Star Corps

by Ian Douglas

  “Yeah,” Garvey said, “but you know? Sometimes the universe just outright sucks big, slimy rocks.”

  “Maybe so,” Garroway said. “And maybe we just have to pretend it all makes some kind of sense.”

  Trade Factor’s Quarters

  Legation Compound

  New Sumer, Ishtar

  1015 hours ALT (Arbitrary Local Time)

  Gavin Norris surveyed the mess that had been the PanTerran office with growing anger, then slammed his fist down on the already cracked case of a computer monitor. The large windows overlooking the compound had been smashed in, and the stringy-fuzzy purplish stuff that passed for vegetation here had invaded the open room. There was water pooled on the floor…and cabinets that once had held data storage crystals had been overturned and scattered everywhere. Mold grew on the walls and ceiling, and parts of the wall showed black streaks indicating an old, old fire. A desk safe gaped open and empty.

  If Carleton had left any corporate records here, they’d been utterly destroyed by Ahannu mobs and ten years of the wet local weather. Damn it, it wasn’t fair.…

  Not that he’d been counting on Carleton’s efficiency. His briefings back in New Chicago had begun with the assumption that he would have to basically start over. But if the man had just thought to leave a note scrawled on a wall, perhaps with a clue or two as to the location of a fireproof lockbox with a stash of backup storage crystals…

  He would have to begin again here, from scratch.

  “Did you find what you’re looking for?”

  He turned at the voice. Dr. Hanson stood in the doorway that had been smashed open a decade ago by rampaging alien mobs.

  “No,” he replied. “My…predecessor didn’t keep a very tidy office, it seems.”

  “Don’t blame him. Blame the company he kept. Looks like the Ahannu pretty well trashed the place when they broke in. I’m surprised they didn’t burn it to the ground.”

  “They burned a number of buildings, I gather.” He looked around the office in disgust. “Damn it, what brought all this on? We had a solid rapport with the local nabobs. Things were going so well!”

  “It’s beginning to look like a classic case of Alexander’s First Law.”

  “Alexander’s…First Law? What’s that?”

  “An important xenosociological concept,” Hanson replied. “Advanced by the guy who came to be known as the Father of Xenoarcheology, back in the twenty-first century. It states that the members of any given culture will understand the customs, attitudes, and worldview of another culture solely within the context of their own.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “There were Native Americans who encountered Europeans for the first time who thought the foreigners were traveling inside gigantic black water birds with huge white wings. Sailing ships with sails, you see? And the ancient Sumerians thought the Anunnaki—‘Those who came from the heavens to Earth,’ as they called them—were gods.”

  “Well…sure. That’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Primitive savages are going to think that a computer or a flashlight is magic direct from the gods, right?”

  “If their culture allows for the possibility of gods and magic, yes. The point is, no culture is free of its own cultural bias. Including ours.”

  “What are you getting at? I don’t follow.”

  Dr. Hanson sighed. “No. You wouldn’t. I think your people are the ones who brought this on.” She held up the remnants of a notebook—a low-tech pressure-sensitive paper version. The cover was badly burned, the pages partially charred and water-soaked, but some words could be made out here and there. “I found this in Dr. Moore’s lab.”

  “Dr. Moore?”

  “One of the xenobiologists stationed here at the Legation. Looks like she took all of her electronic records with her, but I did find this. It says, ‘We’ve been suckered by Alexander’s First Law. The autos aren’t Aztecs and they’re not Chinese. Who do they say they are? Who do they say we are?’”

  “‘Autos?’”

  “Autochthons. The Ahannu. There’s been a major debate going on Earth for years now as to whether their culture could best be compared to that of the Aztecs, back in the early sixteenth century, or to the nineteenth-century Chinese at the time of their contact with modern Europeans. Dr. Moore is warning us not to let our culturally biased perspective distort our picture of who and what the Ahannu are.”

  “That they’re not primitives?” Norris gave a dry chuckle. “They proved that with that shooting mountain of theirs.”

