by Richard Fox
“You are not in charge, Ibarra!I am the commander in chief of every man and woman in uniform. Our deal is to cooperate with you and whatever the hell’s passing over instructions through your granddaughter, Stacey. I just had to authorize deadly force to protect proccies from lynching. Do you have any idea how badly the civilians in Phoenix want to do exactly what Valdar just proposed?”
Ibarra looked down at Garret’s finger, embedded up to the third knuckle into his hologram, and stepped back.
“The true-born population hasn’t exactly embraced the proccies, I admit.”
Garret sank back into his chair and shook his head.
“The truth is, Isaac,” Garret said, “that we may have to turn over the proccies before what’s left of the human race tears itself apart over the issue. We’ve got time to figure something else out before the Toth arrive.”
“What?” Ibarra asked. “Since when do you think that—” Ibarra’s hologram cut out when Garret jabbed a finger against a control screen on his desk.
“God, I love doing that to him,” Garret said. He took a data rod from a drawer and rolled it to Valdar. “Those are the instructions for our negotiator. You’ll shove off for Europa as soon as your ship is rearmed and refueled. You’ll be on tight-beam IR commo with Titan Station your whole trip. This time of the year, it’ll take almost two hours for a message to get back and forth from here to Jupiter. We can work the time dilation to our advantage in the negotiations. Squeeze out some more time.”
“I don’t understand. My ship’s been in the void for months. My crew is exhausted. I’ve traded blows with the Toth and you’re sending me to negotiate with them?” Valdar scooped up the data rod and slipped it into a pocket.
“There’s a lot you don’t know, Isaac. Due to the Toth’s…ability…to ingest memories, there’s a lot we aren’t telling you. If everything goes south, then what you don’t know you can’t give up. The rest of the fleet—new ships and what survived the assault on Ceres—is integrated with proccies, whether the crews know it or not,” Garret said. “Your ship has a handful, but as far as the public knows, you don’t have any. That makes it easier for me to deal with the true-born leaders in Phoenix. No one would trust proccies to negotiate their own surrender.
“And you’re not the negotiator, Captain. Lieutenant Ken Hale gets that job.”
****
Ibarra watched Valdar and Garret shake hands on the holo projection in the middle of the Crucible’s control room. The Breitenfeld’s master and commander left the room and Garret looked to the camera and nodded.
Ibarra snapped his fingers—without any sound—and the hologram dissipated.
Two Karigole, both wearing human shipboard skinsuits and overalls, watched the last few ghostly motes of light die away from the holo tank without a change to their scaled faces.
Ibarra waited impatiently for either Kosciusko or Rochambeau to say something. The two advisors, each several centuries older than Ibarra, had an annoying cultural tradition that demanded the oldest member of any discussion be the first to speak.
Kosciusko, the scales covering his bald head rimmed gray with age, brushed the tip of a clawed finger over his lips.
“You trust him?” Kosciusko asked.
“Do I trust him to do as we ask? No,” Ibarra said. “Do I trust him to do what we need him to do? Yes.”
“Must you always speak in riddles?” Rochambeau asked. A goatee of straw-colored hair extended down from his face, the long, thick hairs bound at the tip by a dark smooth stone streaked with blood-colored lines.
“Sorry if I don’t grunt and scratch myself when I speak, but I mean what I said.” Ibarra waved a hand over the holo tank and a model of the solar system flared to life. Dozens of red arrows hovered near Neptune, each pointed straight at Earth.
“How do you know Valdar will act as you promise?” Kosciusko asked.
“Valdar lost his family to the Xaros,” Ibarra said. “The only thing he has left are his ideals. He had the choice between returning to Earth right away with the omnium reactor, or saving the Dotok. You know what he did. With these negotiations, he’ll see himself at a turning point in human history. True born or proccie. He has nothing to lose but his ideals and his honor; he’ll do the right thing, from his point of view.”
“I thought humans held honor and integrity of self in high regard,” Rochambeau said.
