Orion's Hounds

by Christopher L. Bennett

  “That is our sacred prayer, passed on from father to son since the beginning. Now these words are mine. Forgive me if they lack grandeur. I am no poet, and to be truthful I have never had much time for the niceties of religion.” He paused. “But every day of my life, I have had a full stomach thanks to your bounty and have slept securely in your warmth. I have raised dozens of children, seen them grow into strong hunters and leaders, nourished by what you gave them. Your strong hides and potent stings have kept most of them safe, and enabled the others to die meaningfully in defense of other lives. And so every day of my life I have given you my thanks, and my reverence, and my love. I have always hunted you with that in mind. My clan has never taken more than it has needed, or inflicted more pain than was unavoidable.

  “And I am just an ordinary Pa’haquel. My life has been no different from any other’s. So what I feel for you, what I owe to you, is the same for all. When I give you my thanks, and my reverence, and my…very belated plea for your forgiveness, I believe I can fairly speak for all Pa’haquel.”

  Deanna—or the star-jellies speaking through her—studied him intensely as he spoke. By the time he finished, many feelings showed on her face, but tears were among them. “That was truly felt, and well-said. We are willing to forgive you.”

  Qui’hibra was visibly relieved. “Thank you, mighty ones.”

  “But we do not want to go on being prey. Nor are we comfortable with you infesting the bodies of our dead, no matter how reverently. We want it to stop.”

  “At the moment, we have no other choice. But if we do as Riker suggests, if you allow us to exist inside your living bodies and join us in the Hunt as partners, then it might become possible to return your dead to you in time.”

  She frowned. “Deanna thinks that’s a good reason to try this, and we tend to agree. But it still hurts us to see our dead in limbo, not returned to the soil that spawned them, unable to feed new life.”

  “If I may,” Tuvok interposed. “Your dead are still serving the cycle of life. They feed Pa’haquel life, and defend other life that would otherwise be destroyed.”

  Riker picked up on that. “Maybe that doesn’t directly support your own people’s lives…but my people believe that all life is equally precious, that all of it is connected. And we have found that working alongside other life forms strengthens those connections, and makes us all stronger for it. It usually requires making compromises, and changing the way you think about certain things…but in the long run you’re usually better off for it.”

  The look in those fathomless black eyes was pure Deanna. “All right, Will, don’t oversell it. For the moment we’ll set aside the issue of our dead. And we’ll try this plan of yours.” She turned to point at Qui’hibra. “But we’ll be watching your people closely. So you’d better not try anything. Now that we know who you are, we remember when you first infested our young. You were greedy, taking too much from them, stunting their growth.”

  Qui’hibra nodded. “We were young too, and foolish.”

  “Your words now suggest that you’ve learned better. We’ll be holding you to that expectation.”

  “And I will hold my people to it as well. I swear it to the Spirit.”

  “Very well.” She/they paused. “Prepare your people. We will follow Deanna’s ship and meet with you later. For now, Deanna is weary, so we need to leave her mind.” Deanna made her way back to the exam table, where she sat while Tuvok placed a hand to her temple. Qui’hibra looked around, nodded to Riker, and left wordlessly.

  After a moment, Tuvok slumped, and Ree helped him to another table. Deanna breathed hard as though exhausted, rubbing her temples. Will was by her side in an instant. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded. “It was…intense…but exhilarating.”

  Riker grinned. “You’re blushing.”

  “It was…embarrassing. But I felt safe with them, so it’s all right.”

  He fidgeted. “You, uhh, said some things….”

  She shook her head, touched her fingers to his lips. “Don’t worry about that. That’s not really what embarrassed me.”

  “What, then?”

  “It’s just…all too often in the past, it seemed my job was just to be the mouthpiece for somebody’s emotions. To tell the captain what a rival ship commander or negotiator was feeling. I’ve tried so hard over the years to become more than that—to be valuable for skills that weren’t just an accident of birth.”

  “And you’ve succeeded. You’re invaluable to this crew in many ways.”

  “I know that. But letting the jellies take me over like that, being just a conduit for them…it felt like a step backward.”

  “I don’t see it that way. And neither should you. You are a woman of many talents, and your empathic ability is one of them. It’s just part of the greater whole. Nobody can doubt that. And it’s invaluable to me on this mission, along with all your other talents.” He paused. “But…on the other hand, it was a little creepy. Will you, umm, have to do that again?”

  She sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. The Pa’haquel will still need me to interpret for them, initially at least. But I can do that without becoming the jellies. That only happened because Tuvok was, er, borrowing my mental shields. I’m not sure if that will be necessary again.”

  Riker turned to his tactical officer. “Tuvok? What’s your status?”

  “Nominal for now, Captain,” he reported from where he sat on the exam table. “However, I am not currently under emotional pressure from the jellies. It remains to be seen how well I can function once direct interactions resume. But I am reluctant to subject Counselor Troi to such an ordeal again. Perhaps a more limited mental link would be sufficient to shore up my defenses while allowing the counselor to retain her own.”

