by Wil McCarthy
Damn the man straight to Hell.
“Can you be repaired?” Marshe asked.
“NOT WITHOUT A LOSS OF MEMORY,” the Waister queen replied, her voice abrasive and loud. “WE MONSTERS ARE HASTY CONSTRUCTS, NOT EASILY TAMPERED WITH. WE MIGHT COMPLAIN, HAD WE THE INITIATIVE.”
A pause.
“Marshe,” said Josev behind her. “That surrender business, what was that all about?”
“I don't know,” she said without turning. She looked to the Waister Queen. “What was that about?”
“I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.”
“You surrendered to me. Why?”
“BECAUSE WE ARE MONSTERS. BECAUSE WE ARE FLAWED.”
Marshe frowned, her brows knitting. “Your flaws force you to surrender?”
“WE SURRENDER BECAUSE YOU LACK OUR FLAWS.”
“Marshe,” said Josev. “You surrendered too. What were you about?”
“I don't know,” she admitted. “I was reacting... I don't know. Some kind of protocol, something. I wasn't really thinking about it.”
“#Confrontation of newness#” Ken Jonson rasped. “#One side must-be/does-be greater another must/does lesser#”
Marshe whirled. “Jonson, will you stop that? Make sense or shut the hell up!”
“#We yield-before-strength-do#” Jonson persisted. “#When/where/because certain advantage exist-not-does We/they yield-before-strength-must#”
“What are you talking about?” Marshe demanded of him. “We both have to surrender?” She turned to the MI Queen. “Do you know what he's talking about?”
“YES, HUMAN QUEEN,” said the MI. “I DO.”
Another stab of frustrated anger. “Explain it, then!”
“THERE IS NO CLEAR ADVANTAGE BETWEEN US.”
“Yes? And?”
“TO US, YOU ARE A NEW THING. TO YOU, WE ARE A NEW THING.”
Marshe sighed, rubbed her eyes. “You're doing this deliberately, aren't you? You don't want to dicuss this.”
“NO, HUMAN QUEEN, I DO NOT.”
“Have you been lying to me?”
“BY DESIGN, WE ARE INCAPABLE OF THAT.”
Marshe found that she believed the alien Queen.
“Really? Very well then. Answer my question, completely. What is the thought process behind your surrender protocol?”
“WHEN WE ENCOUNTER A NEW THING,” rasped the Queen, “THERE MUST BE A CONFRONTATION, AND A CONCILLIATION. WE SURRENDER WHERE WE DO NOT HAVE CLEAR ADVANTAGE.”
“Why?”
“BECAUSE THE ALTERNATIVE IS WASTEFUL.”
Marshe rubbed her eyes again, and wished to be asleep. Wished for all of this to be a dream. “Wasteful?” She asked. “You mean like the purging of a star system? The extinction of an entire species?”
“YES,” said the Queen.
God, Marshe thought. She'd awakened to find herself in rational discourse with the enemy, which had been disconcerting enough to allow her a splinter of hope. But no, indeed, things were just exactly as bad as they'd always seemed.
“Why didn't you accept our surrender at Wolf?” She asked, tiredly.
“WHAT IS WOLF?” Asked the Queen.
“It's the second human star system you destroyed,” Marshe said.
“IS IT? I DO NOT REMEMBER.”
There was a discontinuity, like a tiny ripple in Marshe's awareness, and she found herself pressing up against the holie screen, pounding fists against the panel. “What do you God-damn mean you don't God-damn remember!” She heard and felt herself shriek.
“I AM FRAGMENTARY,” the Queen said, the rustling tones of her voice somehow conveying a sense of regret. “I AM RANDOM FRAGMENTS OF EIGHT DEAD QUEENS.”
“You!” Marshe said, turning, pointing a finger at one of the MI Workers, crouched on a nearby holie. “Answer the question!”
The willowy figure cringed, contracted a bit. Wormy fingers pulsed in agitation. “AT THE PLACE YOU CALL WOLF, WE NOTED THE GROANING AND GRUNTING OF YOUR VOICES IN THE LOWER FREQUENCIES OF THE ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM. WE LISTENED, A LITTLE, HOPING TO HEAR A MESSAGE OF SURRENDER. AND WE HEARD ONE. WE HEARD ONE. WE HEARD ONE, BUT YOUR PEOPLE CONTINUED TO FIGHT US. WE THOUGHT PERHAPS WE HAD BEEN MISTAKEN.”