  “Their technology isn’t the point,” she replied. “It’s how we think of them…and how they think of us. We tended to see them as primitives compared with us, with a complex culture and some high-tech toys left over from the time when they were starfarers. They see us as the slave species they gave civilization to a few thousand years ago, maybe as slaves who got too big for our britches.”

  “Yeah…okay. Who are you saying is right? They are primitives.”

  “No. Neither viewpoint is right, because both viewpoints are locked up inside of the cultural context that created them.

  “Look at their side of the equation. We might’ve been Ahannu slaves once, but we’ve grown a lot since then. We’ve changed. But they still see humans as ‘Blackheads,’ as they call us, because of our hair. As Sag-ura, the creatures they domesticated to work in their mines and farms.

  “But it goes the other way too. Our understanding of the Ahannu is going to be crippled from the start because we see them in ways that make sense to us. As primitive savages. As a culture that has somehow lost its moral authority because it lost its technology, as if those two ever had anything to do with one another.”

  “Are you saying they’re some kind of super race? They’re so advanced they don’t need technology?”

  “Not at all. I’m saying they’re alien, and we shouldn’t assume we know the first damned thing about them. The nature of their technology may have changed. Or the way they think may be so different from us that we can’t recognize their technology when we see it.”

  Norris laughed. “Honey, you’re giving the Frogs way too much credit. We’ve seen their technology, measured it. Stuff like those planetary defense systems and the few guns they have obviously are leftovers from ten thousand years ago. What they have, what they understand today, is spears, clubs, and knives. The mission here was brought down by overwhelming numbers, not some sort of magic, alien tech that we can’t even recognize!”

  She shrugged. “Have it your own way. But you’re being anthropocentric. You’re measuring everything by the standards of Homo sapiens, as though we were the pinnacle of creation. We’re not, you know. The Ahannu are not lower than us; they’re different.”

  “Great. I’ll remember that when I start negotiating with the High Emperor and the DesFac.”

  “DesFac?”

  “The Destiny Faction. What we’re calling the group that rebelled against the original government here. According to the data transmitted back before things turned nasty, it was led by a Frog named Geremelet. They were promoting the idea that the Frogs were gods.”

  “I remember the briefing,” Hanson said. “But think about what you just said. We don’t know how the Ahannu think of themselves in groups, so we don’t really know that there was a ‘faction’ that differed from the government. We don’t understand what they mean by ‘government,’ so we’re probably wrong when we think in terms of rebellions, High Emperors, or what they mean by being led. We don’t know if they think in religious terms, the way we do, so we don’t know what they mean by ‘god.’ Hell, ‘Geremelet’ isn’t a proper form for Ahannu names, so we don’t even know who we’re dealing with here. Do you see? The Ahannu are alien. We’re not going to be able to communicate with them meaningfully until we know exactly what that means. How are they alien, different from us? How do they think? How do they think differently? You know, human psychologists are still debating what the word ‘intelligence’ means. If we can’t define
it for ourselves, how in blazes are we supposed to define it for something as other as the Ahannu?”

  “Maybe,” Norris said, “it’s not going to be that complicated, you know? Europeans didn’t understand the aboriginal Americans either, but between firearms, horses, and smallpox, they managed to wipe them out pretty handily. The bleeding hearts might wish it was different, but might does make right, you know. It’s the winners in any clash of cultures that write the books and program the downloads afterward. Which means it’s the winners who decide who gets defined in whose image.”

  “Does everyone who works for PanTerra have such a wonderfully bleak understanding of intercultural relations?” Hanson asked. “Or is it just you?”

  “I’m a realist, Doctor. The people I work for are realists. And we believe in making things happen…our way, objective worldview, not subjective, not blinkered by sentiment or sentimentality.”

  “I see. I hope you live to enjoy the fruits of your philosophy. Of course, that’s not likely now, is it?”

  “Of course it is. The Joint International Expedition will be along in another six months, and that’ll be our ride home. The Marines will keep us safe until then.” He grinned. “Better living through superior firepower.”

