Drednanth: A Tale of the Final Fall of Man

by Andrew Hindle

  “I’m Chief Tactical Officer,” Sally said stoutly, “this is my post.”

  Clue gave a scarcely-audible sigh and they went back to waiting.

  After the three minutes and twenty-seven seconds had elapsed, the door slid back open and Thord, Maladin and Dunnkirk re-emerged. The aki’Drednanth’s ‘mood bars’ had shifted, Zeegon noticed, from a cheerful triple blue-green to a pair of pale pink lines – the uppermost bar was entirely dark. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he committed it to memory and looked it up later. Thord was deeply perturbed, annoyed about something but not angry. Still, for an aki’Drednanth Zeegon supposed ‘annoyed’ was enough, and he was glad in hindsight that he hadn’t been able to identify the code at the time.

  It soon returned, however, to her apparently-customary triple-aquamarine.

  “You are strange people,” was all she said.

  Thord moved into the oxy farm quarters they’d created for her, and surprisingly so too did her Bonshooni companions with their minimal belongings and pair of sleeper pods. Or perhaps it wasn’t so surprising. Contro had regained his quarters from the Bayn Balro refugees but had cheerfully agreed to give them all back – plus a few more – to house the new Molran passengers, who were more numerous but rather more self-contained than their last load of passengers. Zeegon had to admit that if it came down to a choice between living in the Contro Tangle with a bunch of Molran survivalists, and bunking down in a forty-below-zero farm hangar with a giant ice cube and a psychic yeti, he’d really have to sleep on it.

  Not long after that, they were ready to leave.

  Z-LIN

  The Tramp accelerated steadily away from The Warm, into the dark cold of the system beyond the orbiting relic, and prepared to jump to relative speed.

  Maladin had joined Clue on the bridge, by invitation. Dunnkirk had remained in the oxygen farm with Thord, pleading a general lack of interest in watching space go past the windows. Maladin was standing politely by the entrance, trying to keep as far out of the way as a Bonshoon possibly could.

  Mortelion Arbus So, the appointed ‘representative’ of their forty new Molran passengers, was also present on the bridge. She, unlike Maladin, was standing beside Z-Lin’s auxiliary command console and looking very much as though any instance of her being in anyone’s way would turn out to be a mildly-amusing misunderstanding for which ‘anyone’ would shortly end up apologising.

  She hadn’t commented on Decay’s presence on the bridge, although the Blaran himself was standing rather pointedly at-attention and eyes-front at his comms station.

  “I am surprised there were not more eligible AstroCorps people among the Molran survivors,” Arbus So said as The Warm’s sun rolled away underneath them and they curved out of the system’s orbital plane. “We had large non-civilian representation before the attack, and statistically there ought to have been at least a couple of dozen among the survivors. Instead, there were only two that I know of. I imagine you would have contacted them.”

  “We did,” Z-Lin replied, a little uncomfortable about saying so in front of Decay. He’d known, of course, and he hadn’t objected, and it wasn’t as if Molran crewmembers would have affected his practical standing in any way, but it was still something she’d have preferred to avoid talking about any further. AstroCorps Molren returning to active duty on board would automatically have meant – by long-standing regulation – that no Blaran crewmember could subsequently be granted any sort of field commission or promotion, and Clue had been through too much with General Moral Decay (Alcohol) to be entirely happy with that arrangement. “Ensign Harold Danaclef declined our offer due to family commitments on the settlement…” as well as a fervent off-the-record resolution to never go into space again, she added silently, “…and Commander Archdrake Gonsaal regretfully informed us that he did not intend to come out of retirement until his Third Prime,” and that wasn’t due to arrive for another three or four hundred years.