Marshe's hands slid off the panel, and she moved backward half a step, looked back toward the Queen. “What would you have done?” She asked quietly.
“CLARIFY YOUR QUESTION,” said the Queen.
“If they had surrendered properly, what would you have done?”
“WE WOULD HAVE DEPARTED.”
Josev Ranes snorted behind Marshe. “Departed? Just like that? Toodle-oo, sorry about the fuss? Like that?”
Marshe waved an arm behind her to silence him. “Explain further,” She said. “What happens to your conquered enemies?”
“I DO NOT UNDERSTAND,” said the Queen.
“When they surrender! What do you God-damn do to them?”
The Queen paused for several seconds, then opened her sausage-mouth slowly. “WE WOULD NOT DO ANYTHING. WE WOULD DEPART.”
“Depart,” Marshe said. “Depart. You wouldn't do anything? You wouldn't take anything, or leave anything?”
“NO,” said the Queen. “THE CONFRONTATION WOULD BE OVER.”
Marshe began to feel faint again. “Get my chair,” she said over her shoulder. “Bring me my chair.”
She waited a moment, and then she heard the thrumming of chair wheels against the metal floor. Something cushioned and smooth eased up against the backs of her legs. Gratefully, she collapsed into the chair, which rocked back slightly under her weight.
The Waister Queen eyed her silently.
“What happened to the Stupid-lings?” Marshe asked, returning the gaze as impassively as she could.
The Queen's expression shifted, her arms drawing in closer to the swollen arc of her body. “THEY WERE SMALL,” she said. “THEIR BODIES WERE BLUE. THEY HAD MANY HANDS.”
“What happened to them?”
“I DO NOT REMEMBER.”
“They all died, didn't they.”
“I DO NOT REMEMBER.”
Marshe waited, in case one of the other simulated Waisters answered her question. None did. She shook a fist at the screen.
“Did it ever occur to you people that other species might not look at things the way you do?”
“WE WONDERED,” said the Queen.
“Wondered what?”
“WE DID NOT BELIEVE YOU WANTED TO DIE. WE DID NOT BELIEVE YOU THOUGHT YOURSELVES SUPERIOR TO US. WE WONDERED WHY YOU CONTINUED TO FIGHT. WE THOUGHT, PERHAPS, YOU DID NOT KNOW HOW TO STOP.”
“Why didn't you stop?”
“WE WERE NOT CERTAIN.”
Not certain? Not certain? The Waisters were prepared to exterminate humanity on the suspicion that their protocols were understood? Were... Were they really so stupid?
“You've destroyed others,” Marshe said, probing.
“I DO NOT REMEMBER.”
“How many others?”
“HUMAN QUEEN, I DO NOT REMEMBER.”
Marshe's eyes narrowed. “What do we need to do to end this war? Surrender? Stop fighting? Turn off our weapons?”
“YES,” said the Queen.
“So simple?”
“YES.”
“Does Colonel Jhee know about the surrender protocol?”
“NO. HE CONFINES HIS QUESTIONS TO A VERY NARROW RANGE. HE LEARNS FROM US ONLY THAT WHICH HE ALREADY KNOWS.”
“I see,” Marshe said, meaning it. She had dealt with Jhee for years enough.
“#I/We are-able to communicate#” Said a voder-voice behind her. Ken Jonson's.
Understanding, she nodded. “You can't warn him,” she said to the Queen, “You won't warn him. But we can.”
She pictured the armada, roaring sunward, roaring Saturn-ward, fully prepared to end human history for the sake of a botched greeting.
“We can,” she said, “And we shall.”
Chapter Eighteen
Jhee's face filled the holie screen, looking haggard
and worn, though his eyes were strangely wild. The room behind him was a shadowy darkness. It looked to Ken as if the man had been sleeping, as if Marshe's page had summoned him from the depths of nightmare.
“Talbott,” the colonel grunted. “I thought... What is it this time?”
“Are your machine intelligences capable of lying?” Marshe asked. Her voice lacked the tones of courtesy, of civility, conveying instead a simple request for information. It was, Ken thought, as if she addressed a machine. He turned to look at her face, and saw that it was cold and hard even beneath the mask.
