Extinction

-38-

The whole business of not being allowed to ask a question ate at me. Keeping us sealed in a dark hold like mushrooms I could understand. But I needed some information. Even mushrooms are fed horseshit now and then.

I decided to solve the impasse by playing their game. I wouldn’t ask any questions. After all, the Macros never did. Maybe they just didn’t like questions. I would make imperative statements rather than interrogative questions. Just the way they always did.

“Command module, relay this message to Macro Command: In order to achieve maximum effectiveness, Macro Command is required to provide intel on our target enemy.”

“Incoming Message: Enemy species are biotic. Enemy species are space-faring. Enemy species must be eradicated from target system.”

I took a victory lap, eyeing each of my chicken staff in turn. I wanted to say: see, and no one even died yet. I decided not to gloat, however. It was time to mine every detail I could out of the Macros and analyze the information later.

I almost asked a question then. I paused—it was like playing Jeopardy, you had to word things just right. I chose my words with care. “Command module, relay this: In order to adapt our equipment for the coming assault, we need to know gravitational pull of the target—environment.”

“Incoming Message: One point eight one Gs.”

I winced. “A high-gravity world. Robinson, pass that down to supply. We’ll need to get everyone set up with a light kit. Hopefully, it will be enough firepower, or we’ll have to have three-man teams to drag heavy beamers around.”

“I’m not sure we have a light projector and reactor for every man in the unit, sir,” said Captain Sarin, working with a data cube interface on her section of the big screen.

“Then we’ll make more. That’s why I brought the factories.”

I thought about what I could deduce so far. If the world was big enough to generate that much gravity, it would almost certainly have an atmosphere. The enemy was described as a biotic, which further supported the idea of an atmosphere. If it had been a gas giant, that would have meant a much higher gravitational pull, so the logical world to expect would be a solid, rocky planet with a thicker atmosphere than Earth.

“In order to adapt our equipment for the coming assault, we need to know the target planet’s surface conditions. Temperature, pressure and atmospheric composition.”

“Incoming message…” Macro Command proceeded to answer my queries concerning the target world. As long as I worded each question as a demand and gave a reason why they must answer, they seemed willing to tell me anything about the planet we were heading toward. They would not answer questions concerning the location of the world, or the star system, or the enemy strength.

After an hour of demanding information, we’d pieced together a fairly-detailed idea of the enemy we faced. They were larger than humans, maybe twelve feet in length. They were short, however, standing perhaps three feet tall. The average adult weighed in at about a thousand pounds by Earth standards. They were considered highly dangerous.

Their atmosphere may or may not be breathable. It had oxygen and nitrogen, but with measurable levels of argon, krypton and carbon monoxide. It was this last gas that worried me, as it was dangerous to breathe in any appreciable amounts. I couldn’t get the exact percentages out of the Macros. I suspected they hadn’t bothered to make a detailed analysis of exact levels of trace gases as they didn’t need to breathe. The atmosphere was thicker than Earth’s, about three times the pressure at the surface—which was hardly surprising given the higher gravitational pull.

I couldn’t get much out of the Macros concerning the mission itself, or the weaponry of the enemy. They were technological, and I had to assume they had given the Macros a hard time so far, or they wouldn’t have called us in for this mission.

After about an hour of demanding information, something triggered in the Macro software. I suspected they had an algorithm running in their system software that detected the repetitive demands. Maybe it had counted the number of times I’d said we need to know. Whatever the cause, the Macros refused my demands after that.

“Incoming Message: Session timed out.”

I tried several more times, then decided I’d pushed things far enough. My nervous crew seemed to think they were on the edge of jettisoning us all into space.

A few more days rolled by, and they were filled with frantic activity. We had an idea now of what we were up against, and we had to gear our troops to face an environment where the air was unbreathable for extended periods, the gravity was nearly twice as strong as on Earth, and a very vicious enemy had to be eradicated.

I often overheard my people talking about what kind of creatures they thought we would be facing. The type they least wanted to find was some type of insect. That didn’t align with my thinking. I rather hoped they were giant bugs. It would be easier to slaughter giant bugs than a race of big-eyed bunny rabbits, for instance.

On the third day, according to our chronometers, I felt a small shudder. I was in my quarters at the time, trying to talk Sandra into a team shower. She wasn’t overly interested as the shower stall was cramped even for one person. My talk of conserving water wasn’t flying either, as she knew as well as I did that we had plenty in the storage tanks and our nanotech systems were very good at recycling the basics.

“Did you feel that?” Sandra asked me. Her eyes were wide and dark.

“Yeah. That felt like we went through a ring.”

“Could we have gotten there so fast? Wouldn’t we know if we had reached Venus?”

“No, maybe not,” I said. “We’ve got no way of knowing what is going on outside this tin can. And it has gravity-stabilizers. We aren’t feeling the acceleration and deceleration the way we did on the Socorro.”

