Battle Station

— 31

I discussed my plans to go to the gas giant with Rear Admiral Sarin over a closed channel. She was on the screen and I watched her face as I explained what I planned. Clearly, she thought I’d gone mad. When I finished laying out the facts as I saw them, she shook her pretty head and leaned back in her command chair.

“I don’t know what to make of you, Colonel,” she said. “I came out here to drag you back to Earth, and instead you’ve got me sitting quietly in orbit with the rest of your fleet, and now you tell me about this insane plan-hatched by a robot, no less.”

“If it works, the tactical situation here will change dramatically. We’ll have protected a string of worlds and allied races.”

“And if it doesn’t, you’ll be dead or captured. Have you considered what it might be like to live on a gas giant? Whatever the Microbes do to prepare you-it can’t be pleasant.”

I nodded in agreement. “You’ve got a point. But it will come to a fast conclusion. Either I’ll get what I want and we’ll win Eden from the Macros-or I’ll fail. In that case, you should take command and pull out of this system.”

She sat up at these words. “That’s what you want?”

“No, not at all. But I don’t see any way out of it. I mean, how can I expect you to stand up to the coming Macro attack? They are stronger than we are, and getting stronger every day. To stand would be suicide. If I fail, and they attack, you have to run to protect Earth. Star Force will have to abandon Eden and build up back home.”

“The Centaurs might be exterminated for helping us.”

“Hard decisions are part of command. You wanted authority, now you’ve got it. If faced with the destruction of this fleet followed by the conquering of the Centaurs, would you take that option? Or would you run for Earth and join up with the flotilla I know Crow has been building back there? At some later point, you could then either return in force or make your defensive stand back home.”

She thought for a moment. “Put that way, I would have to withdraw. But it would be a terrible thing to do to our allies.”

“Commanders do what they have to, not what they want to. At least, the good ones do. I’ll trust to your wisdom when and if the moment comes. But right now, I’m in charge in this system.”

“May I remind you that I’m Fleet, Colonel?”

“I don’t care. You are Star Force. I’m the top commander of one half of Star Force. Crow and I are co-equals in this regard.”

“That’s not what Crow’s organizational charts show.”

I tried not to get angry. I could feel my brow knitting up. Every year, Crow tried to assert his authority over me-it hadn’t worked so far, but he hadn’t given up, either. “We’ve discussed the matter on several occasions-sometimes violently. Two co-equal branches is the only way to do it. We don’t have a governmental authority over us like most national armies. We are the top, so we have to work it out between ourselves with no one higher up to knock our heads together for us. That’s how it’s always worked between us. That’s how we’ve kept from killing one another for years.”

Jasmine laughed at that. “You two have come close to turning on one another more than once. But I’m glad you explained your thinking to me. I understand my position more clearly now. I mean-I think Crow sees me as a good choice as a go-between. Someone with a foot in both camps.”

“Right,” I said. Internally, I thought Crow sending her out here was a well-played dirty trick. He’d probably wanted to test her newfound loyalties, too. I knew Jasmine didn’t want to hear any of this, so I forced a smile and kept it to myself.

I tried to sneak down to the planet surface on Socorro. When I reached the two-seat command module, I found Sandra sitting in one of the contoured chairs. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

She laughed. “I’m going with you.”

“I’m just going down to the Eden-11 to check on things.”

“I know,” she said breezily. “I’ve always wanted to see the Centaur homeworld. You can give me a tour.”

I almost snapped something about not being a tour guide, but stopped myself. She looked so lovely, eyeing me from that chair. I hadn’t seen her in months. Her auburn hair and black eyes filled my vision. I stepped to her and picked up a lock of her hair. I sniffed it.

“Same shampoo.”

“The fruity stuff. I know you like it.”

I smiled at her and strapped in. “A tour, eh? It has to be quick.”

“No, it doesn’t. Marvin said seven hours. It’s been just over two.”

I glanced at her. I wasn’t sure if Marvin was a bigmouth or she’d managed to listen in somehow. I supposed it didn’t really matter. “Where do you want to go?” I asked.

“How about a mountaintop? Something with water nearby. Maybe a waterfall-and trees. There are lots of trees on Eden-11, right?”

“Trees, grass and mountains. That pretty much describes the equatorial region. Not too much in the way of oceans on this world. There are ice caps at the poles, both six times as big as those on Earth. Plenty of glaciers, too.”

Sandra wrinkled her nose. “No glaciers. Too cold. Take me somewhere green and perfect.”

I gave my head a tiny shake. “I’ll try.”

