Orion's Hounds

by Christopher L. Bennett

  She smiled, nodding. “Aye, sir.

  The ship shook as the tractor beams engaged, and the stars on the viewscreen began scrolling upward as Lavena whirled around the spinner. “Lock the viewer on the captive jelly,” Riker ordered. The view changed to an angle across the wide expanse of the spinner’s surface, stars wheeling behind it. The enfolding of the jelly began to slow as the tractor beam pulled it back outward. Before long, the enfolded portion began to unroll.

  But it was too slow. The creature resisted, struggled to hold onto its prey. “The sail is being held together magnetically,” Jaza reported.

  “Is there a way to demagnetize it?”

  “If we heat the material enough, it should reach the Curie point and become demagnetized.”

  “Doesn’t it absorb energy, though?”

  “Absorbing energy means heating up. It must have limits on how fast it can shunt the heat away, especially with a portion clumped so densely.”

  “All right. Phasers to wide beam, thermal effect. Fire on the area around the jelly.” A cone of phaser energy engulfed the clump of sail. Soon, it began to lose its grip and unroll. Before much longer, the star-jelly was released, flying off on a tangent. “Disengage tractor! Intercept that jelly, use the tractor to bring it under control. Then let’s all get the hell away from these things.”

  Mercifully, there had been no fatalities in the battle, though Deanna and many of the Pa’haquel had needed Dr. Ree’s ministrations and two of the star-jellies had been seriously wounded. Ree had had no idea how to treat them, but the jellies had taken care of it, using their replication abilities to repair the damage to their schoolmates. It was a time- and energy-consuming process, and they had now towed their mates inward to feed on the star’s light.

  Now Deanna stood up from the exam table and stretched, glad to be healed. Looking around sickbay at the Pa’haquel, though, she realized the damage to the alliance would be much harder to heal.

  “It was a worthy experiment,” Qui’hibra said to Riker. “And it was a privilege to commune with the skymounts for a time. But it is not in their nature to hunt. Their fear overtakes them in battle, and then it overtakes us, rendering us useless.”

  “Doctor,” Riker said, “is there a way to block the effect of the star-jellies’ hormones?”

  Ree shock his elongated head, a humanoid gesture he had learned to mimic. “Not without disrupting the Pa’haquel’s own endocrine systems. The two species’ hormone receptors are too isomorphic. Suppressing the effects of the jellies’ hormones would mean suppressing many of the Pa’haquel’s innate emotional responses and behavioral instincts. They would be unable to function without, say, the fight-or-flight response or the desire to mate.”

  “Then there is no choice,” Qui’hibra said. “The experiment is over. You will return us to our fleet, Riker.”

  “Where you’ll do what?” Deanna countered, striding forward to confront him. “Try to go back to the old ways? Chase after star-jellies that you can no longer catch?”

  “That is exactly what we should do,” Se’hraqua interjected from his bed. “We will find new ways to take the prey. The Spirit is challenging us, and we will rise to the challenge and restore the balance.”

  “Hunter!” Qui’hibra barked, silencing him. The elder then turned back to Troi and Riker. “We will return to our fleet and regroup. We will assess other options. But this option is a failure. It is out of balance, and without balance there is no survival. We must find some other way. At the very least, we can still hunt other starbeasts with the skymounts we have left. So long as the livemounts agree not to try to liberate their dead.”

  “And how long will that last?” she asked. “Another few generations, maybe, but with ever-diminishing numbers. What then?”

  “Do you have an alternative suggestion?”

  “I’m still not convinced the alliance was a failure. You and the jellies were getting along very well after a few false starts.”

  “Only when we were not in combat. They have proven that they cannot handle that.”

  “Tell that to the thousands of Pa’haquel they’ve killed.”

  “They were in no danger from us—you saw to that. They can defend their own when they must, but when faced with danger they flee. This was an easy hunt, and they could not even rise to it.”