  “Goddess,” Hanson said, shaking her head. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

  “I was going to say the same about you, Doctor. You worry about Ahannu culture and psychology. Make your notes and collect your data. I’m afraid the natives on Ishtar are about to go the way of all primitives once they come in contact with a technically superior culture. It might be that a thousand years from now the only thing people will even know about the Frogs is what you record here now.”

  She turned and strode from the room then, angry.

  Norris chuckled, then returned his attention to the shattered office of his predecessor. Nothing…nothing. Stooping, he scooped up a double handful of computer memory chips and let them clatter on a tabletop. Some of the scattered mems might be salvageable, but he didn’t have the equipment or the time to find out. Finding the one mem in hundreds dealing with Ahannu slavery was worse than looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Besides, what he needed was probably encrypted, and he didn’t have the password.

  No matter. Things would have been much easier if Carleton had left behind a note for those who might come after him, but in fact its absence changed nothing. The Marines would do their job, crushing the Geremelet faction or whatever the hell it was really called…and then he would step in and do his job, happily earning his billion-dollar paycheck along the way. Full payment was contingent on a successful outcome in the negotiations with the Ahannu leadership, so he was determined that nothing would interfere with PanTerra’s plans, or with his.

  Explosions thundered in the distance, and he walked across to the shattered window. Marine Wasps circled, floated, pounced, raising more explosions and additional pillars of greasy-looking smoke into the early morning sky. Beneath the window, Marines lounged in the courtyard, unconcerned by the aerial barrage taking place less than a kilometer away. On the Legation walls, other Marines stood guard, as a patrol passed through the North Gate into the Ahannu district.

  At this rate, the city would be secure within another few hours.

  He decided that he’d better talk to King about prisoners. He would need one, preferably a high-ranking one, to carry his negotiation demands to Geremelet.

  Marine Bivouac

  Legation Compound

  New Sumer, Ishtar

  1625 hours ALT

  Thin red sunlight streamed across the city at rooftop level, touching the roofs and upper portions of the higher structures, leaving the streets still in deep shadow. The Llalande sun, little more than a bright ruby spark, showed itself through a narrow slit between the eastern horizon and the cloud deck. The clouds overhead were slate-gray, heavily striated by high-altitude winds into swirling streaks and arabesques.

  At ground level, though, the air was calm, hot, and moist. It had rained several times in the past few hours, and the streets were wet. Marine working parties continued to move among the nanocrete domes of the mission compound, bringing the bodies of Ahannu and Sag-ura to a central collection point and collecting scattered weapons and equipment for cataloging and study. Garroway and the other survivors of the squad had drawn light duty—standing guard over the alien bodies to keep the morbidly curious and the souvenir hunters at a distance. At the moment, Garvey had the duty. Dunne, Womicki, Vinita, and Garroway had joined him, though. No one felt like sleeping. The air was too charged, too pregnant with unrealized promise and danger.

  “There,” Womicki said. “You feel that?”

  The others shook their heads. “I think you’re imagining it, Womicki,” Garroway said.

  “Fuck you. Here. Look.” Womicki pulled a canteen from a hip pouch in his armor, pulled off the cap, and dribbled a bit of water into it. Carefully, he set it on the ground. “Watch.”

  The other Marines stared at the cap for a moment. Sure enough, minute ripples were stirring the surface of the water. Garroway held very still, trying to feel it. There. A faint, faint quivering vibration through the pavement stones at his feet.

  “Earthquakes,” Womicki explained. “They’re almost continuous but so faint you can hardly feel ’em. Once in a while they get strong enough to notice.”

  “Not Earthquakes,” Vinita said. “Ishtarquakes?”

  “Seismic events,” Dunne suggested.

  “Yeah,” Garvey agreed. “I wonder how all these buildings stay standing so long with this kind of shaking going on all the time.”