  “Ah yes, old Archie,” Arbus So said with a thin smile. It seemed to be the only kind of smile the Molran was capable of, Clue had decided after a few brief meetings. It was likely that she had taken some elementary ‘Dealing With Humans, Bonshooni and Other Animals’ course as part of her application to relocate to The Warm’s research community, and had learned that humans got ‘nervous’ when a Molranoid showed too much ‘fang’. The smile looked rehearsed. “A colourful character, indeed. I have actually met him on three separate occasions, at relocation symposia. A staunch supporter of the lobby to leave The Warm where it is rather than undertake to move it to the Eternal Prime settlement system. One cannot help but wonder, had we moved the relic to the same system as its alleged counterpart Eternal Prime, whether The Warm and all its inhabitants would still be alive. Still, that is conjecture and by no means a reflection on his character and agenda,” she added in the cool Molran equivalent of hasty reassurance, “which I found to be intelligent, sharply-expressed and academically sound. He would have been quite a good fit with your small and – forgive me – idiosyncratic crew,” she was very clearly looking at the helmsman at this point, and the large green weasel sitting on his shoulder.

  That was one argument Z-Lin had lost, although it had not really been Zeegon’s fault. He’d agreed to stow Boonie out of the way and put forth as professional and near-AstroCorps-y a front as possible, but Boonie had a penchant for not staying stowed.

  Plus, Z-Lin had to admit, she’d probably subconsciously wanted the regulation-demolishing ship’s pet to make an appearance. Maybe if there had been a real AstroCorps presence on The Warm, things would have been different. Maybe.

  Right, Clue nodded to herself, so – Arbus So had known Gonsaal. Which meant, she was forced to conclude, that Arbus So had not known Harold Danaclef, which in turn meant that she’d actually researched the AstroCorps numbers, in order to bring up in conversation the Tramp’s failure to recruit the two survivors. In order to … what?

  She told herself that she’d been dealing with Blaren and Bonshooni too long, and it may have coloured her perceptions of Molren. Not everything was a mind-game or a power-play.

  “Of course,” Arbus So quickly disabused Clue of any delusions of hypervigilance, “he would have outranked you, which must have placed you in a … conflicted position, as recruiting officer.”

  “What I think must have been a conflict,” Sally said into the sudden tension and before Zeegon or Decay could open their mouths, “is the Molran leadership on The Warm letting an aki’Drednanth travel without at least a few attendants – especially since we’re leaving all of you guys on Eshret.”

  “Nah, if we’d given a bunk to every Molran who’d wanted to hang out with Thord,” Zeegon started cheerfully, then evidently realised he had no inoffensive way to end the sentence and fell silent.

  “Our admiration of the aki’Drednanth must seem very silly to you,” Arbus So said with quiet composure.

  “Little bit.”

  “That will do, Mister Pendraegg,” Z-Lin said firmly. “Mortelion Arbus So is a guest here.”

  “Um,” Maladin spoke up, diffident and nervous and clearly as aware as Sally had been of the defensive indignation suddenly circulating and bristling among the Tramp’s crew. “You’ve been travelling for some time now, with this fabricator problem you have, and basically no crew. You haven’t got … you know, aren’t there AstroCorps regulations about getting back to a base somewhere, for repair and debriefing and all that?”

  “Modulars classically don’t have that sort of support structure,” Z-Lin replied, exquisitely aware of the sudden shift from simmering resentment to alert attentiveness among the bridge crew, “they go from place to place, joining up with larger ships, Chrysanthemums and so on. Where we re-link and resupply depends on our orders and our mission, and at the moment – up to the point we arrived at The Warm – those had led us away from bases. Not by necessity, just by chance. If The Warm had had facilities anymore, we would definitely have affected repairs. And if there had been
an AstroCorps presence, we would have replenished our numbers.”

  “So The Warm was the first place you’d flown to since suffering your damage, where you might have gotten patched up?” Maladin asked, apparently all innocent curiosity. Z-Lin reminded herself that the Bonshoon might be as agenda-driven and devious as the Molran, but he just didn’t seem that way. There was something honest and earnest about Thord’s friends. “Just by chance?”

  Z-Lin thought of Twistlock. The fallen star and its howling mobs of stone-eyed cultists. Horatio Bunzo’s Funtime Happy World. She suppressed a shudder. “More or less,” she said.

  “Was it these attacks?” Maladin asked eagerly, before Mortelion Arbus So could start to talk again. “Was it … are you on the trail of the Damorakind? Do you … is that your mission?”