  “You pushed them into it before they were ready, Qui’hibra. You tried to fight against their emotions rather than working with them, accepting those emotions and directing them constructively.” She drove the point in forcefully, aggressively, knowing he would respect that, knowing she had to push it through his tough hide. “Because you were too proud to tolerate being made to feel afraid and weak. You pride yourself so much on this cold, stalwart image. The great hunter, carved from stone, never bending, never losing control. So you tried to force your will on the jellies and you ended up spooking the herd. You fought so hard against a perceived loss of self-control that you lost control of the situation.” He glared at her coldly—but he was listening.

  So she went on. “Sometimes, Qui’hibra, yielding is necessary. Part of being strong is knowing when to trust in others’ strength, to place yourself in their hands. It’s part of any healthy relationship. A balanced relationship.”

  The elder remained silent for a moment, then spoke decisively. “We will return to our fleet and regroup. However, you and the skymounts may come with us, and we will explore the possibility of continuing the alliance, along with other options. But if you wish this alliance to resume, you must find a way for the skymounts to prove themselves equal to the Hunt.”

  Deanna exchanged an uneasy look with Will. Even if she could help the star-jellies meet Qui’hibra’s requirements…was that really something she could forgive herself for doing to them?

  Orilly Malar was so slow to answer her door that Jaza wondered if he would have to pull rank. But eventually the door slid open, and the Irriol looked up at him with her big, sad blue eyes. “Hello, Commander. What can I do for you?”

  “May I come in?” Wordlessly, she acquiesced. When the door had shut behind him, he got right to the point. “Cadet, I’ve gotten stalled in my investigation of star-jelly evolution. I could use the help of a good exobiologist. Any idea where I could find one?”

  “I am a fairly good exobiologist,” she said matter-offactly. “But I’m not a good security risk. Perhaps you should try someone else.”

  “Come on, Malar. You’re not going to be made to attack me or anything. The star-jellies have no incentive to push you into that.”

  “No—but what if I learned something that they needed to know? Something that could further disrupt the state of affairs in the Gum Nebula, something the captain would not want the jellies to know?”

  “I doubt there’s anything in this line of research that could be harmful. If anything, it could be helpful to our current efforts. I’m trying to learn more, if I can, about how they were genetically modified eight million years ago. About whether it was done by someone else or by themselves. And about who else could’ve done it, and why. I keep thinking: back then, maybe five to ten million years ago, the main wave front of star formation in the Orion Arm would have been passing through what’s now Federation space. Our home region would’ve been much like this region is today. It stands to reason that worlds there would’ve faced the same threat from cosmozoans. And it stands to reason that some forerunner of the Pa’haquel would’ve been waging this battle then. What if the jellies were engineered as part of that effort? What if they were used as ships for battling cosmozoans, and have instincts and abilities that they no longer remember they have? If there were some way of demonstrating that, it could help convince the Pa’haquel to try the alliance again.”

  Orilly pondered his words, then spoke uncertainly. “Pardon me for saying so, sir…but it can be unwise to start with a desired conclusion and search for evidence to confirm it.”

  “Yes, I know, science should never have an agenda. Personally I’l
l be happy either way—I just want to find some answers. I hate not knowing. But I’ve run out of places to look for evidence. I’ve had the computer searching through all our records, looking for scientific findings that might turn out to be connected to the star-jellies. Unexplained remains that could be star-jelly skeletons. Geological formations that were once their breeding pools. Ideally maybe the destroyed remains of a cosmozoan planet-killer with scars bearing the signature of star-jelly stings. But I’ve found nothing definite, nothing more than vaguely suggestive. And even that’s probably just my own agenda making me read things into the data.”

  Orilly tilted her head, flexing her fingers thoughtfully. “It’s a big galaxy, sir. And the star-jellies can travel very far. The odds are that they originated somewhere else entirely.”