“The military ones do.” Ibarra waved a dismissive hand in the air. “I’ve been playing this sort of shadow game with generals, dictators, presidents—you name it—for decades. The key to winning that game, my two scaly friends, is to cheat.”
“We don’t know this word, ‘cheat,’” Kosciusko said.
And that is why you are my pawn, Ibarra thought.
****
The overlord’s dining hall centered along a trough sunk into the floor. Gilded cradles for a dozen overlord tanks lined either side of the trough. Kren waited for his guest, another overlord with a tank bedecked in jewels and precious-metal inlays across his tank depicting great acquisitions and the death of corporate foes during the Toth’s long life. The guest’s nerve tendrils were long, pooling against the bottom of the tank, his brain dotted with nodules and crusted over from nearly a millennium inside the tank.
“I hope our facilities are to your liking, Lord Olux,” Kren said as he settled his tank into a cradle. Sitting at a lower social position to another while on his own ship annoyed Kren, but this guest was something special.
“This is quaint…almost rustic,” Olux said.
“Once this acquisition is complete, I have a number of ideas in mind for a renovation.” Kren’s claw tips tapped against the deck. Menials vanished into the kitchen at his signal.
“I question your valuation of the human technology. I told Dr. Mentiq your corporation was foolish to lease a Domination-class vessel for this expedition, and you agreed to such a high percentage of all future profits…” A tendril rubbed against a barnacle-like growth against the front of his cerebrum.
“You’ve not tasted the human meat. The procedurals are a unique delicacy like I’ve never had before,” Kren said.
“You’re young…and of limited means,” Olux said.
Kren’s nerve endings rolled against themselves in annoyance. Leave it to one of Mentiq’s lackeys to flaunt his wealth whenever possible, Kren thought.
“For now,” Kren said. “But once you sample the procedurals, and what they represent, you’ll realize that Mentiq should have demanded a higher percentage from us. Minds made to order, Olux. No need to raise meat from birth to achieve a certain flavor. Delicacies in days!”
“We shall see. You must achieve the humans’ compliance first. If they destroy the technology and we return with nothing but cargo holds full of spoiling meat, I doubt your corporation will cover the bond you put up to finance this mission. And you know what happens to lords who default on a debt to Mentiq,” Olux said.
“Yes, I am well aware of the terms.” Kren pounded a claw against the deck. “Aren’t you hungry?”
Menials carried a wooden plank from the kitchen, a menial tied to pegs along the side. The waiters set the plank in front of Kren and scurried away. The four-legged Toth before Kren had smooth scales, and steam rose gently from its naked body.
“You take your meals sedated?” Olux asked.
“Drugged into a euphoria,” Kren said. “My warriors caught them manufacturing recreational narcotics. I find the taste pleasing as an appetizer. Care to try?”
“I cannot taste them anymore,” Olux said. Older overlords developed a tolerance to simpler minds as they fed over centuries. Their fix came from more exotic sentients or from specially bred and raised warrior stock. Keeping their addictions at bay only became more expensive as time went on, making them a customer base Kren knew he could sell to once he had the procedural technology under his control.
Kren’s feeder arm extended from beneath his tank and poked at the menial. Its tongue fell out of its mout
h and it laughed gently. The spiked end snapped open and monofilament tendrils snaked into the menial’s skull. The menial jerked against its restraints and went slack.
“Aah, nice.” Kren withdrew his feeder arm and shoved the plank into the trough with one of his mechanical arms. The trough opened and the dead menial fell into reprocessing vats beneath the floor.
“I’m afraid I’ve little else to offer you but my crew,” Kren said. “I have a few senior warriors that I’m displeased with.”
“I brought my own,” Olux said. His claw tips drummed against the deck.
The door to the kitchen opened. A warrior led a cloaked humanoid figure to Olux. A collar attached to a straight pole held by the warrior kept the cloaked figure from escaping. The warrior pushed the cloaked being to its knees in front of Olux.
One of the warrior’s mid-arms reached out and gripped the cloak. It tore away with a flourish. A naked alien with midnight-blue skin bent its head toward Olux. A line of quills ran down the center of its scalp and along its spine to a short tail. Overly long arms hugged its torso; its fingertips were covered in raw, puffy flesh where claws had been.
