by Erica Rue
“Our home was destroyed. We are at an even greater disadvantage than before! Ficaran guns do not leave Ficaran hands.”
Dione could see this was spiraling fast, but Professor Oberon was there, ready to redirect them. “Victoria, what do you propose then, in terms of working together?”
“I had hoped their cavalry might be able to help, since I’ve heard how effective maximutes are against these Vens, but now I doubt that their cavalry is still alive. They have a fortified position, and we can reasonably expect the Vens to attack there next. It’s the next opportunity to defeat the demons.”
“But what are you offering, if not your weapons?” Benjamin said.
“I never said we wouldn’t offer weapons, only that the guns stay in Ficaran hands.”
“You’re suggesting that I allow armed Ficaran soldiers inside the walls?” Benjamin laughed. “That’s absurd.”
“I’m suggesting an alliance,” she said.
“More like a coup,” Benjamin said.
“Benjamin, all we’ve ever wanted is our freedom.”
“That’s why you robbed our supply Hubs and spilled Aratian blood?”
“Michael is the one who starved the dog and taught it to bite. Before the embargo, we lived in relative peace.”
Benjamin said nothing to this. “If you betray us, we will show no mercy. How many armed men?”
“Sixty armed men and women. We have many wounded.”
“I hardly know whether to be glad or concerned to accept so few armed Ficarans to my settlement.”
“Sixty soldiers, but there’s another condition,” Victoria said.
“A condition? Please, tell me what else besides access to the settlement you could possibly want.”
“I want you to stop the Matching.” Victoria did not smile as she stared him down. Dione felt Lithia tense next to her.
Benjamin laughed. “You must be joking! You know we’ll never agree to that. Half the reason I came here is because we need to keep our losses low on both sides to preserve our genetic diversity.”
Victoria wrinkled her nose in disgust. “The Matching is the worst kind of crime. Girls groomed for child bearing, boys and men forced into bonds they do not wish to honor. All for a madman’s plan for Kepos.”
“You may put no stock in the Farmer’s vision, but all of the texts are quite clear about the dangers of a small population. One day, the Matching will no longer be necessary, but until that day comes, Aratians will perform their sacred duty in the Matching. It would be barbaric to let our people suffer from genetic diseases that we can prevent.”
“Then give them a choice. Instead of having our smugglers handle those wishing to flee, let your people choose. There will be pressure from parents and society, but do not condemn those who are ill-suited to be sheep to your flock.”
“You’ll gladly take the wolves, I’m sure,” Benjamin said. He was silent for some time, deep in thought. Dione thought it was a good sign until he spoke again.
“How much ammunition do you have left?” Benjamin asked.
“Enough,” Victoria said, but even Dione could tell she had answered too quickly.
“The raids and the demon attacks must have significantly drained your supplies. Do you still have no way of making more?”
Dione sensed where he was going with this, and Victoria would not like it. The professor took a breath, like he was about to interject, but Victoria answered.
“Even if I send armed men to the Vale Temple, I will not leave my own defenseless. We will have bullets enough to defend ourselves if you’re stupid enough to attack us after the Vens are defeated. Don’t lose sight of the main threat.”
“I think you’d be wise to heed your own advice,” Benjamin said. “This whole negotiation has felt more like blackmail than an alliance.”
“I’m not interested in how you feel. I want to know, can we come to an arrangement?”
Victoria leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. Benjamin continued to sit in silence, making a show of thinking. His contemplation worried Dione. Each was still looking for weaknesses in the other to exploit. They kept trying to negotiate what things would be like after the Vens were taken care of. Both believed there would be an after.
Time was running short, and she was beginning to doubt if two people with such different worldviews could ever come to an agreement, even with a threat as compelling as the Vens. The Vens could be at the Vale Temple as early as that evening, and they needed to make plans, alliance or not.
28. BEL
Bel rolled her eyes. She didn’t have time to babysit some Aratian. “This way to the demon.”
“They’re not demons, are they?” Moira said.
Bel looked at her. Was this a test? Was Moira looking for a reason to cause problems? “No, they’re not.”
“What are they?”
“Aliens. From a distant part of the galaxy.”
“How do you know this?”
Bel was tired of the Ficaran and Aratian ignorance. She was going to call an alien an alien, and a liar a liar.
“The Farmer lied to all of you. He brought your people here, oppressed them, and made up a bunch of crap for you to believe in. Humans have our own corner of the galaxy out there, and this planet is on the edge of it.”
Moira didn’t look surprised. “How many worlds?”
“A lot,” Bel said. Moira hadn’t even blinked. “You’re taking this well.”
“The Farmer left a lot of gaps in his story. Many of us have little reason to want to believe it, and you’d be amazed how easy it is to just… stop.”
“Are you saying that most Aratians don’t believe in the story about the Farmer?”
“No, not most. But we exist. Most people keep quiet about it.”
“So Michael doesn’t find out.”
“Yes, though he knows about my own doubts. I’m just lucky enough to be indispensable to him.”