  “I know. It’s just frustrating not to have the answers. The best I can do is send what I’ve learned back to Starfleet, and maybe someday, some ship exploring another part of the galaxy will find more answers. But I might be long gone by then. And it’ll always feel like I missed something…like I failed to know the star-jellies as well as I wished to.”

  “Evolutionary history is always fragmentary,” Orilly said after a contemplative moment. “So much of the past is simply not preserved. So much of what we conclude is extrapolation and large-scale patterns, and many of the specific causes and pivotal events will never be filled in.”

  “And that doesn’t bother you?”

  “No,” she said. “My interest in life-forms…is not about their dead ancestors, but about the living beings in the here and now. I wish to know them, to commune with them, to sense their part in the gestalt of nature, and…and maybe feel a connection with them.” She was quiet for a moment, but he sensed she wasn’t finished. “A connection like I felt with the star-jellies. That was…” She trailed off. “Anyway, that is why I took up exobiology. Why I hoped I could make a career of it. To know life as it is, not as it was.”

  Jaza studied her. “In other words,” he suggested, “what matters about a being is not what she did in the past…but what she does in the present, and in the future.”

  She stared at him. “That…is not quite what I meant.”

  “Maybe it should’ve been.”

  “But…what can I do in the present and future to atone for—”

  “Ah!” He held up a hand. “As it is, not as it was.”

  She acquiesced. “What can I do in the present and future?”

  Jaza smiled. “Well, you’ve asked the question. That’s always the best place to start.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  CLAN AQ’TRI’HHE LEAD SKYMOUNT, STARDATE 57211.9

  This time, Qui’hibra had anticipated that the Conclave’s vote would not go his way. Not only had Riker’s plan apparently failed, but the membership of this Conclave was somewhat different from the first; they had moved closer to the heart of the starbirth zone, where there were more fleet-clans in range to join. The newcomers had not been swayed by his or Riker’s arguments at the previous session—and the vote there had been narrow even with that persuasion. Additionally, there was the information Oderi had brought him, courtesy of her fellow Rianconi, who were ubiquitous, often ignored and always listening. “Hunter Se’hraqua has been speaking to many elders and family heads since our return, Elder,” she had told him not long before the Conclave assembled. “Most are those who voted with us the last time. He has been trying to persuade them to approve aggressive action against Titan.”

  Qui’hibra was aware of the proposal to take Titan’s sensor information by force. Still, he had said to her, “I know he is discontented, but I question whether he would act against his own elder so overtly. It would undermine what little status he has left.”

  “Unless he had the backing of another elder, sir. He has been seen repeatedly with Elder Aq’hareq.” Aq’hareq! A hunter so stubborn, tough and sour that Death itself had taken a taste and spit out the rest more than once. A fierce traditionalist who would never accept any of Riker’s compromises. If he was guiding Se’hraqua, taking the youth’s undeniable passion and eloquence and giving it focus, then there was indeed cause for concern.

  So once the Conclave convened, it came as no surprise when Aq’hareq proposed aggressive action and Se’hraqua rose to second it. “We have been told,” the youth said, “that the skymounts’ new knowledge of our existence, their new ability to sweep us from our mounts and leave us to die in space, means that we must abandon the Hunt. That we must turn our backs on millennia of tradition, on the one act that defines who we are as a people. I do not accept this!” Aq’hareq could have been making this case himself, but he was apparently content to use Se’hraqua as his stalking-horse. After all, everyone already knew where he would stand, so for him to say it would be unnecessary. It would carry more weight from a new quarter, especially from one of Qui’hibra’s own juniors, for that would undermine his position.

  “These new developments,” Se’hraqua went on, “are simply a new challenge to be overcome. Yes, they increase the danger of the Hunt. But we are Pa’haquel! Do we fear danger? Do we fear death? No! It is the danger that gives the Hunt meaning! It is by risking our own lives that we earn the right to take other lives, by dying that we repay the Spirit for letting us kill. Thus is the holy balance preserved.”