Kren saw the reflection of emerald-green eyes against Olux’s tank.
“My, my…is that a Haesh?” Kren asked.
“It is. Taken from Mentiq’s own garden.” Olux’s feeder arm extended and lifted the Haesh’s face toward Olux. “Sing for me?”
The alien pulled away and looked down.
“Shame I only brought one,” Olux said. “They have the most amazing voices, but they’ll only sing when you threaten to consume their offspring.” His feeder arm rose like a serpent and struck against Haesh’s skull with a snap.
Kren remained silent while Olux writhed in pleasure. It was rude to talk during digestion. Olux pushed the dead alien into the trough once the high passed.
“I’ve only ever heard rumors about the wonders in Mentiq’s gardens,” Kren said. “I will peruse his stock once this is over with.”
“Mentiq will make anything available, Kren, but only if you can pay the price,” Olux said.
Kren felt a thrill go through what little remained of his body. An unlimited source of wealth was right at his claw tips. All he had to do was take it from the humans.
****
Lieutenant Hale hated hospitals. He had no good memories of their sterile halls, worn chairs in the waiting room and the constant air of dread worn by anyone who wasn’t walking around in scrubs or a doctor’s coat.
As a teen, he and a group of friends were in a car wreck when the vehicle’s auto-driver malfunctioned and sent the car rolling down a hillside. Seat belts and crash foam let Hale walk away from the crash with minor cuts and bruises. Two friends in the backseat weren’t so lucky. He’d stayed in the ER hours after being treated, waiting for news. When a pair of doctors finally came to see the assembled families, the news had been devastating. One boy was paralyzed from the neck down. The other died in surgery.
That Hale had just finished weeks in the Breitenfeld’s sick bay recovering from wounds taken on Takeni didn’t exactly endear Phoenix’s only hospital to him either.
He glanced at his forearm screen: five minutes later than the last time he checked. Fingers tapped at the screen, trying and failing to connect to the local data network. He’d received updates from the Breitenfeld since he’d touched down on Earth, yet he was cut off from the rest of the local network by some kind of firewall.
The sound of footsteps echoing down the hallway prompted Hale to sit up and look over his shoulder.
Gunnery Sergeant Cortaro walked toward him, a slight limp in his steps. Cortaro carried a metal peg in one hand and wore a brand-new boot over his left foot.
“I thought you were here just for a checkup,” Hale said.
“Robo-surgeon’s got one hell of an upgrade while we were gone,” Cortaro said. He raised his right knee to his chest and balanced on the foot in the new boot. “They fit me for a new cybernetic. I’m a cyborg from my shin to my toes. I can even feel my boot and socks, sir.”
“Not bad for a prosthetic. They going to grow you a new leg?” Hale asked.
“Roger that. They said it’ll be a couple days before the proto-cell tank will have it ready. Genetically identical, no risk of rejection.” Cortaro set his foot down and spun the peg like a baton.
“I’m surprised you kept that,” Hale said. He swiped fingertips across his screen until he found the ride pod icon, which was grayed out.
“I’m attached to it. Was attached to it. I need it in case Standish gets out of line,” Cortaro said with a chuckle.
Hale cursed and poked his forearm screen harder. “Can you get network access?” he asked Cortaro.
The gunnery sergeant looked to his own screen and shook his head.
Hale went to the unmanned nurses’ station and leaned over the counter. Shadows moved inside an interior office.
“Excuse me,” Hale said. “Can you call up a pod for us?”
A short woman dressed in scrubs and with dark skin and hair of very short and thick curls came out of the office. She looked at Hale, eyes wide and lips trembling.
Hale pointed at his forearm screen. “No access. Sorry to bother you.”
The nurse nodded quickly. Her fingers danced over a screen and Hale’s forearm computer buzzed with a message: a two-person pod would be waiting for him at the entrance in seven minutes. The nurse turned away and hurried toward her office.
“Thanks. Hey, is something wrong?” Hale asked.
