Star Corps

by Ian Douglas

  Carlos Esteban among them, apparently.

  Garroway found himself fervently hoping his father was dead.

  No…No, on second thought it would be better by far if the bastard were alive. That way, he might be able to present his biological father with a bill of reckoning someday. He looked down at his hands, flexing them. His left arm—broken by a gauss round in the battle—was still sore, but it was working now, thanks to the calcium nanochelates and fastheal the corpsmen had given him. He was going to survive this deployment, and he was going to get back home.

  And someday, he would meet his father again.

  Someday…

  He looked up into the darkening sky. The brightest stars were beginning to show as the eclipse deepened the twilight. He uplinked to the net to check which stars were visible and where.

  At least the net was working now. The Navy personnel left on board the Derna, plus the command constellation’s AI, had brought the full net back online only three days ago. Garroway and the others were still getting used to having that much information a thought-click away once more. In some ways, things had been simpler when they’d had to rely on their own memories and on such primitive-tech anachronisms as radio, human and robotic scouts, and sign language.

  Data flowed through his thoughts. Yes…that bright one there, low in the north. The brightest star in what at home would be the constellation Scutum, just north of Sagittarius.

  The sun of home.

  Yeah. Someday.

  Gavin Norris

  Chamber of the Eye

  Pyramid of the Eye

  New Sumer, Ishtar

  1935 hours ALT

  Gavin Norris was puffing hard by the time he clambered up the last step and leaned against the entrance to the Chamber of the Eye. A Marine sentry was there, but he thought-queried Norris’s e-pass, snapped to attention and said, “You are recognized, sir.”

  Good. He’d not expected trouble, but you never knew with these damned jarheads.

  Portable lights illuminated what had been the black interior of the Chamber of the Eye. The Eye itself was aglow, showing the interior of the so-called Cave of Wonders at Cydonia, eight light-long light-years away. As promised, the Quebecois Giselle Dumont was on duty at the other end.

  “Hello, Madame Dumont.”

  “Ah, Mr. Norris,” she said, turning to face the screen. “I was told to expect you about now. Is everything in order?”

  “It is. I think we’re finally ready to begin.” He stepped aside as the others filed into the chamber behind him—Carleton, Dr. Hanson, and Tu-Kur-La the Frog. “Friar Tuck,” Norris had been calling the thing, making a joke of the alien name. The Ahannu didn’t appear to care.

  “I’m still not convinced this is a good idea,” Carleton said. “I don’t trust the Frogs. Not after ten years in that damned jungle.”

  “That’s not your concern, Carleton,” Norris said. “Tell Tuck to do his thing.”

  Carleton grimaced, then gargled something at the Frog. It gargled back, then sat itself on the chamber floor, holding both six-fingered hands out above one of the cracks between the polished stone blocks.

  “What’s happening?” Dumont said. “I can’t see.”

  “Sorry,” he told her. “We have with us the Frog we used to make contact with the Frog leadership. He’s going to connect himself up to a kind of organic computer network the Frogs have grown all throughout this part of the planet. They call it the…what was it, Dr. Hanson?”

  “‘Abzu-il,’” Hanson replied. “The ‘Gateway to the Sentient Sea.’”

  “Yeah. Abzu. He’s going to put us in touch with the Frog High Emperor, and we’re going to pitch the deal straight to him.”

  Dumont cocked her head. “An organic computer? PanTerra would be very interested in that.”

  “Sure, sure…but the real payoff’s going to be in the human natives. Right, Carleton?”

  The other PanTerran executive nodded, though he kept watching Tu-Kur-La with a suspicious glare. “It’s like we thought, Madame Dumont,” he said. “The humans they brought back here from Earth ten thousand years ago have been bred for all those centuries as slaves. Docile. Completely obedient. The wild ones, the ones who couldn’t be easily trained, kept running off into the jungle, and it’s a damned good thing they did or I wouldn’t be here now. But the ones who stayed with the Frogs, they’ve been conditioned to do anything their masters tell them. Anything.”