  “That’s why the locals build pyramids and domes,” Dunne pointed out. “And nothing over a couple-three stories tall, except for the big pyramids.” He joined his hands together, steepling his fingers in a rough pyramid shape and working it back and forth. “The stones tend to fall together and hold one another up. Unless a really big quake hit, the buildings stay stable.”

  “I remember something from a download,” Garroway said, “about there not being any major fault lines on Ishtar, so you don’t get the sudden slippage that makes major earthquakes, like in California. You just get a lot of little tremors from the tidal flexing as Ishtar goes around Marduk.”

  “Y’know,” Garvey said, “if we had the damned net online, we’d be able to link in with the data feed from orbit and all the ground stations and see how widespread it was, where the center of it was….”

  “Shit,” Garroway said. “We’re doing okay without the net. We just don’t have as many people looking over our shoulders as we used to, is all.”

  His own words surprised him. For a time there, back on the mountain, he’d felt nightmarishly alone and isolated without the MIEU Net, much as he’d felt when they’d deactivated his Sony-TI 12000. The nanohardware in his head handled a good many minor and routine tasks—math coprocessing and direction sensing, for instance—and all he was really missing was the ability to download large amounts of data with a thought-click or talk to other Marines with an inner voice akin to telepathy.

  He was just now realizing, though, that losing his high-powered hardware in boot camp had gotten them all used to making do with whatever was at hand. Womicki’s trick with the canteen lid, for instance. That was damned clever…and didn’t require data feeds from orbit or the local node to tell him what he wanted to know.

  Maybe people were getting too damned reliant on their techy toys.

  But then again…

  He stole a glance at Kat Vinita. She seemed okay now, if a bit distant, a little floaty, a bit too placid. She was riding high on NNTs, he guessed, holding her emotions at bay, anesthetizing them until professional psychs could help her deal with them. The tech was holding her together now, but what would the cost be later on?

  “Halt!” Garvey called out. “Who goes there?”

  A woman, a civilian in a dark green jumpsuit emblazoned with the Spirit of Humankind logo, had approached the group. “I’m
Dr. Hanson,” she said.

  “This is a restricted area, ma’am,” Garvey told her.

  “And I have authorization,” she replied, holding up a scrap of white paper.

  Garvey accepted the paper clumsily in a gauntleted hand and peered at the writing. “Signed by Colonel Ramsey,” he said, handing the paper back. “I guess it’s okay.”

  “Goddess, of course it’s okay,” Hanson replied. She sounded tired and on edge. “What did you think, I’m here to steal the bodies?”

  “No, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”

  “Feeling a bit low-tech, there, Gravy?” Womicki asked with a chuckle.

  “It’s a hell of a lot easier when you can interrogate the net for pass authorizations,” Garvey replied, stepping aside. “How are we supposed to know that pass is genuine?”

  “Don’t sweat it, kid,” Dunne said with a shrug. “She don’t look like the kind t’want to cut off Frog ears for souvenirs. Let her do her job.”

  “Frogs don’t have ears,” Garvey said. “Just those damned big staring eyes.”

  “The civilians are here to study the Ahannu,” Vinita said. “We’re just supposed to keep other Marines away from this stuff.”

  Hanson was picking her way through a triple line of bodies, each lying on its own length of plastic tarp.

  “Can I give you a hand with anything, ma’am?” Garroway asked her.

  “I’m looking for signs of rank,” she told him. “You’re sure these bodies haven’t been tampered with? Stuff taken?”

  He shrugged. “Not since they were brought here. I can’t speak for what happened when the collection parties picked them up.”

  “They should have left the bodies in place,” Hanson said, grimacing with distaste. “How are we supposed to learn anything with you people pawing over them and going through their stuff?”

  “We’re Marines, ma’am,” Garroway said, his voice stiff. What the hell was this civilian implying?

  She looked up at him, then stood. “I’m sorry, Marine,” she said. “It’s been a rough day. No offense.”

  “None taken, ma’am.” He relaxed a little then, but only a little. “Just what is it you’re looking for?”