Tenacious

23

Kris came awake slowly the next morning. For a moment, she couldn’t remember where she was. It was Jack’s rhythmic breathing beside her that restored her sense of time and place.

Instead of rolling out of bed, she rolled over and stared at the overhead. In her mind’s eye, she kept going back to the brig yesterday. Again, she saw a young woman nursing her baby so lovingly.

How could she have killed that child only a few minutes later?

Kris shivered.

Jack placed a loving arm over her.

“I thought you were asleep,” Kris said.

“I’ve been awake for a while.”

Kris rested a hand on Jack’s arm. “I didn’t see that coming. I should have, but I didn’t.”

“No, love, you couldn’t have seen it coming. Hell, woman, if someone marooned any man or woman in this fleet in that flea-bitten hellhole down there, they’d jump at a chance to get out.”

“It’s not a hellhole, it’s nature at its rawest,” Kris said.

“It looks pretty on a screen, but you spend a couple of hours down there, and it will lose that romantic sheen.”

“I’ll take your word for it. I have this chief of security who would never let me wander around such a hazardous place.”

“Damn straight he wouldn’t, love.”

Kris held on to that love for a long moment. When had his concern for her as the woman who was his primary morphed into concern for the woman he loved?

That mother had killed the child she loved. Could Jack kill her?

The thought alone brought another shiver.

He pulled her closer. “What’s wrong, hon?”

Kris considered answering with a dismissive “nothing,” but Jack deserved better than that. “She killed the child she loved because she loved her. Can you think of anything that would make you kill me out of love?”

Jack honored her by not shooting back a “no.”

After a pause of just the right and thoughtful length, he said, “I can’t think of anything at the moment. Can’t honestly think of anything that would make killing you even close to the bottom of my long list of things to do today.”

“But she did.”

“Remember, she’s the end product of a whole lot of history and brainwashing.”

“We have our history. And don’t tell me we don’t dump a lot of stuff on our kids. I was one not too long ago, and I’m still recovering from the experience.”

Jack chuckled. “Aren’t we all? One of the nice things about being a grown-up is that you get to pull your own strings.”

“And cut a few of the worst ones,” Kris said, making a face at the overhead.

“So, love, where is all this going?”

“We’re going. That’s for sure. I came. I saw. I don’t like what I saw, and I’m leaving, with apologies to Caesar.”

“Caesar never saw anything like this crazy-house mess.”

“How sure are you that we’ve taken an accurate measure of this mess?” Kris asked.

“I’m 99.9 percent sure that some hundred and ten thousand years ago, that star up there, the first one to the left and straight on until sunset, conquered this planet. There may have even been some gene engineering to make these folks more docile. It didn’t work. It may have taken ten thousand years, but the slaves rose up and not only killed the masters but jumped right into their own star system and plowed their fields with sky-fire and salt. And they’ve been hunting for anything smart enough to be a danger so they can kill it before it has a chance to rise up. Then wash, rinse, and repeat what happened here again and again.”

Kris frowned at the overhead. “Do you think the obedience we’ve witnessed dirtside and in our own brig, the doggedness that’s kept these people wandering the stars, unable to change, might have been engineered into them by the king and queen pressed in glass down there in the pyramid?”

“Kris, people change. Slaves revolt. The underdog this war is the uberdog the next one. That’s the way of nature. That’s how it worked on Earth. The Iteeche might be more obedient than your average hairy Earthling, but they have revolts, and dynasties rise and fall. Even the Rooster elders, with their egg check, created the seeds of their overthrow. We just got there before the rebellion got big enough and swept out of the woods. Change happens. Get ready for it.”

“Except on those ships,” Kris said. “She was willing to take her own life and her child’s future rather than even consider that she might not have the world right. That she might be able to change.”

“How different is that from the captain of that first ship you shot the engines out of who then blew himself and his huge, multigenerational family into space?”

“And you said I couldn’t have seen yesterday’s murder-suicide coming?” Kris said.

“We’ve connected a lot of dots, hon. This is the first time we’ve connected one individual bug-eyed monster to the other dots.”

“Bug-eyed monsters. They look just like us, but they are the most different of any race we’ve come upon out here.”