  “He’s right,” Norris added. “It’s no wonder the Ahannu didn’t let us see much of the Sag-ura slaves when we first came here. They’ll do whatever their ‘gods’ tell them to do, and like it. Their warriors are absolutely without fear. The women…well…” He chuckled. “The Frogs don’t go in for that sort of thing, of course, but the women do whatever they’re told. They’re totally centered on pleasing their master. It’s almost like they don’t have a will of their own. They’re brought up that way from birth. I guess that’s why things haven’t changed here at all in a hundred centuries. It’s the status quo from Hell, only it’s going to be pure heaven for PanTerra.”

  “Yes, but will the High Emperor go along with what you tell him?”

  “He has to,” Norris said. “He agrees to sell us Sag-ura slaves for technology, and we promise not to unleash our Marines on him. My God, you should have seen the slaughter! Over two thousand Frogs killed in that last battle, against fifty Marines! And that’s not counting all the Frogs that were killed in the first assault. Yes, I think the Frog Emperor will be very willing to listen to reason.”

  “And PanTerra ships a few thousand agreeable domestic servants back to Earth for a most tidy return on their investment.”

  “But that…that’s slavery!”

  Norris turned to face Hanson, who was staring at him in horror. “Let’s not use such loaded terminology, my dear,” he told her. “They are slaves now, under the Frogs. We’re here to help them.”

  And he smiled.

  Dr. Traci Hanson

  Chamber of the Eye

  Pyramid of the Eye

  New Sumer, Ishtar

  1944 hours ALT

  Hanson could not believe what she was hearing. The bastards! The unmitigated, grade-A scum-gargling bastards!

  “The people of the Terran Commonwealth want the slaves freed and repatriated to Earth,” Norris was telling her. “That is exactly what we are doing. But think about the poor Sagura. They know nothing but slavery…ten thousand years of it, in fact. They’ve been raised thinking of themselves as slaves. The best thing we can do is acclimate them gradually to a new way of life. Letting them work as domestic servants, trained and hired out to certain wealthy clients by PanTerra, seems a most agreeable and decent way of breaking them in, don’t you think? I mean, Jesus, they don’t even understand the concept of money here. They know nothing except doing what they’re told. How do you expect them to live on Earth? How are they even going to survive unless we provide this working shelter—this work assistance program, if you will—for them?”

  “You bastards,” Hanson said quietly. “You fucking bastards! You’re going to buy them from the Ahannu, hire them out on Earth, and pocket the profit. That’s slavery, no matter what weasel words you attach to it!”

  “Nonsense. PanTerra paid for this expedition and helped put together the international coalition behind it. We are going to assume the costs of shipping all those freed slaves back to Earth and for training and feeding them until they can decide what they want for themselves. And PanTerra is paying me—and you, for that matter, Dr. Hanson—very handsomely indeed to put this deal together. They deserve a return on their investment.”

  “You also know that those poor Sag-ura are never going to get free. How are they supposed to be reintegrated into human society when you have them working for new masters eight light-years from their homes? Are these rich clients you talk about going to just let them go? Or are you going to start shipping slaves from Ishtar on a regular schedule?”

  “Dr. Hanso
n, please,” Carleton said. “There’s no need for emotional outbursts. A free market, a free economy, finds its own morality.”

  “Morality!” Hanson screamed. “Goddess!” She held up her right arm, pinching the skin. “What fucking color is this?”

  “Brown,” Carleton said, puzzled. “Dark brown. You look Latino, or maybe—”

  “My ancestors were slaves, you son of a bitch. I was born in North Michigan, but some of my ancestors came from Gambia, Ivory Coast, Brazil, and Haiti! Some of them were slaves, Mr. Carleton, and you expect me not to be emotional?”

  “That will be quite enough, Dr. Hanson,” Norris said. He’d produced a small, 8mm handgun and was pointing it at Hanson. “I’m disappointed in you. I thought you were a loyal PanTerran employee.”

  “There are some things even a billion newdollars won’t buy.”

  “Really?” He shook his head in amusement. “Who’d have thought it? Guard!”

  The Marine sentry stepped inside. “Yes, sir?”