  “I’m not at liberty to discuss our mission,” Clue said, “except to say that no, Bayn Balro was the first sign we’d seen of these sorts of attacks, if the two cases even were related. We’re not exactly equipped to go hunting Damorakind right now, as you probably noticed. No, the actual issues getting in the way of repair and resupply, like I say, have been a series of wrong-place, wrong-time scenarios.”

  “A staggering series,” Decay said lightly.

  “But the Captain knows what he’s doing,” Zeegon, to Clue’s surprise, spoke up too.

  “I never said he didn’t,” Maladin protested.

  “Well, whatever the details of our orders and ongoing mission,” Clue went on firmly, “our mission right now is the galactic edge out past Declivitorion, and that includes a number of places we can stop and get repairs done, and maybe even a whole new crew. Places you guys and Thord and the seed can commandeer a better ship, for that matter.”

  “Thord says it is more about the journey, the story, and the tellers of the story,” Maladin said. “She might choose to keep us on Astro Tramp 400 with you.”

  “That will be between her and the Captain,” Z-Lin said.

  “How about you guys?” Zeegon asked, turning to look at Arbus So. “Sure you want to stop on Eshret? I hear there’s worms.”

  “That was our agreement,” Arbus So said placidly. “This is neither a passenger cruiser nor a rescue craft, and our needs are simple. There is a very good chance that the Fergunak have already flown to the worlds you have on your flight path, and that help is on the way, through soft-space, even now.”

  “Speaking of soft-space,” Clue said, “how are we looking, helm?”

  Zeegon, to the Commander’s lasting gratitude, didn’t make a smart-arse remark about not knowing what button to press, nor did he hurl them unexpectedly into relative speed willy-nilly. “Ready for superluminal crossover, Commander,” he said crisply. “Power levels steady, engine panels green across the board, safe distance reached and we’re at maximum subluminal.”

  “Right you are, Mister Pendraegg,” Z-Lin said. “Let’s go to Eshret.”

  “Commander,” Zeegon acknowledged, and began to key in the commands. At that moment, the communicator display lit up on Z-Lin’s console and the painstakingly-enunciated voice of an eejit in the engine room broadcast aloud to the entire bridge. Z-Lin knew it was the engine room because she could hear Contro jabbering and laughing in the background.

  “Is this medical bay?”

  “No,” Clue replied steadily, all too aware of the collective multi-species gaze fixed on her, “this is bridge.”

  “Oh.”

  “What’s going on there?” she asked. Now she could hear jovial ois and honestlys from the laughing Chief Engineer. “Has someone been hurt?”

  “That’s why I medical bay.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Hello!” the eejit’s voice was abruptly replaced by Contro’s, sounding a little slurred and funny but generally like his usual cheerfully hopeless self. “Nothing to worry about, carry on! Only I was juff checking the coolant conduits with Miffter Waffa, something about the new seals in the farm ring – honestly, where did we get seals from? I thought all the water in the Chaliff was froven! Ha ha ha! But I suppose you can have a farm with seals, why not indeed? Anyway Waffa wouldn’t effplain it to me after a while! Ha ha!”

  “Our Chief Engineer is a nuclear transpersion physicist,” Z-Lin felt obliged to explain to solemnly-surprised-looking Arbus So, and did her best to ignore Zeegon’s widening grin in the process. “He’s a bit … eccentric.”

  “Such has been my experience of humans in the more rarefied sciences,” Arbus So concurred. “Even so, a formidable intellectual achievement.”

  “Oh, it’s formidable alright,” Z-Lin muttered, and resumed communications. “What happened, Contro?”

  “Nothing, nothing! It’s juff that I was looking at the storage freevers while Waffa was tinkering with the conduits, and I found a box of ice cream, or at least I thought it was ice cream, but then it turned out to be rather a lot colder than I had thought it would be! Ha ha ha, anyway I think the bleeding has stopped now! But it fertainly does feel funny! Well not ‘funny’, because if it was funny I would be laughing, but then again I am laughing, so that’ff a point!”

  “Contro,” Z-Lin said, “did you lick an oxy block?”

  “Yeff!”

  “Okay,” Zeegon murmured in satisfaction, “now we can leave.”