The nurse glanced around, then came back to Hale.
“You’re from the Breitenfeld. I’m not supposed to talk to you,” she whispered. The slight sound of doors thumping open from down the hallway echoed through the waiting room. The nurse chewed on her bottom lip and took quick, shallow breaths.
“Your ship is pure,” she said. “Don’t let them on board. Don’t let anyone else onto your ship. They look just like us so you can’t be sure.”
“What? Who?” Hale asked.
“The proccies,” she hissed. Two Military Police officers strode into the waiting room, gauss pistols at their hips and thin plates of riot armor strapped to their bodies. The nurse backed away from Hale like he’d suddenly became a venomous snake and scurried back to her office.
Hale felt Cortaro tense up, his hand slipping to the base of his peg leg to use it as a club. Hale shook his head slightly and Cortaro relaxed.
“Gentlemen,” an MP said, “we’ll escort you to your pod.”
****
The travel pod pulled away from the hospital and zipped onto a solar-cell road, the photoelectric hexagons glinting beneath the high sun. The two-person pod was little more than a plastic cabin on wheels, controlled by a central computer core that managed Phoenix’s vehicular traffic. The system had been perfected by the middle of the century, eliminating the need for those in larger cities to own a vehicle or even bother with a driver’s license.
“What the hell was that, sir?” Cortaro asked.
“Damned if I know.” Hale leaned against the clear plastic of the cabin and tried to read a sign scrawled onto bedsheets and hung from open windows of an apartment building. “Did that say ‘True Born Only’?”
“I missed it,” Cortaro said. He reached down and scratched his new calf.
Hale hadn’t spent much time in Phoenix since the Xaros occupying the planet had been defeated. Barely a shell of the city remained; most of the intact buildings were near the Ibarra Corporation’s headquarters at Euskal Tower. Those structures that hadn’t been deconstructed by the drones into omnium were ravaged by neglect and the elements.
The pod zipped past squat towers alongside the highway, none of which Hale remembered from his time in the city. He kept his gaze on an incomplete building, nothing but a metal frame surrounded by stacked cargo containers. Spider-like construction robots skittered over the frame, spinning additive components into the floors, walls and ceilings of the new building.
Hale remember
ed an exhibition from a Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas where prototype construction robots built an exact replica of Notre Dame Cathedral in less than twenty-four hours. He and his brother, Jared, got to walk through the building before it—in true Vegas fashion—was imploded.
The new construction bots looked like they could build even faster than what he’d seen those years ago.
The pod merged onto the highway and into the far-left lane normally reserved for automated cargo trucks. Cortaro gripped his armrests as the pod swerved around slower traffic.
“Madre de Dios,” he muttered as the pod cut between two trucks with only feet to spare.
“Who told this thing we’re in such a hurry?” Hale asked.
Black and yellow stripes flashed around the edge of the front windshield.
“Traffic congestion ahead,” a pleasant voice said. The pod slowed with the flow of traffic into the far-right lane until it came to a complete stop behind a refrigeration truck. Hale saw an off-ramp ahead of a bend in the road.
“I thought automated traffic wasn’t supposed to jam up like this,” Cortaro said.
“Pod,” Hale said, “what is the nature of our delay?”
A buzzer sounded. “Sorry. This pod is not connected to the local news network.”
Hale thrummed his fingertips against his armrest.
“To hell with this.” Hale unbuckled his seat belt and ignored the pod’s gentle safety message. He pointed to the off-ramp. “That’s the exit to 87 South. We’re a twenty-minute walk to the space port and I could use some fresh air.” He pulled the handle, but his door didn’t open.
“I’m sorry,” the pod said, “but premature exit of the vehicle is not authorized under section twelve of the Phoenix Autonomous—”
“Emergency override,” Hale said. He jiggled the handle to no effect. Hale held his palm up over his shoulder and Cortaro slapped his peg leg into the lieutenant’s hand. Hale struck the peg against the handle, breaking it loose with a crack of polymers. A boot to the plastic door sprang it loose from the hinges.