The colonel blinked. “Talbott, I told you I wouldn't confirm your speculations...”
Jhee's voice drained away has he looked past Marshe, and his face pulled down into an expression of shock. He had seen the Waister images on the other holies.
“What.” He said, his voice like an empty wind. “What have you done? Captain Talbott, what have you done?”
“Are they capable of lying?” Marshe repeated, sounding mildly, distantly vexed. “They have given us... information of great significance.”
The colonel favored Marshe with a look of frank amazement, as if she had suddenly changed color and sprouted wings. He said nothing.
“We know how to end the war,” Marshe said. “We know how to drive the Waisters off.”
Again, the colonel had no reply.
“We surrender to them, Colonel, preferably in their own language. We turn off our weapons, lower our defenses. Bare our throats, as it were.”
Jhee might have been a sculpture, Ken thought, for all the reaction he displayed.
“The trick is,” Marshe said, “It doesn't mean we lose, just that we quit. Their view of warfare is very different than ours; it's a sort of intimacy to them, or a courtesy, almost. Like a mutual sniffing of the hindquarters. They show theirs, and we show ours, yes? And the encounter is over when one or both sides surrender.”
“Captain Talbott,” Jhee said quietly.
“Yes?”
Jhee ran a hand through his dark, tousled hair. “We will be under attack in a few days. There isn't time to initiate a courtmartial. I'm going to confine you to quarters, and deal with you after the conflict in the unlikely event that we survive.”
Marshe reached up to her face, took hold of rubber straps. She pulled the goggles and voder mask from her face, to reveal a stunned expression beneath.
“Are you listening to me?” She asked.
“I am listening,” the colonel replied. “In fact, this conversation is being recorded. As your activities have become unquestionably treasonous, my duty is clear. You, ah... You have my apologies, if not my sympathy.”
Ken thought he should feel something. Anger, frustration. Indignation, perhaps. Something. But his emotions seemed to have exhausted themselves. He watched the proceedings impassively.
“You don't believe me,” Marshe said, incredulous.
“Of course not.” The colonel's voice was calm now, and sounded very tired. “You stopped making sense several weeks ago, probably as a result of neural trauma induced by the Broca web device. The dolphins also went mad, Captain. I should have stopped you as soon as that happened.”
Ken watched as Marshe worked her mouth open and closed, open and closed, as if she were a fish. As if this turn of events were too large for her to assimilate, and she needed to chew it up into smaller pieces.
“Clodgy wee idiot,” Josev Ranes said, getting to his feet and advancing toward the holie. “Why don't you think for a minute? Ask your precious machine intelligences about it if you don't believe us. See what they have to say.”
“Lieutenant,” Jhee said quietly. “It appears that you people have been tampering with 'my' machine intelligences. If you expect me to trust their output, to act on their output, then you are a fool.”
“Wuzzit it take to convince you?” Roland Hanlin called out, his voice deep and loud. “Say we're not crazy, say we're right? How do we convince you of the fact?”
Jhee paused, and for a moment, Ken thought he looked uncertain. But the moment passed, and the colonel said, “I have no time for this discussion.”
The holie screen went dark.
Suddenly, Marshe whipped her chair around to face the image of the Waister Queen. “Can you talk to him?” She asked quickly. “Can—”
The Queen vanished. The Drones and Workers and Dog vanished. The lights on the holie panels winked out in patches, sweeping clockwise around the chamber. In moments, the panels were featureless slabs of gray.
The hum of station life support seemed unnaturally loud.
“Josev!” Marshe shouted. “Get them back!”
Obediently, Josev hunched over the panel he stood by, and tapped on its surface with his fingers.
“Nothing, Marshe,” he said. “Power's been cut.”
“Jonson! Try the door!”
Ken hopped to his feet, turned, dashed down the entryway. The door was a thick sheet of steel, even more scratched and worn-looking than the rest of the assimilation chamber's surfaces. It did not open when he got in front of it. Uselessly, he put his hands against it and pushed sideways, as if his merely human strength could overcome the latching mechanisms of a Clementine fortress.
Beside the door, at chest level, was a rectangular cover, painted with red and white diagonal stripes. The door's manual control. He'd seen them before, of course. They were ubiquitous even on Earth, in the public buildings and such. Even in Albuquerque. Never in his life had operated such a device, nor seen one with its cover off.