That was unexpected. If people like Brian and Moira among the colonists had doubts, and there were more just like them, there was hope for explaining the truth to them after all. The Ficarans had accepted it easily, but they were predisposed to disbelieve the Farmer’s version of things. She imagined the Aratians would be a tougher audience.
As soon as Bel was on the lift with Moira, she produced a small vial from her pocket. “I never asked them to steal it, you know,” she said, handing the anti-parasitics to Moira. “I told them not to come down to the planet’s surface.”
Moira looked puzzled. “But the infection would have killed you.”
“I’m glad to be alive, trust me, but I would have done things differently.”
Moira said nothing, but inspected and pocketed the vial.
They arrived at the small lab where Bel had locked up the juvenile Ven. She also had an adult Ven on ice that the Ficarans had retrieved at her request. She’d wanted to compare the two. She’d also been hoping that a fresh adult would be in better shape, but the Ficarans had brought her one dotted with bullet wounds. She checked that they had severed the neural membranes, too, just to be sure.
Bel pulled up the records of Ven physiology so Moira could review the basic anatomy.
“Fascinating,” Moira said. “Are those all redundancies?” She was looking at the Ven organs. There were multiples of almost every vital organ. Even the brain was segmented in such a way that damage to one area was not lethal. Vens were filled with biological backup systems.
“They also have regenerative abilities, but we’re not sure how they do it.”
“Some gland that releases a stimulant?” Moira said.
“None that we’ve found. The Ven specimens examined also have some slight differences in the scope of their redundancies.”
“So, the difference between having one extra heart versus two?” Moira asked.
“Basically. Some of them even have two separate circulatory systems, each with multiple hearts pumping their blood.”
“Hmm… Could it be a result of
rapid evolution? We see that here fairly often.”
“How rapid?” Bel was curious now.
“We’ve seen a few of the pests and controllers go through cycles of it. It’s my primary job, actually. Monitor the harvests, make sure that any problems that arise stay in check. A few years back, there was a blight of corn grylls that had me sweating.”
“Grylls?”
Moira tilted her head and smiled. “It’s a small insect, like a cricket. Normally, the gryll snakes would keep the population in check, but the grylls adapted to produce a pheromone very similar to that of another insect poisonous to the gryll snake.”
“You’re talking about allomones?”
“Yes!” Moira seemed genuinely excited. “When one organism uses a chemical signal that benefits itself but harms the receiver, it’s called an allomone. So few people care to understand the difference.”
Bel smiled, too, despite herself. Moira was actually pretty cool.
“The gryll snakes didn’t eat the corn grylls, and didn’t find an alternative food source. They started starving. Eventually, they started eating the grylls again, and taking the risk. Some ate the harmless grylls, others ate the poisonous insects. The ones who survived had a natural immunity to the poison, so the resulting offspring of the survivors had an overall higher chance of surviving an encounter with a poisonous insect.”
That was fascinating. Moira was doing exactly the kind of thing she had always dreamed of, using her knowledge to help colonists on the edge of the Bubble. Blights on the Rim could wipe out entire colonies, but a competent scientist using a carefully calculated intervention could solve a problem like corn grylls. It had resolved on its own here, but not every colony was so lucky.
Bel had almost forgotten about the Vens and rapid evolution, which had started this whole tangent.
“As awesome as rapid evolution is, it doesn’t usually appear in species that reproduce slowly. It takes multiple generations to see a change. It’s led to the theory that Vens reproduce frequently, and in high numbers, since they accept such high casualty rates. Others just think that the Vens used to live in more isolated cohorts and the differences we see are a result of long-term adaptations to different environments.”
“That sounds plausible,” Moira agreed.
“We really don’t know as much about these Vens as we’d like. We don’t know why they attack primarily to kill.”
“Is it to gather resources?” Moira asked.
“To an extent, but they want more than resources. They want to fight. They force fights and sow chaos with their bites, creating a risk to themselves. A bitten enemy is stronger and more aggressive, but they do it anyway. It doesn’t seem to be done out of honor, trying to give their enemy a chance. They want to force their prey to fight back or create a distraction when they’ve got the disadvantage. People who are bitten will attack anyone.”
“What do you mean?”
“When they bite you, they inject you with a chemical that causes you to overproduce adrenaline to dangerous levels. There are some other components that may cause hallucinations.”
Moira’s eyes widened in disbelief. “There has to be a reason the Vens attack with so little provocation. With a sentient species, I guess it could be anything really. Cultural motivations don’t always make sense.”
“Very true. If there is a reason, we don’t know it yet,” Bel said. She considered sharing her Ven hypothesis, that they were prey, but decided against it. She didn’t see how it would help Moira and the Aratians survive.
Moira studied her for a long moment, which made Bel uncomfortable. She broke the silence. “Let’s get to it.” Despite the fact that Moira seemed like a decent human being, she wanted to get this over with and get Zane back. That thought stopped her in her tracks.
“What is it?” Moira asked.
“One of the people who stayed behind at the Vale Temple…” she began.
“The young man?” Moira took her silence as confirmation. “Your friend will be okay. With Michael gone, they won’t hurt him. They won’t risk Benjamin’s life,” Moira said. “Or mine.”