  “Please put Dr. Hanson under protective arrest. I have reason to believe she is in the pay of radical anti-Ahannu church elements.”

  “It’s a lie, Marine!” Hanson cried. “These bastards are trying to—”

  “I don’t much care what they’re trying to do, miss,” the Marine said, pointing his laser carbine at her. With his free hand, he reached up and pulled off his helmet.

  It was General King.

  “You!”

  “Of course.”

  “Traitor!”

  He scowled. “That’s a negative, Doctor,” he said, his voice sharp. “A traitor betrays his national allegiance. I have done nothing of the sort. The Federal Republic, in its infinite wisdom, decided to send me out here because I was acceptable to all Commonwealth political factions. To do that, I had to leave my wife and my children on Earth…people who have not seen me now for ten years and who will not see me for another ten.” He shrugged. “This is my last command, obviously. I have only retirement to look forward to. PanTerra is providing me with my retirement package, that’s all. A nice set of investment portfolios at home. The promise of a well-paying job when I get back. And anti-aging treatments for my wife and kids. The deal was too good to pass up.”

  She sagged. “But…they’re going to—”

  “As I said, I don’t really care what these gentlemen do. They are not harming the Corps, and they are not threatening the government. If you’ll step back against that wall, please?”

  She did so, thoughts whirling. The net. Her only chance was to uplink to the net.

  Hanson blasted out an electronic cry for help. “Colonel Ramsey!”

  Gavin Norris

  Chamber of the Eye

  Pyramid of the Eye

  New Sumer, Ishtar

  1948 hours ALT

  “Fuck! She’s using the net to call for help!” King yelled. He raised his carbine. “Stop it, bitch!”

  Norris spun, raising the 8mm and pulling the trigger. The weapon’s sharp report rang from the polished black stone of the chamber, and Hanson was slammed a step backward into the wall.

  “Damn it,” King shouted. “You didn’t need to shoot her!”

  “Fuck her,” Norris said. “You get back out and stand guard. Make sure she didn’t put out an alert.” He turned to the screen. “Madame Dumont? Sorry for the delay. We had a…situation.”

  “So I gathered. What the hell is going on? Have you made contact with the Ahannu leadership yet?”

  Norris looked at Tu-Kur-La. The Frog was seated, cross-legged, in the back of the chamber, his hands still outstretched, his huge, golden eyes nictated shut. Something was growing rapidly up from the crack in the stone flooring before him, something like the uncoiling head of a fern but a deep and translucent purple and moving with a most un-plantlike agility. Parts of the purplish mass were flowing up the Frog’s arms, pooling on his shoulder, gathering at the back of his neck.

  “Not yet,” Norris replied, “but any minute now….”

  Cassius

  IST Derna, in Ishtar orbit

  1948 hours ST

  Artificial intelligences were not necessarily superior to organic intelligence, but they were different…and immensely faster. On board the Derna, Cassius had been engaged in monitoring and upgrading the newly restored Ishtar Data Net when he heard Dr. Hanson’s uplinked cry for help. In point of fact, he recognized that something was wrong as her first shrill word came through—“Colonel…”

  Stress levels in her mental voice spoke volumes, alerting Cassius to the fact that this was a serious emergency. He required .03 second to isolate that one voice out of the babbling sea of hundreds he was monitoring at the moment and to narrow her position to the general area of the Pyramid of the Eye. There was a slight speed-of-light time delay, but he downlinked with her neuralink hardware, pinpointing her location and seeing the situation through her eyes. A total of 2.4 seconds passed before Cassius sounded the…

  Lance Corporal Garroway

  Pyramid of the Eye

  New Sumer, Ishtar

  1949 hours ALT

  …alert.

  Garroway’s eyes came wide open as the thought exploded in his brain. The company was going on full alert. Was it a Frog attack?

  “Okay, you Pyramidiots! Fall in on the double! We’re rolling!”

  It was Captain Warhurst, wearing his armor sans helmet and rushing across the top of the pyramid from the firebase HQ. Garroway and the others scrambled to their feet, snatching up weapons, gloves, and helmets.

  “What the hell?” Dunne exclaimed.