  Z-Lin sighed. The helmsman tapped his console, the stars outside blurred, and the grey curtain of Ol’ Drabby fell over the Tramp once more.

  It was a week to Eshret, the first leg of their mind-numbingly long and tedious journey out to the edge of the galaxy. And that, Z-Lin constantly reminded herself, was if they were lucky. There was almost an infinite list of things worse than a long, boring, uneventful space voyage.

  At least this time – and, she once again reminded herself, so far – the Captain had not overruled her proposed flight plan and suggested any of his infamous ‘shortcuts’. She wasn’t sure how many more of those the crew would stand for, even with the forty-two AstroCorps-configured ables Clue technically now had on her side if it came to outright mutiny. Still, it paid to remember that every journey was composed of many small, hopefully-boring steps. And the first step was Eshret, and the offloading of their Molran passengers.

  Z-Lin, to all practical purposes the Captain of Astro Tramp 400, was left with the duty of interacting with their passengers. The Molren were a characteristically withdrawn bunch who needed very little in the way of entertainment, conversation or other pandering, which was fine with her. Their single aki’Drednanth passenger, and her two Bonshoon friends, were more interesting than the forty Molran survivalists added together.

  Dunnkirk and Maladin called themselves ‘brothers’, more often than not, but the truth was that they might have been brothers, or lovers, or friends, or pretty much anything. It was hard to be sure, and really only mattered if you were a human anyway. The term might have been used as an expression of biological fact, or as a legal consideration, or as a relic-phrase of traditional familial unity, or as a pure Bonshoon metaphor for close affection and mutual support. One thing it didn’t pay to do was to impose humanity’s ridiculously prudish sexual worldview on it. The pair were most certainly affectionate with one another. Very affectionate. And they were not human. Imposing standards and taboos on them would be about as meaningful as imposing a minimum haircut length, or telling them to only use one pair of arms.

  The human puritanism about breeding relationships was particularly odd, Z-Lin reflected after a few conversations with the Bonshooni, when one considered the willy-nilly way in which her species actually bred. Decay described human relationships as pure wilful reproductive randomness that you fight and kill and die to defend against anyone who dares suggest any sort of sanity or framework around the relentless whirlwind of copulation. And this was from a Blaran, known rebels against the more rigidly-controlled Molran evolutionary track.

  Well, it more or less summed things up as far as Clue was concerned. She was all too aware that she was in a line of work where ‘sleeping with y
our colleagues’ was a particularly terrible idea, even if she wasn’t a commanding officer. And even if the options hadn’t just been pruned down to about six candidates, each more laughable than the last, before finally dipping out of the human species altogether by way of the eejit crèche. That limited recreation to the rather tacky ‘shore leave’ option, and even then she would never have described her experiences as a ‘relentless whirlwind of copulation’, for all that a little whirlwind might have been fun from time to time.

  Still, the preoccupation with pigeonholing and judging the relationships of others – even those with whom one did not actually share a genus – was one way to pass the time during long flights, particularly flights through soft-space. Z-Lin had a feeling they would all be looking for things to talk about by the time they got to the edge. The ability to disregard humanocentric mores, however, also tended to bring with it a serene acceptance of humanocentric labels. This was fortunate, because without that serenity the Molren, Blaren and Bonshooni would probably have destroyed humanity within a week of meeting them. It was still something to keep in mind, perhaps, even if she herself had no intention of prying – sooner or later boredom would have its way.

  Clue was particularly unfond of this facet of command.

  Eshret, when they arrived, was more or less as advertised. There was no beacon or anything in orbit except for a little trio of solar-powered navigation satellites, and nothing on the ground talking to them except the steady ping of the research station. Otherwise, and aside from a few sterile bands of rocky mountains, the planet was a sandbox. The only thing that made the desert worth living in rather than the mountains was its utter stability. No tectonic activity, none of the dust storms that usually plagued sandy worlds, and apparently no complex life whatsoever. The microbial biomass was sparse and utterly neutral, the atmosphere was fed by the same tiny organisms breathing and decomposing in the sand, and more advanced orders of animal life seemed never to have evolved there at all.