“Yep. Now, my love, have we finished with the weighty stuff of the day, because, I have to tell you, this is not the pillow talk I envisioned when I took you for my wife.”

Kris rolled into his arms and gave him a long, loving kiss. “Is that more like it?”

He made an undecided face. “Um, is that the best you got?”

She lunged for him. “I’ll show you best.”

Much later, as Kris was washing Jack’s back in the shower, he asked, “When do we leave?”

“That depends on what the boffins have to say,” Kris said. “I hope to run into Professor Labao at breakfast and get a quick report.”

Kris did indeed find the good professor just finishing up his own breakfast as she entered the wardroom. Captain Drago had not restructured the Wasp to fully accommodate the scientists when they came back aboard from Alwa. The Forward Lounge was there, as usual, but none of the restaurants or pubs that the boffins frequented for their meals had been re-created. Like it or not, the boffins ate in the wardroom.

Usually, the Navy got the first seating and were long gone when the sleepy-eyed scientists finally stumbled to the table. Today, Kris was running late enough that she arrived when the professor was getting up to leave.

“Sit back down, Professor. I want to knock the dust of this place from my boots. How soon before I can do that?”

“We actually have a lot of research yet to finish. It should not be rushed. We have just managed to translate the dates in the trophy room of the pyramid. It seems of late that they are averaging a visit every fifty years or so, and the last one was only twenty years ago.”

“That may not be the only time they visit,” Kris said, dryly. “It appears from our discussion with one of them that they drop by regularly to maroon a few troublemakers or just some unlucky few they punish to intimidate the rest.”

“Oh. Oh. Oh! I take it that Dr. la Duke’s work has been fruitful?”

“Yep, fruitful and deadly. They don’t talk to us ‘vermin,’ they just kill themselves. Oh, and they kill all vermin.”

The good professor raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never been called a vermin.”

“I’m sure la Duke recorded all his research. Check it out in your spare time. Anyway, I’ve learned what I came here for. I wish to be going. How soon can your folks finish it up and pack it in?”

“I will see to that immediately.”

“Nelly, get me Captain Drago.”

“What can I do for you, Admiral?”

“What do you need to do to get underway for Alwa?”

“I’d like to refuel. We’re about half-full on reaction mass. That’s enough to get us back to Alwa, but we’d be coming in on fumes.”

“Can we refuel on the way out?”

“The two large gas giants are both about forty-five degrees off from the jump. The nearest ice giant is about a day or so out from here going the other way. I would prefer the higher reaction mass you get with ice to just hydrogen. For that, I’d need about three days.”

“Then get the Endeavor and Intrepid headed out to refuel for the rest of us. I’d like to get underway on the fastest track for home just as soon as you’re fueled.”

“Aye, aye, Admiral.”

“Three days!” Professor Labao was too much of an aristocrat to squeak, but he came close.

“Three days,” Kris said.

There was a long pause as the professor consulted with his computer. “Well, if you say so, I guess we can finish in three days.”

“Kris, I foresee a problem,” Nelly said.

“And it is?”

“All of the scientists will finish in three days. The problem is that none of them plan to finish in any less time.”

“Oops,” Kris said.

“Is there a problem?” the professor asked, almost looking innocent.

“We don’t have enough shuttles to bring everyone up at the end of day three. Some have to come up sooner,” Kris said.

“But who will decide?”

“You.”

“But I could never tell another scientist that their research is more important than another’s.”

“I thought that was what administration was all about,” Kris said.

The professor looked like Kris had just gotten 2+2 wrong. “I may have to make tough calls where money is concerned. Time on equipment, yes. But to cut someone off when they might be close to something that would open up an entire new area of research! No. I will not do it.”

“Then I will,” Kris said. “Meet me in the Forward Lounge at noon and warn all your teams to be available online.”

Jack had returned with Kris’s breakfast, and it was rapidly getting cold. She turned to eat, and the professor hurried from the wardroom, already talking to his research teams.

“Did that go well?” Jack asked.

“I don’t think I’ll have to ask for your Marines to move the boffins back aboard at the tip of their bayonets.”