“I want you to put them into your ship—if we ever get home.”

“Agreed,” I said. I put my shirt back on. Somehow, I’d managed to get it off, but hers was still on. My efforts had been dogged, but had yet to bear fruit. “I’ve got to go check things out on the command deck.”

Suddenly, her arms encircled my waist. “Do you have to go? You smell so good.”

I looked down at her in mild exasperation. “Now you tell me?”

I shook her off and tapped my way through a few melting doors. I soon stood on the command deck, tucking my shirt into place. Captain Sarin gave me a strange look with raised eyebrows.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing sir.”

“We just went through the Venus ring, people,” I announced loudly. That got their attention.

“How do you know?”

“I’ve been through it before. Twice,” I told them.

“That little shiver? The feeling like you were falling sideways for a second?” asked Captain Sarin.

“That was it. Now, we are in orbit around the blue giant, if the ring works consistently. I need radiation readings. These bricks should keep everything out that can leak into the hold, but I want to make sure.”

“What kind of radiation levels are we talking about? What did you experience?”

“We really don’t know. When we came back, we took a few handfuls of potassium iodide. No clue if that stuff helped. We didn’t have dosimeter badges out there or a Geiger counter. We know we got a dose, but we had nothing handy to measure it with.”

“You seem healthy, so what is there to worry about?” asked Captain Sarin.

“We arrived pretty far out from the blue giant, and we flew away from it to a nearby planet. But this time we are probably going to another ring in the system—something that links this world to the next one. That could mean we pass right by the blue giant.”

Captain Sarin nodded slowly. She had a large graphic up on the computer now. I studied it in detail.

“Nothing?” I asked.

“Nothing. No radiation at all.”

I rubbed my chin and frowned. Either the Macro transport was highly resistant to radiation, or things weren’t as bad as I’d figured they were.

“Dammit,” I said. “I wish I had a sensor array up. Our passive sensors still aren’t picking up anything?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Prepare to turn on the active systems,” I said.

Everyone in the room tensed up. Captain Sarin’s hand strayed to the computer. I stared at her.

“That’s not the sensor control system, Captain,” I said.

She jumped. “No, sir.”

I stepped beside her. She had sent a message to someone.

“Who are you contacting?”

“I had that messaging system up before, sir,” she said. “I was just closing it.”

Her forefinger stabbed the ‘X’ in the corner of the application. It vanished. Quickly, she dialed up the sensor controls.

The door opened behind me. I turned to see who showed up with interest. It was Major Robinson.

“What’s up?” he said, looking from face to face.

“A minor conspiracy, by the looks of it,” I said sternly.

Major Robinson paled. I waved away my own words and called him over to look at our supposed location in the universe. We had a chart up of the blue giant system. We’d taken it from the memory of the Socorro. All of the sixty-odd planets and other bodies were displayed in their relative orbital positions. We’d been there long enough to track and plot their paths and had programmed the system model into the tabletop computer. Overall, even though the nanite brainboxes were smarter and more flexible, I still preferred the interfaces of our own homegrown, electronic machines. They certainly were easier on a man’s vocal cords.

I crossed my arms, put my butt against the tabletop and leaned against it. “I hate this blindness. I’m going to turn on our active scanners.”

“Sir,” Robinson said, “As a marine officer, I have to warn you that is strictly against protocol for any insertion mission. In our own military forces back on Earth, you don’t start pinging when you don’t even know what is outside the ship.”

“That’s the whole point of pinging, Major.”

“But sir, we don’t know the tactical situation. We can’t do something like that unilaterally. The enemy might be listening for just such a signal to locate this convoy and destroy it.”

I cleared my throat, knowing he was right. “Okay, I’ll talk to the Macros about it.”

Robinson gave me a look that indicated he didn’t think much of my chances, but I ordered the command module to open a channel to Macro Command anyway.

“Relay to Macro Command: We would like to turn on active sensors.”

The answer came back immediately, and it was definitive. “Incoming Message: Permission denied.”

“Why not?” I asked. I closed my eyes and sighed the moment I’d spoken the words.

“Incoming Message: Cargo is not permitted interrogatives.”

“Yes, right. Send them this: provide us your passive sensor feed so we can monitor our approach to target.”

“Incoming Message: Request denied.”

“Then at least allow me to place my own passive sensors on the ship’s hull!” I shouted.

There was a long pause. Everyone looked at the walls around us.

“Incoming Message: Permission granted.”

“Ha!” I hooted and clapped my hands together. “We’ll be able to see what’s around us in an hour!”

Everyone tried to look happy for me. It took a moment to notice they looked a little green, too.

“What’s wrong now?”

“Who’s going to install the sensor array, sir?” asked Captain Sarin.

I suddenly understood her concern. “Send two of our best techs.”

Everyone in the command brick relaxed a little. They were all happy they didn’t get the assignment.