Bel nodded. “Thanks.” Of all the colonists she’d met so far, she thought she could trust Moira.
“Green or blue first?” she asked.
Moira gave her a puzzled look.
“We’ve got an adult, which is green, and the juvenile that attacked our ship, which is blue.”
“Green. From what I’ve been told, the adults are the ones attacking the colony, and the demons from the stories are green.”
Bel and Moira retrieved the green Ven from cold storage. After their talk, Bel had warmed up to Moira a bit more. She handed Moira a cover-up and mask before donning her own. This would be messy.
First Moira inspected the green plating, examining the intervals of fused and open plates. “Is there a pattern to which plates are fused?” she asked.
“Not really,” Bel replied. “Usually one of the first two plate gaps is open—the best way to kill a Ven.”
She ran back to the Calypso for a small saw and let Moira open the Ven up so she could see just how tough the plating was. This particular Ven was pockmarked with at least six bullets to the chest and one to the head.
It already smelled bad, but when Moira opened its chest cavity, the reek overpowered her. She staggered back and coughed.
“That’s not decomp,” she said once she recovered herself.
“No,” Bel said, “they were born this way.”
The chest cavity was full of fluid, so Bel helped Moira clear it out.
Even after suctioning the fluid, it was difficult to make much sense of the organs. Several had been damaged.
“So these pump blood,” Moira said, pointing to the two hearts at opposite ends of the chest cavity.
“Yes, they work on two different circulatory systems so that if one is damaged, blood still makes it through the body. It’s not exactly blood, but it performs the same function.”
Moira leaned in to look more closely at the wounded heart. “What’s this discoloration?”
“Scar tissue,” Bel said. “Remember those regenerative properties I was talking about?”
Moira’s eyes grew wide. “This scarring is from yesterday?” she said.
“Probably. That’s why it’s so hard to actually kill them. Even if they’re down, they might not be dead. The body keeps making repairs as long as it can, and if the damage isn’t too severe, they survive.”
Moira continued examining the Ven’s entrails. She sighed in frustration. “It’s so hard to get a clear look at anything with all the bullet wounds. Weren’t there any that didn’t get shot a bunch of times?”
“I don’t know. The Ficarans brought me the body when I asked. We did kill that blue one I mentioned when it attacked the Calypso. Even with the refrigeration, it’s begun to decay. No bullet wounds, though.”
“How’d you manage that?” Moira asked.
“We knocked it out with gas and severed its neural connections with a machete through two unfused plates in the back. Except it survived, nearly killed me, bit Zane, and took two people to kill it when it was already injured.”
“So it’s not a method we could try to replicate.”
“I don’t recommend it, no,” Bel said. “Especially because it was just a juvenile.”
Moira inspected the blue Ven. “This Ven has a different symbol painted on its face,” she said. “The other had three parallel lines, but this…” Moira trailed off and looked up at Bel, who felt the spiral cut on her cheek burning.
Bel tensed and kept her eyes on the Ven, its spiral design drawing her gaze. She braced herself for the question.
“Can you hand me the saw?”
She looked up puzzled for a moment, but this time it was Moira who was looking down. Bel relaxed her shoulders and handed over the saw. Moira had figured it out and decided there was no need to ask.
Bel watched with interest as Moira went straight for the brain. The juven
ile had not been shot, so the brain, aside from the neural connections, should be mostly intact.
“This is strange,” Moira said. “I wanted to see how the brain was segmented, but look at this.”
Bel looked where Moira was pointing. It was hard to see, but there was a small composite disc, the size of a coin.
“What is it?” Moira asked.
“I don’t know,” Bel said. Zane could figure it out, but she bet Oberon could, too. “We don’t have any records on these, at least none that the public has access to.” She quickly checked the classified data that Zane had sent her, but it yielded no results.
Though it was easy to miss in an exploratory dissection, she doubted the scans that Alliance pathologists took of dead Vens would have missed it. Why not include it in the public reports? What did this thing do?
Bel removed it and cleaned it with a cloth. “See if the big guy has one,” she said, but Moira was already on it.
A few minutes later, Moira was cleaning off a second disc. Maybe whatever these were would give them an edge against the Vens, or at the very least, an insight.
“Thank you, Bel, for taking the time to teach me.” Moira hesitated a moment, but smiled. “We have some exceptional ointments that kill infections in larger wounds, but they work wonders for smaller cuts. They heal so well you can’t even see a scar most times.”
Bel knew immediately what she was offering. The spiral cut on her face, still scabbed, would certainly scar. She would not pretend that this had never happened. When they did find a way home, her face would be on all the vids. A reminder.
“I’m grateful for the offer, but our scars make us stronger.”
Moira bowed her head and sighed. “Some scars, yes.”
29. ZANE
It had taken Zane a while to convince them to let him help. At first the guards ignored him, but when he showed them the spare parts he had brought, they had called over some other guy, presumably their boss. Then he went to find someone else, who brought along yet another young man, who finally looked like he knew what Zane was talking about. He didn’t know whether it was bureaucracy that slowed them down, or if they didn’t believe that their hostage wanted to help them for nothing in return.