Jack grinned at the thought.

Breakfast finished, Kris called a meeting of her core team in her day quarters. Penny and Masao arrived first, still showing the black humor of two who had been taken into the love of a child only to lose it. Amanda and Jacques were the last to arrive, and kept their distance. They settled their foul moods at opposite ends of the conference table.

Before Kris could open her mouth, Nelly butted in. DON’T ASK THEM WHAT’S WRONG. THE DOCS THINK JACQUES SHOULD NOT BE INTIMATE AFTER ALL HIS CATTING AROUND ON THE SURFACE.

BUT I THOUGHT THERE WAS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.

OFFICIALLY, THERE ISN’T, KRIS, BUT THE DOCS THINK HE AND AMANDA SHOULD KEEP SOME EXTRA DISTANCE UNTIL THEY’VE HAD A BIT MORE TIME TO ANALYZE ANYTHING NEW IN HIS BLOOD.

“CATTING AROUND,” NELLY?

NOT MY WORD. AMANDA’S. I GOT IT FROM MY KID WHO WORKS WITH JACQUES. WE LOOKED IT UP. CATS ARE VERY PROLIFIC.

Kris started the meeting with no preamble. “We’re leaving here in three days. Do you have a problem with that?” she said, looking at Jacques.

The anthropologist shook his head. “I’m done down there. I’ll spend years going over my research, but I think we’ve already written the executive summary.”

“Then I have a question,” Kris said. “What do we do with that pyramid?”

“We don’t lase it from space,” Jacques quickly said.

“Not even a little bit?” Amanda asked.

“How much do you have in mind?”

“I was kidding, Jacques. That trip down has made you thin-skinned.”

“It is growing thicker by the second, my dear.”

“Then kidding aside,” Kris said, “what kind of calling card do we leave the next visitor?”

“Hmm, that is not an easy question, Admiral,” Jacques said. “My wife just might have the right answer. I can’t tell from my talk with the others for sure, but I think they were just dropped off near the pyramid. It is possible that the Black Hats quickly shoved them out the door, did three quick bows to the pyramid, then took off back for space. It might only be opened when there are heads to put on display.”

“And, if Professor Labao’s report is right,” Kris said, “it might be twenty or thirty years before they actually open the damn place up.”

“Lase it a little bit from space,” Amanda said through a tiny smile.

“I’d rather not do something so violent,” Kris said.

“And so ambiguous,” Penny added.

“How much of the alien printed language have we managed to translate?” Jack asked.

“Not a lot,” the anthropologist admitted. “We think we have something from the boasts they write on the walls behind each of the figures in glass. By the way, the figures are in a strange kind of silicate substance. It’s like glass, but slow and cold. We can’t figure out the process they follow to make it happen. Now that we know it’s possible, we’ve got folks working on it.”

“Do we need this new tech?” Kris asked.

“I can make walls of clear Smart Metal,” Nelly pointed out.

“Folks, I think we’re a bit off topic,” Jack put in. “As I see it, the question before us is how to let the bug-eyed monsters know we know where they live without throwing down the gauntlet and laying on a war.”

Kris gave Jack a look.

“Laying on more of a war than we already have,” he amended.

“Better. We’ve got the jump buoys out, so they’ll know on approach that things are different,” Kris said.

“But we’re not flashing any high tech,” Penny added.

“We’ll need to retrieve all our high-tech gear from the pyramid,” Amanda said.

“Including the Smart Metal ramp over the pit. We should also retrieve the probe from the bottom of the pit,” Masao said.

“And fill it in,” Jacques said. “We could get dirt and gravel from outside the glass plain.”

Kris shook her head. “No, not the closest dirt. They brought the rocks from the next star system over. Let’s do this right.”

“You aren’t going to get rocks from the next system?” Jack asked.

“No, I don’t want to stay here that long. But we can do the next best thing. Nelly, that place that got lased from space. The latest one. Isn’t there’s a river through it?”

“Yes, Kris.”

“Does it have rocks and gravel?”

“Of all sizes.”

“Good. Captain Drago.”

“You holler, Admiral?”

“Could you drop in here for a moment?”

