his parents with him if he goes over. Or haven’t enough of the Gersons died to suit you? Try breaking that news to your supermoral do-the-civvie-thing eetees! See how happy they are with you Fleetledeets then!”

  Conway had no trouble getting Schlein to sit down again. One firm shove to the breastbone did the trick, even if the little man took a wild swing at the Fleet captain before subsiding. Gasping for breath, Schlein managed to add a last verbal jab to his tirade: “Especially when they find out that all your precious Fleet intelligence you got from studying those captive Ickies wouldn’t fill a thimble next to all I learned about ’em over one friendly little . . . lunch!”

  It was Conway’s turn to sit down. “Say what?”

  Schlein grinned. “You’d be amazed to learn all the new Ickie words—nay, cultural-linguistic concepts, may they flourish—that I was able to pick up while chewing the fat with our honored guests.” He used the Gerson term there and savored Conway’s bewilderment until he offered the translation. “It looks like we—I guessed right. One Ickie getting the nibblies on another is socially acceptable. They’re even got a whole catalog of courtesy terms to describe the gallant donor, beginning with the noble fuzzybug who sacrifices his substance for a battle comrade and rising in honor until you reach the noblest Ichton of ’em all, one willing to lay down his spare parts for the nourishment of the egglayers and the hatchlings. Not that he wants to; it’s the least pretty of deaths. Those newborns are terrifying and mean.”

  “You actually learned those terms?”

  “And many more.” Schlein made a self-effacing bow, no easy task in a chair. “I was called the inverse of every one of them as soon as I told my dinner companions just what it was I was eating with such relish. There is something terribly, terribly irking to an Ickie when he realizes his sacred flesh is being devoured by a lesser being, one who cares Khalia-squat about the all-precious hatchery. Food means a lot to the fuzzybuggies. The only appetite they haven’t been able to govern is appetite per se. Ol’ metabolism’s got ’em , and got ’em bad. Give ’em enough time and they come up with a slew of airtight rationalizations for why it’s okay to eat Grandma. My sister was like that about chocolate. I perceive a waste not, want not subtext. Perhaps I’ll do a monograph on it someday.”

  “You’ll do it now and forward it to us immediately, if you know what’s good for you. The more we know about the enemy—”

  “Trade you,” said Schlein.

  “Trade?” Conway’s fingers curled around the armrests of his chair.

  “ ’Course. Until someone tells me different, I’m Schlein. Trading’s our life. Family ghosts would show up en masse to beat the ectoplasmic shit out of me if I didn’t try to get something out of you in swap for what I know.”

  “There isn’t much trading you can do in deep space without a suit,” Conway said meaningfully.

  “There isn’t much Ickie interpretation you Fleetledeets can get out of my corpse,” Schlein countered. “Come on, O captain mine, you know you want me on your side. You did before, if you’ll check your own records, and you want me even more now, with what I’ve got to share.”

  “Our own methods will uncover everything you’ve learned.”

  “So they will, given time. How much of it can we waste? Be a sport, friend. All I’m asking is the release and reunion of Iorn and his family—no sense you holding on to innocent parties, anyhow—and in exchange I’ll give you my full cooperation, professional services, and first dibs on the soon-to-be patented Schlein Method of Ickie Interrogation guaranteed to yield results undreamed of, swiftly and accurately.”

  Captain Conway steepled his fingers in thought. All that Schlein said was true. He was the best linguist the Hawking had to offer, and if his results did derive from less-than-conventional methods, at least they were results. Fleet could use results.

  “Point One: We will release the Gerson family,” Conway said at last. Schlein beamed. “In exchange for which consideration, you will serve Fleet interests—”

  “Of course. I said I would.”

  “—by becoming Fleet. Point Two: Your enlistment buys their freedom. Got it, Cadet Schlein?”

  Peter Schlein’s face fell. “This is going to kill Father.” Then he perked up. “This is going to kill Father!”