We dropped down into the atmosphere and punched through the cloud layer. Out in the open, we flew over the wild landscape. Most of it was beautiful and green. The vistas reminded me of the Alps of Central Europe. The mountains were sharp and crag-like. The valleys were green jewels dotted with ice cold lakes. Here and there were scarred regions, where the Macros had done their destructive work. They weren’t environmentalists by any stretch of the imagination.

Sandra made appreciative sounds as we flew, and I soon began to enjoy the experience. I wondered how long it had been since I’d taken a few hours off to look at the scenery-months, I figured. I felt myself relax in her presence, and we chatted and flirted. It was like old times.

When we finally found a nice spot to land, it was in a high forested valley between several ice-coated peaks. There was a waterfall that shrouded the entire area in mist. As far as I could tell, the area had never been inhabited. There were a few flying reptiles fluttering about and a number of strange, trundling beetles the size of footballs. But these were a harmless native species.

We sat to one side of the waterfall so we wouldn’t be soaked, and had a picnic. Sandra got me out of my battle suit and stretched out her form beside me on the thick-bladed grasses. We sipped beer because I hadn’t bothered to stock my ship with wine. We made sandwiches and ate them.

At length, one thing led to another and we made love on the grass. I think the beetles were disturbed by the activity. They rustled around us in the grass, rubbing their hind legs together and staring. It was kind of like being surrounded by curious housecats. I supposed they’d never seen strenuous mating action like ours. Few creatures had.

When we were quite finished, we packed up and flew to the dome. We were holding hands as we passed through it, and we both wore happy expressions. A few of my troops raised their eyebrows in our direction before turning back to their work at hand.

We found Marvin inside his steel enclosure. The pen had expanded since I’d last seen it, and I realized with a frown he’d gone far beyond my instructions. There were seven sectional areas now, each with its own muddy pit of bubbling liquid. Tubes ran in and out of these puddles, gently pumping in oxygen and nutrients. There were no filters of course-filters were meant to clean out microbes, not to promote their growth. I looked for evidence of punishment systems, but didn’t see any. At least it didn’t look like he’d been shocking any of these tiny beings into submission.

“It kind of smells,” Sandra said, peering into the steel pens with her nose wrinkling.

“Biotics commonly produce gaseous byproducts,” Marvin said.

He was sprawled over one of the pools, using his tentacles in a splayed array. He looked like an umbrella with all the cloth removed. I now understood why he’d been adding extra tentacles lately-it was so he could suspend himself over these pools and work.

“Are you honestly going to lie down in that sludge, Kyle?” Sandra said. “Because if you do, I’m not going to make love to you for days afterward.”

“That’s a risk I’ll have to take,” I said. “Marvin, do you have everything ready now, or should I come back later?”

“Do you have the organic mass? It must be from Earth. This is going to require a lot of base materials.”

“We brought about sixty pounds of beef,” I said. “It nearly killed the main chef to give it up. He went on about how irreplaceable it was.”

“Is it fresh?” Marvin asked. “May I see it?”

“It’s fresh,” Sandra said. “We just ate some of it at our picnic.”

Marvin finally put a few cameras on her. Most of his eyes remained focused on me or the stinky bubbling mud he squatted over. “Is the presence of the Lieutenant absolutely necessary?”

Sandra glowered at him. “Yes, it is,” she said.

“I want to know what you are planning to do to me, Marvin,” I said, crossing my arms. I knew Sandra didn’t trust him completely. I was in her camp on this one. He had such a fascination with these Microbes and what they could do to a human. He might throw in few extras-like gills or wings-just because he could.

“Raising tissue density is the primary goal. In order to withstand the harsher climate, lung-capacity must be increased, and the alveoli must be toughened.”

“The what?”

“Lung sacs.”

“You don’t expect him to breathe their atmosphere, do you?”

“No, not at all. But depending on how deeply you must penetrate their atmosphere, the pressure may be intense. Human alveoli pop easily. It can be done just by coughing.”

I thought about it and nodded slowly. High-gravity, high-pressure. It was going to be like a deep sea dive. Except instead of diving into sea water in a submarine, I was going down bare-skinned into a swirling, freezing mass of poisons.

“This is sounding better by the minute,” I said.

“Wait a second,” Sandra said. “I thought you were going to stay inside a battle suit, at least.”

Marvin shuffled himself and put three cameras on Sandra. At least five tracked me. Maybe he was worried I was going to change my mind. I had to admit, this process was looking more alarming by the minute.