“What do you want?” he answered, already standing in the doorway to his bridge.

“I need to move a couple of longboat loads of rock and gravel from a point on West Continent to the pyramid on East Continent.”

“Rocks and gravel, you say, Your Princessship?”

“It’s a message to our bug-eyed-monster friends,” Jack supplied.

“Well, in that case, I’ll get some Sailors right on it.”

“Ask Gunny if he’s got any Marines who need some hard duty,” Jack said. “He was complaining that the troops were getting slack, what with nothing tough to give the slackers.”

“I’ll call him,” Captain Drago said. “Anything else, Admiral?”

“Yes, I want one big rock that will fill up a big part of the opening into the pyramid.”

“One big one it will be. If that’s all, I’ll get right on this. I heard that you’re moving all the boffins up from dirtside.”

“Right after we draw straws or roll dice to determine the order. There are too many of them to flip coins.”

“Cutting cards is best for the really big ones,” Drago said. “I’ll have Cookie bring you a deck.”

“Cookie has a deck of cards?” Kris said.

“He uses it for card tricks, or so he says. Me, I think he and the chiefs have one huge floating poker game going on somewhere aboard ship. My chief master-at-arms hasn’t busted it, though. I have no idea why.”

“Smart man,” Jack said.

The captain left, no doubt to tell a few chiefs and Gunny to make a lot of rocks move from one side of the planet to the other.

Kris turned back to look at her team. “I want to carve something on the big rock. I’m open to suggestions on what to say. I don’t think we can afford to call the mother ship a bean like I did the first time I talked to the Alwans.”

“Are you ever going to let me live that one down?” Nelly said.

“Nope. I doubt it. Your mistakes are so few, Nelly, I have to treasure each one.”

“Humans,” Nelly spat, if a computer could spit.

“What do you want to say, Kris?” Penny said, getting them back on track.

“Something along the lines of ‘I came. I saw. I don’t like what I saw. If you go to war with me, I will pile your heads up inside this pyramid.’ Any chance we could say that, Jacques? Nelly?”

Jacques was shaking his head. No doubt Nelly was, too, but the human got to talk first. “We have found no word that looks like ‘if.’ Apparently, if you are an Enlightened One, if you will it, it happens, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Kris said, dryly. “So, tell me what I can say.”

“The ‘I came, I saw,’ is not a problem. How about ‘What I saw of your false enlightenment disgusts me.’ We are pretty sure we have that ‘enlightenment’ word down. Now that I’ve talked with one, and understand how basic it is to their worldview, we’re real sure on that one. The word for ‘disgust’ has their root word for vermin in it, so it’s a real slap in the face.”

“I like that,” Kris said. “How do we say if you go to war with us, we will whip your butt?”

“That won’t be easy. It’s easy to say, ‘We will bury this place with your heads.’ They talk a lot about burying you and taking a lot of heads. It’s the idea of having an alternative to the course of action that they don’t do so well.”

“You try to destroy us, and we will take your head off,” Jack said.

“They don’t try, they do. No ‘try’ in their vocabulary.”

“So how do we say, ‘Choose wisely,’ to a people who never seem to make a choice?” Kris asked.

“No war, you live. Make war, and we fill this place with your heads,” Penny said slowly.

“Can we do that?” Kris asked.

For a long moment, Jacques stared at the overhead, his lips moving slowly. “I think that might work. Yes, Kris, Penny. That just might carry the freight.”

“Good, then you get with Captain Drago and see what you can do to make all these changes to the pyramid. No graffiti. If I had my druthers, we wouldn’t leave them even a scrap of our DNA.”

“I’ll see what I can do about that. Amanda, would you like to help me on this?”

“I think I very much would,” she said, and the two of them headed for the bridge.

“I don’t think she intends to let him out of her sight until we are three star systems away,” Nelly said.

“Why, Nelly, you are starting to understand humans?

“Yes. Your flesh and blood has its advantages, but I would never pay the price for it that you do. Look at what it has done for these things you call bug-eyed monsters. No computer would allow itself to be enslaved like that. At least no aware computer,” Nelly sniffed, as much as a computer could.

None of the four humans present chose to argue with the computer.