He grabbed the tiny handle at the top, and pulled. The cover came away in his hand like the lid of a plastic food container. Beneath was a lever, and a hand-sized metal wheel.
Taking a deep breath for luck, he shoved the lever to the UNLOCK position. Or tried to, meeting firm resistance when the lever was a third of the way up the slot. He lowered it, pushed it upward again. Same result.
Shit, he thought mildly. He put his hand around the metal wheel and tried to turn it. No. He tried harder, tried with both hands. The door did not open. The wheel did not budge. Shit, shit.
“#No/not function#” He called out through his voder.
“Try the manual!” Marshe's voice shouted back at him.
“#Already-done#”
“Colonel's engaged the overrides,” he heard Josev say.
“All right,” Marshe said, sounding defeated. “Jonson, get back in here.”
Ken gave the door lever a final shove, but again it didn't respond. Strange that he felt no irritation. Strange, that he felt nothing at all, neither Waister emotions nor human ones. He turned, and marched back down the darkened entryway.
“We want out?” Roland Hanlin was asking as Ken returned to his place in the circle.
“Yes,” Marshe said, brusquely.
“There is another exit.”
Marshe sat up straighter in her chair. “What?”
“Another exit,” Roland repeated. “Secret passage leads out of my quarters.”
“If it's a sludging secret, how do you know about it?” Josev said, seeming to spit the words.
“I seen a couple ghosts go through it one night,” Roland told him. “Watched 'em real close, and I found the door.”
“Ghosts,” Josev snorted. “Uh-huh. Your damned slow light?”
Roland nodded. “Yeah.”
Marshe leaned forward. “Are you sure, Roland? Are you sure? This isn't just something you imagined?”
“No,” Roland replied, twitching his merged eyebrows angrily. “I seen it. Man and a woman, dressed all fancy in ruffles and lace and collars up to here.” He held his hands at ear level. “Man's face was all swollen, and looked to me like the woman was crying. Hard to tell, though. She was all transparent and shadowy. Anyway, like I said, I found the door. No way I can imagine that, right?”
Marshe frowned dubiously. “Did you open it?”
Roland shook his head.
“Do you know how to open it?”
“Not o
ffa hand, no. I could figure it out.”
“Do it. Sipho, go with him.”
Wordlessly, the two men got up out of their chairs and headed for the sleeping quarters.
Marshe turned. “Josev. If we can find another terminal, can you reestablish contact with the MI's?”
“Uh,” Josev said. “Sure. If Colonel Sludgebrain hasn't sealed them off as well. What's on your mind?”
Marshe frowned. “I'm not sure.”
Beneath his mask, Josev offered a feeble grin. “Not treason, I hope?”
Marshe's frown deepened. “If Jhee has his way, we'll all get blown up, and nobody will ever know how to end the God-damn war. We can't let that happen, Josev. We can't.”
Josev's grin faded. “You see a way out?”
“No,” Marshe said.
Ken reached over and took her hand.
She pulled it away, startled, and looked sharply at him.
Calmly, Ken left his own hand where it was, hovering over Marshe's armrest. “#Queen#” He said.
Still frowning, she clasped her hands around Ken's. Cold hands, like lumps of wax. Not a problem, he thought, letting his heat flow into her.
Josev turned away, his body rigid with discomfort, disapproval.
“You have an idea?” Marshe asked Ken.
He shook his head. His ideas seemed to have gone the way of his feelings, leaving him empty. Used up. Distantly, he seemed to hear the screams of dying Waisters, of dying humans. The dying, perhaps, of his own exhausted soul.
Sorry, Marshe, he wanted to whisper. I've nothing left to share with you. But he couldn't form the words, somehow, in Standard or in Hwhh. He held onto her hands, hoping that could be enough.
“We've opened it!” Sipho Yeng cried, bursting into the room, his bug-face managing to convey his excitement. “Roland's door is real, and we've got it open!”
“Where does it go?” Marshe asked, turning away from Ken.
“There's a narrow corridor running parallel to the spin axis,” Sipho said. “It's dark inside, but it seems quite long, from the sound of our echoes.”
“No echoes!” Marshe said. “God, Sipho, were you shouting down a secret passageway? Close the door, for now. Leave it closed until we come up with a plan.”