  “Do you say we were not in balance before?” Qui’hibra challenged. “We faced risk there as well. Even though the skymounts did not attack us, they could flee, or their armor could prove too strong. And failure in the Hunt could bring death.” Even as he said it, though, it sounded hollow. The truth was, the Pa’haquel had held an unfair advantage over the skymounts. As a pragmatist, he had been satisfied with that; but a part of him had never truly accepted the rationalizations he made now, feeling that their advantage belied their claims of reverence toward the skymounts. On some level he had to wonder if Se’hraqua was right, if facing the mounts in a truly fair battle would do them more honor. He could tell that his voice was not convincing, for he was no politician.

  “Certainly that was so once,” Se’hraqua countered, surprising Qui’hibra with his diplomacy. Aq’hareq had coached him well. “But perhaps we have grown too skilled, too experienced. It has become too easy to kill skymounts, and we have grown complacent. That is why the Spirit sent us this challenge.”

  “We have no shortage of challenges, as any survivor of the Hounding can tell you.” That, at least, he could say with conviction, and it reminded him of why battling livemounts able to defend themselves was not a practical course. “If we throw away too many lives, lose too many mounts in trying to take new ones, then we will be weakened for the other hunts, less able to keep the chaos at bay.”

  “Only if we are as weak and unsuccessful as you assume, Elder. If we rise to this challenge, yes, we will lose hunters and mounts, but the ones that survive will be stronger and fiercer than before. We will be hardened by the fire, and we will not have to suffer losses as severe as we sustained in the recent Hounding and brancher battle.”

  It was a good strategy, Qui’hibra realized: to capitalize on the elders’ loss and pain, to promise them that it would not have to come again. But it also opened a weakness which Qui’hibra was quick to exploit. “How dare you say that all those brave hunters were lost due to weakness and complacency? They fell only because the prey was mighty.”

  “Or because there were too few of them,” said Aq’hareq. “Where were you for the Hounding, Qui’hibra?”

  “I tried to reach it in time!” he shot back, furious. “We had taken too many losses. I was trying to rebuild our forces for the Hounding, but we were impeded.”

  “By the interference of Titan!” Se’hraqua cried. “A ship which you could have destroyed easily. Many of us pleaded with you to do so, Elder. Our own beloved matriarch advised you to destroy them! Instead you dallied with them and indulged them, and we were cheated of our chance for glory in the Hounding!”

  “Is this true, Matriarch Qui’chiri?” Aq’
hareq asked cagily—a question he would not have asked had he not already known the answer.

  Qui’chiri had no choice. She could not lie to a venerable elder, and Qui’hibra would not forgive her if she did. “I did advise Titan’s destruction, Elder.” A murmur rippled through the chamber. “But we could not have reached the Hounding in time even without Titan’s involvement, and any claim to the contrary is a lie!” The murmur grew louder, but fortunately Qui’chiri spoke over it rather than letting the Conclave grow distracted by the accusation. “And I now see that destroying Titan would have been unwise! They did not intend what happened, and they are our best chance to remedy it.”

  “Indeed they are,” came Aq’hareq’s smug reply. “And we would not want their ship destroyed now—for only by taking it intact can we retrieve the knowledge we need from its computers, or extract it from its crew.” A cruel laugh ran through the Conclave at the thought of how such extractions might be performed.

  “The knowledge we need to do what?” Qui’hibra countered. “To resume hunting skymounts, to put everything back the way it was? That is a naïve hope. I understand the desire to go back to the ways we are used to. I share it. Tradition brings us comfort and certainty, and it is always easier to cling to it than to pursue change. But Riker was right—that which does not adapt does not survive. The balance has changed, and we cannot restore it by trying to force it backward. We must find a new solution.”

  “What solution?” asked Se’hraqua. “To fight alongside live skymounts? That has been tried and failed. As we all knew it would, for it is out of balance. Our life needs and theirs must compete; for one to live, the other must die. That is the way of the Spirit, the way of life.”