  “Point Three: You will have to develop an equally successful alternative to your so-called Schlein Method at once. We will not eat Ickies. It isn’t—it just isn’t Fleet.”

  Schlein smiled. “We won’t have to.”

  The captive Ichton looked up at the scrawny Fleet cadet who came boldly into its cell, whistling. It was accompanied by a Gerson carrying a tray. The Ichton’s interest flared unexpectedly when the uniformed Meat addressed him in an almost-fluent version of the losser Dialect, saying, “Breakfast!” The Gerson set down the tray and shoved it through the small, temporarily disrupted zone in the Ichton’s confining forcewall.

  “I know it’s not much,” said the Meat, brushing aside a lock of its pale blond headfur. “But we Fleeties do insist that all our guests belong to the Clean Plate Club. Oh, doesn’t translate, does it? Simple: no more for you until that’s all gone. Or until you choose to have a little chat with me about, oh, all sorts of things! Nearly anything you’ve got to tell me about you and yours will be fascinating, I know. And you’ll like the food much better. You are hungry, aren’t you? Born hungry, I hear. Well, don’t waste time picking at your food. Before too long, it may be picking at you.”

  The prisoner stated at his plate; at the holy, the horrific shape of the Ichton egg that was just beginning to hatch.

  Iorn tugged at Peter Schlein’s arm. “Let us leave them alone, sir Schlein,” he suggested. “Family reunions should be private affairs.”

  “For a while,” Cadet Schlein agreed. “Though I’ll bet not for long. Exit,” he directed, “pursued by a bear.”

  NET PROFIT

  The distant sound of cannon has always been hazardous to morality. As it began to look doubtful whether the Ichtons could be stopped before reaching Emry, or even afterward, many of the less reputable merchants and Indies turned to bottom-line philosophy first attributed to Earth’s long discredited Harvard School of Business. If the Hawking was soon to be destroyed, then any action needed to ensure their own personal gain was justified. After all, at their current rate of expansion the Ichtons would take another two hundred years to reach the Alliance itself. Best they return a success or spend their remaining years in opulence, even if later generations had to fight a bit harder.

  Too often this attitu
de meant profiteering at the expense of the war effort. As the running battle continued, a new concern came to dominate those of Omera and internal security. How to prevent their own people from thwarting the war effort in their rush for gain? Or more often simply how to keep the level of chaos acceptable on the civilian decks?

  Even the news of the destruction of an Ichton mother ship in a six-destroyer ambush personally led by the son of Fleet Admiral of the Red, Auro Lebario, failed to slow the frenzied rush for a quick gain. New sources of profit were sought. Some of these were found among the growing population of allied races occupying the lowest levels of the Hawking. Since the Hawking carried enough weaponry to dominate any one of their worlds, most of these allies found it understandably difficult to fully trust the selflessness of the Alliance battlestation, even while recognizing the necessity of cooperating with it.

  JOINT VENTURES

  by Don-John Dugas

  It was already hot when I stepped into the lift for Violet Eight. Not too bad. Like a slow oven. But when the door opened onto the corridor, it got really hot: thirty-two centigrade if it was ten. The air was misty, the humidity was so high that the ceilings dripped. Every time I came here it was like this: overpowering, like boiling alcohol, boiler rooms, and reptile cages. The violet walls looked nearly black after the brightness of the green decks where I spent most of my shifts working for Omera. I wondered how they justified the damage the unplanned humidity did to the station’s life-support system. Maybe they figured the two hundred ships the aliens living here seconded to Fleet command balanced out the trouble.

  I turned down another corridor. The violet walls reflecting off the grilled metal decking in the bad light made everything look dirty. I passed an exhaust blowing steam. It crawled lazily down the passageway. I followed it until I came to her door.

  “You see your boyfriend today?” I said after I’d kissed her. As usual her cooling system was doing about half the job and I peeled off my shirt as I entered.