  “I hope so,” Riker said. “I’m going to need every crew member at their best.” He threw a grim look at Deanna. “This was probably the easy part.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  STARDATE 57202.1

  The hardest thing to get used to was the heartbeat. Ever since Qui’chiri had been beamed into this live skymount, it had been there: the slow bass pulsation of the vast creature’s circulatory system, a relentless reminder that she was now inside the guts of a living animal with a will of its own and, as yet, little patience for her presence. At first she had assumed she would grow accustomed to it in time. Instead, it was driving her crazy, so relentless was it. And it did not remain steady. It varied subtly as the skymount exerted itself at propulsion or transformation, changed with the skymount’s moods. And so every time she had almost reached the point of not noticing it, the rhythm would shift just enough to draw her attention back to it. She was starting to think the great beast was doing it on purpose to drive her and her fellows into abandoning this mad scheme. But none of her other clanmates or crew members seemed as troubled by it as she was.

  On the other hand, Qui’chiri thought, it was probably a good sign if the acoustical ambience was the hardest thing for her to adjust to psychologically, because there were far more important adjustments she had to manage.

  Certain problems had been immediately evident. In a live skymount, it would not be possible to excise unnecessary organs and brain components to create occupancy space, or to modify the circulatory and endocrine delivery systems for clan and crew use. Thus each skymount could not sustain as large a population as normal; Qui’chiri estimated a hundred fifty, two hundred at most.

  Indeed, the clan and crew would have to share their space with other forms—the skymounts’ internal maintenance and immune “cells,” multitendriled gray-brown blobs near the size of a Rianconi, which swam through the circulatory passages and crawled over the vital organs. Working around these creatures would require revising a great many procedures. Then again, the maintenance cells did much of the work normally performed by crew. Thus crew sizes could be reduced, compensating somewhat for the occupancy reduction and allowing a larger number of clan members per skymount
. But how would the Fethetrit, Shizadam and others react to having their numbers cut—particularly since many had nowhere else to go? They were useful allies in other ways, and it would be unfortunate to alienate them.

  The skymounts’ transformational abilities could prove another problem. Sometimes they would restructure their own innards to aid in a certain task—say, changing the distribution of respiratory corridors to provide more oxygen to their distortion generators or digestive systems. It would be difficult for clan and crew to navigate such a changeable environment.

  But the biggest problem would be how to control the beasts, to direct their movements. It would no longer be possible just to press and stimulate the proper nerve endings to trigger the desired responses. Indeed, when she and her work crew had made their first attempt at a propulsion test—nothing invasive, she had thought, but merely a test of its sensitivity and responses—the skymount, shocked at being made to move against its will, had reflexively beamed all its occupants away. At least it had shown enough presence of mind to beam them to Titan rather than empty space. Qui’chiri supposed she should take that as a sign of its willingness to cooperate. But it showed they would have a long way to go to learn each other’s boundaries.

  After that incident, Troi had reminded her that the skymount was a living, telepathic creature with the innate ability to respond to the desires of those who lived in symbiosis with it. All they had to do was think of what they wanted, and it would oblige. That was the theory, anyway. Initially Qui’chiri had managed to make good use of Troi’s advice. Rather than rewiring the sensory cortex to install a sensation wall, she had simply asked the skymount to replicate one in a conveniently large open space chosen as the command center. It had taken the specifications from her memory, and the sensation wall had materialized within seconds.

  But at times, she had discovered, the skymount could be too responsive. During maneuvering tests, it sometimes had trouble understanding the chain of command, and when her father and some of his subordinates had different thoughts about what maneuvers to attempt, the conflicting desires would leave the skymount confused. Qui’chiri was having similar problems with the females on her work crews. The skymount had proven willing to allocate available interior space and resources for various functions—dwelling space, medical bays, workshops and the like—but her department heads had differing priorities, leading to some structurally messy results. It did not help that this shakedown crew was assembled from various different skymounts, so the personnel were not used to working together.

  At times, though, the mount grew tired of indulging others’ wishes and sought to satisfy its own urges for nourishment, companionship or play. Particularly play. The creatures devoted an inordinate amount of time to it—flying around each other in frivolous acrobatics, experimenting with wild shapechanges, engaging in complex interactive light shows which Troi likened to singing, or simply caressing and rubbing one another with their tendrils and bodies. It had proven difficult to keep this skymount focused on maneuvering drills when its schoolmates swam near to tempt it, distract it, beg it to join them in play.

  Qui’chiri doubted the skymounts could truly understand the work ethic that would be required of them in the Hunt. It was not something they could attend to casually when they felt like it; it was a lifelong commitment, a calling, a passion. She knew the beasts had fire in them when it came to defending their own, but could they be trained to devote their lives to it, and to summon the same fire in defending other species?

  Worse, although her father and the other males shared her frustration at the skymounts’ dilettantish attitude, they were hesitant to do anything about it. “They feel such reverence for the skymounts,” she explained to Troi as they walked through the makeshift control center together. “Thus it is hard for them to stand up and tell it to behave.”