“The cultural requirements of this species are unlike most others. They interact by physical contact-this always includes an intermixing of body mass. Since humans are far more dense creatures, they will have to experience you by touching your bare skin with their aerogel tendrils. I only hope this will be sufficient.”

“Sufficient for what?”

“To achieve meaningful communion. The most difficult part of your mission will be gaining their attention. They are not accustomed to interacting with other biotics.”

“How do we talk to them in the first place, Marvin? Do we use radio or something?”

“Gaseous interchange. I have built a translation system for you. It consists of a brainbox and an artificial emitter-organ.”

“Hmm,” I said. “Sounds like we are going to have some kind of sniffing contest.”

“Something like that, yes.”

The list of physical changes was daunting. I was going to lose a lot of hair-but Marvin said it would grow back in time. My skin and muscles would be hardened and denser. I had to be able to draw breath against a great deal of gravity and pressure. Internal organ changes were critical, especially the ones that weren’t that tough to begin with, the like the spleen and kidneys. I’d never thought about it before, but much of the human body was designed to survive on Earth under very specific conditions.

When Marvin began discussing altering my eyes, Sandra objected. “I like his eyes the way they are. I don’t want any changes!”

Marvin studied her, then swung his attention to me. I’d already stripped out of my battle suit and thrown a number of steaks into the bubbling pond. Marvin dipped his tentacles into the liquid and precisely adjusted their locations. I couldn’t see what the Microbes were doing with the meat, but it seemed to me the bubbling had increased.

“The human eye is not designed for these pressure levels,” he said in that calm, clipped voice of his. “Colonel Riggs will experience blindness at the very least, due to the malformation of the eye.”

“Is that permanent?”

“No. But it will incapacitate him. Humans have a poor level of functionality while blind. I’ve conducted a number of-”

“Studies,” I finished for him. “Yes, we know Marvin. But what about returning me to normal afterward? Is that possible?”

He squirmed for a few seconds without speaking.

“He’s working up a good lie, Kyle. Don’t trust him.”

I had to agree with her assessment. “All right,” I said. “Is there another way to protect my eyes? Some kind of heavy goggles?”

“That wouldn’t be desirable,” Marvin said.

“To whom, robot? You just want to work every freaky change you can so you can study Kyle like a bug.”

“There might be another way,” Marvin said at last. “Recall the metallic content of the aqueous fluid after an injection of nanites?”

“Ah yes,” I said. “We’ve all experienced that. Are you saying that a lot of nanites swimming in my eyes could protect them?”

“Yes,” he said.

“But they blinded the subject, at least temporarily,” Sandra objected. “I remember it well.”

“They were untrained. They were not disciplined, and thus blocked the critical path through the fluid to the optic nerve.”

“Hmm,” I said. “Sounds like a choice between an eyeful of nanites, or some serious alteration of my vision by Microbes. I’ll take the nanites. At least that way, I’ll know what to expect.”

Marvin seemed crestfallen. “It represents an entire study lost, a bath unused. But I suppose there’s no sense wasting more time.”

“An entire bath?” I asked. “You mean I’m taking more than one plunge into a mud puddle?”

Marvin looked at me in surprise. “Of course. If you examine my facility, I now have seven experimental environments. Each has a specially-bred Microbial colony.”

“I’m taking seven mud-baths?”

“No, only five. One bath contains the base species, the raw stock used to grow the other cultures. Another will go unused, as you have opted for a different solution for your optical organs.”

I heaved a sigh. Within another twenty minutes, I found myself submerged in the first tickling, bubbling pool. It felt like tiny fish swam all over my body. I wasn’t sure if that sensation was real, or only psychosomatic. Either way, I wasn’t happy.

As I lie there, I saw Marvin’s strange, spider-like form working over me. He tirelessly adjusted temperature probes and tapped at screens around us. The steel walls of the pens that separated the pools were riddled with tubes, equipment and nanites. I truly felt like Frankenstein’s monster.

It occurred to me, as my nude, off-balance form was cleaned off and dipped into another pool, that Marvin wasn’t that different from me. For him, these Microbes were like the Nano production factories. I liked to program, to take thousands of nanites and shape them as I willed. The creative process was intensely satisfying when some new piece of hardware I dreamed up worked. The only difference was that I used tiny machines to build other machines. Marvin used tiny Microbes to build new biotic creations.

Disturbed by my thoughts, I endured the baths until their ultimate conclusion. All the while, Sandra frowned down at me in concern. I knew how she felt. When the Microbes had rebuilt her, I’d been very nearly panicked. She had every right to worry.