  “You four!” Warhurst snapped. “Grab your weapons and follow me! You three over there! With me!”

  Garroway uplinked a query and was met with a terse “Net silence!” Something big was going down, but damned if he could figure out what. Warhurst was gathering in more and more Marines, dragging them along in his wake as he raced toward the western edge of the pyramid roof, then started down the steps.

  Garroway snapped his helmet latch to the locked position and brought up the helmet display. Fifteen Marines showed on the little map view in the corner, racing down the pyramid’s western stairs. His 2120 was at full power, his Mark VII systems all green.

  “Here’s the straight download,” Warhurst’s voice said in his mind as he ran. “Hostage situation in the Chamber of the Eye. The PanTerran people are trying a fast one. The orders are to take them down. Alive if possible, but take them down! We don’t have time for finesse. Just move in and knock them down. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” the Marines chorused back.

  They approached the entrance to the Chamber of the Eye from above. A lone Marine in full armor raised a laser carbine. “Halt!” he called, using his external speakers. “Don’t come any closer!”

  “Stand down, Marine!” Warhurst ordered, raising his own 2120. “Safe your weapon and stand down!”

  “I…can’t do that, Captain.”

  “General King?”

  “Trust me, Captain. I know Dr. Hanson got a partial message out. She became…unstable. You don’t understand the situation here.”

  “The hell I don’t, sir!” Warhurst said. “Stand down!”

  “Who’s going to make me, Captain? You?”

  “No, sir. Someone named Cassius.”

  It was not something the Marine Corps spoke of publicly or discussed with recruits. NCOs and officers were aware of the technology, of course, but rarely thought about it. Why should they? Mark VII suits required sophisticated arrays of microprocessors to sense and follow the wearer’s movements. Though built of ultralight alloys, carbon fiber, and plastic laminates, a Mark VII suit was heavy and required considerable power to enable the wearer simply to move, even to stand without becoming exhausted. It was a simple thing for Cassius to take every microprocessor in King’s Mark VII offline, turning it into an inert mass of very heavy metal and plastic.

  And General King collapsed on the steps like a sack of meal, just like a simula
ted casualty back in boot camp.

  Gavin Norris

  Chamber of the Eye

  Pyramid of the Eye

  New Sumer, Ishtar

  1951 hours ALT

  Norris crouched next to the Frog, sweat beading on his forehead. “Yes, you understood me,” he said. “We’ll give you technology for your Sag-ura slaves, as many as you want to send us.”

  “What…would we want with…Blackhead technology?” the Frog said, its English broken and hesitant, but understandable. “We are the Godmind. We are your gods.”

  A clatter of falling armor made Norris look up. “Shit. What’s going on out there?”

  “I’ll check,” Carleton replied, hurrying toward the door.

  There was no time for this ponderous back and forth. Norris had watched Friar Tuck make his connection, allowing the purple goo to flow over his neck and head. It was unappetizing, sure, but no worse than a lot of things he had done. Suddenly, impetuously, he shoved his left hand into a mass of the translucent jelly and pulled a glob of it to the side of his face.

  The Abzu-il was not intelligent, of itself. It was, in fact, a gene-tailored organism created by the Ahannu many thousands of years before, a living creature without a mind of its own, which could connect the minds of the gods.

  The Sentient Sea itself, however, a kind of internal dreamscape of melded minds and stored memories, had its own intelligence, its own awareness.

  And it was utterly unlike anything Gavin Norris had ever seen or felt before.

  He felt…tendrils of writhing ice penetrating his ears, his nose, the pores of his skin. There was a piercing stab of agony across the left side of his head as the thing worked its way through bone with lightning speed and settled into the contours of Norris’s brain.

  Norris’s human brain. Humans and Ahannu were much alike in many ways, but they were not the same species or even remotely related. Aspects of their biologies, which they shared, by chance or design, included such basics as a shared left-handedness in amino acids and a shared right-handedness in sugars. They could eat many of the same foods…a fact that the ancient Ahannu had taken advantage of when they’d enslaved early humans to raise crops for them in the fertile river valleys of distant Kia long ago.