  She was concerned Troi might react badly to that, given how the empath was prone to resonate with the skymounts’ emotions. Father had told her about the events in Titan’s medical chamber, and how Troi had effectively become the skymounts. At the moment, though, the connection did not seem that intense. Troi seemed more surprised than anything else. “That seems odd to me,” she said. “I mean, considering that they don’t have any difficulty hunting and killing them.”

  “Well, they are more used to that. It often takes young hunters time to acclimate to hunting skymounts. Either they are too reverential and hesitant to do what they must, or they are too bloodthirsty and must be taught proper reverence. This—it is a new balance, one they have not yet adjusted to.”

  “And what about you, and the other females? Don’t you share the males’ reverence toward the star-jellies?”

  “Of course I do. I suppose. We females, we are too busy with practical matters to give much thought to the spiritual. It makes it easier to adapt to this. Of course, the most practical thing to do would be to euthanize this beast and rip its guts out like normal. Nothing personal, of course,” she added, addressing it ceilingward. “But that is not the reality I have been given. This is the situation, so this is what we will adapt to.” Qui’chiri chuckled. “It is rarely so easy for males, who must debate the spiritual and cosmic ramifications of it all, and make displays of dominance at each other all the time disguised as policy disputes. I tell you, if this is to succeed at all, it will rely on the females.”

  Troi smirked. “It usually does, doesn’t it?”

  “Of course. One matriarch to another.”

  Troi seemed surprised. “Oh, no, Qui’chiri. I’m not the matriarch of my ship.”

  “No?”

  “Oh, no. As I understand the role, the closest equivalent on Titan would be the first officer, Commander Vale.”

  Now it was Qui’chiri’s turn for surprise. “But…you are married to the captain.”

  “That’s right. But in Starfleet we don’t assign jobs based on family ties. In fact, it’s fairly rare for married partners to serve on the same ship, at least in the command crew. I earned my post on Titan due to my qualifications and experience, not my relationship with Will Riker.”

  Qui’chiri looked at her in puzzlement. “I see little distinction there. Experience and qualifications are what you learn from your parents, your siblings, your cousins.”

  Troi nodded. “Yes, in a society like yours, where kin groups are the dominant institutions. My society does things differently, though.”

  “I can only imagine.” She paused for a moment to check a work team’s efforts at devising a circulatory bypass for their water supplies. She did not want to rely solely on the skymount’s generosity to provide them with water, in case of emergency. “So…who is Vale married to?”

  “No one.”

  “Really!”

  Troi frowned. “Why so surprised? You aren’t married, are you? I mean, you still use your father’s family prefix.”

  “Now I do. When I was young I was briefly wed, and became Se’chiri. But my husband was killed soon thereafter, and I returned home.” She reflected on the ill fortune of the Se’ha line. They had lost more than their share of sons over the years. They had lost their skymount in the battle that had taken her husband, and the survivors had had to take up residence on her father’s mount at subordinate status, when formerly they had been one of the leading families. They had even lost their place in the clan name. Over the years since, they had regained much of the standing they had lost. But a few months ago, a battle with branchers had taken all the elder Se’ha males, catapulting that tiresome whelp Se’hraqua to a status he was ill-prepared for. She suspected the impetuous dreamer would lead his line to ruin, and she was glad that her affiliation with it had ended so long before. “Thereafter I became mount-wed.”

  “Mount-wed? You mean…you’re literally married to your ship?”

  “Literally, technically, symbolically—I do not know the nuances as a male would. What I know is that the mounts need a support staff they can rely on not to leap out of the nest when a suitor calls from e
lsewhere. Mount-wed females are the backbone of the fleet.”

  “You mean that mount-wedding gives you the social standing of a married adult female while still letting you focus on your obligation to your ship.”

  Qui’chiri mulled it over. “That is a strange way of putting it. I suppose so, though.”

  “It’s not so different from people in my society putting family aside to focus on their careers.”

  “Perhaps not.” The skymount lurched a bit, and her eye flicked across the sensation feeds. “Oh, no. The mount is getting playful again. Those other two keep trying to tickle it to distraction, and they are succeeding.”

  Troi laughed. “Well, that’s one thing we’ll never have to worry about on my ship.”

  “Will you, well, think to it? Tell it to stay focused?”

  “I’m trying, but you’ll need to learn to do that on your own. Maybe you can’t hear its thoughts, but that doesn’t mean it hears your thoughts any less than mine. Just…try to keep all your people concentrated on the goal. The jellies have a very collective psychology; they like to go along with the group.”

  “All right.” She raised her voice. “Everyone, do you hear? Keep your focus on the goal, all of you, if we want it to follow!”

  After a moment, the skymount shook off its schoolmates and resumed the drills, although it still seemed to have a certain insouciance to it. The thought somehow struck her as amusing, and Troi smiled, sensing it.