Drednanth: A Tale of the Final Fall of Man (27 page)

“They clocked out three months back,” Decay said. “Everything useful was in the
other
two-thirds of the
Boonie
, so they stripped out all the restricted and controlled tech, tagged what was left and headed back to Þursheim.”

“And there was no sign of any more of the Artist’s handiwork,” she asked, “on board or floating through space nearby?”

“Nothing in the salvage log,” Decay said. “Not that they would have known what to look for. And from what we saw on Jauren Silva, the Artist had taken all his material with him. Maybe this piece was left when the room it was in got cut off by the edge of his transport volume, or due to the nature of the experiment it stayed behind here when he dived … impossible to say, really. It’s all gone now, obviously.”

“Just as well,” Zeegon said. “Imagine underspace technology in the hands of Rakmanmorion, Conqueror of Space.”

“And according to the log, he showed up and parked here about five weeks ago,” Decay added, “which might help our computer figure out how long ‘eighteen time units’ is.”

Z-Lin whistled. “Five weeks,” she murmured. “I don’t care what sort of physiology you’ve got, that can’t be fun in a ship that primitive.”

“When do we get
see
?” Dunnkirk said eagerly. “See the Rakmanmorion?”

“When we’re off the communication channel and sitting safely in a private conference room,” Z-Lin replied, “where we can all go ‘
oh my God ewww
’ without causing a diplomatic incident. Looking at an alien for the first time is not something you want to do where the alien can see your reactions, if you can possibly control that scenario.”

“
Do
people often say ‘
oh my God ewww
’ when they see an alien for the first time?” Maladin asked politely.

“It’s usually a more subtle case of body language or facial expression,” Z-Lin said, “although we’re trained not to underestimate the effect a frightening, repellent or simply bizarre physical appearance can have on the observer’s subconscious responses.”

“There are theories that the Six Species works because we’re all pretty similar – arms, legs, faces – and the assorted so-called Seveners all fail to make the grade on some level,” Janya said, while Decay packaged and sent the tech information to Rakmanmorion’s ship. “The noteworthy exception being the Fergunak, and this is one of the reasons relations with them are often so strained.”

“Oh,” Waffa said lightly, “so it’s not because they’re bloodthirsty murderous sharks that enjoy tearing people to pieces and eating them for fun?”

“That’s another factor,” Janya conceded glacially.

“And of course the physical and linguistic cues
we
display are always open to interpretation according to the other species’ behavioural norms,” Clue went on. “Even if we just smile and speak quietly, how that looks to a member of Rakmanmorion’s species is still anyone’s guess. There’s no real solution to that aside from extended diplomatic contact, but at least it can be minimised by holding initial exposures in private and then analysing the potential lost-in-translation effect.”

“I say ‘
ewww
’ when I first see human,” Dunnkirk admitted cheerfully. “You so strange, with this why you have it the clump of hair on the top and then between legs? I say ‘
ewww
’.”

There was a decidedly uncomfortable silence at this.

“You … first saw a human and it was a
naked
human?” Zeegon ventured.

“Yes,” Dunnkirk replied blandly.

“Oh,” Zeegon turned back to the helm. “Okey dokey.”

“That sounds like an interesting story,” Sally added.

“We have a long way to go,” Maladin smiled, “maybe you’ll get to hear it.”

“I live in
cho’gule
for First Prime and on until I four hundred years,” Dunnkirk said, his affable tone unchanged. “The
cho’gule
, the
brothello
, the market of the sex, the–”

“Yes, okay,” Z-Lin said, “noted.”

“That was basically the story,” Maladin admitted.

“The anticipation was the worst part of it,” Zeegon remarked. “Aside from, you know, the content.”

“Somebody please tell me we have more communications from Rakmanmorion, Conqueror of Space,” Z-Lin begged.

“I shall return to my quarters,” Thord said, mildly but rather abruptly. “My envirosuit is running low, I neglected to charge it on my last emergence.”

Clue gave the aki’Drednanth a nod. Thord turned smoothly, after a quiet exchange with the Bonshooni that left them on the bridge to witness the opening communications with the alien, and stepped towards the exit. She paused next to Janus, reached out and placed a massive gauntleted hand on his shoulder. She squeezed gently, and Janus looked up and gave her a hesitant smile. All was forgiven, clearly, on both sides. Z-Lin had seen the report and heard a couple of anecdotes about Janus’s drop-in at the farm ring, but there had been no repeat incidents. Frankly, Z-Lin wasn’t surprised. Getting roared at by a grumpy, territorial aki’Drednanth would probably be enough to curb the fanaticism of even the most devoted enthusiast.

Thord slipped out through the main bridge entrance. Unlike the double-doors leading into the conference chamber, this was just a standard modular door and she scraped lightly on both sides as she departed.

“Look at this,” Decay murmured, and flipped up some inventory that he had been busy reading through. Z-Lin turned to her own auxiliary command console and studied the data. “Aside from the hull plates and some broken life-support stuff, there are a few other components here. Not the actual synthetic intelligence hub stuff – too sensitive, they took all that out with them – but some basic components that were too big to transport. Including torus sheaths from the supply ships that docked here sometimes.”

“What are you saying?” Z-Lin frowned. “Are you saying we could make Rakmanmorion a
relative drive
?”

“It’s not impossible,” Decay said, bright-eyed. “The torus is here, there’s other big raw components in the remains of the manufactory, and the AstroCorps-sensitive components are all basically modular and replaceable. They’re controlled tech, but they’re not
rare
– and we have them.”

“Yes we do,” Z-Lin said. “They’re our spare parts. And our printers are too messed up to make more.”

“We have a couple of backups for the most important pieces,” Decay said, “and the relative drive is one of the few things on the
Tramp
that’s in decent working order.”

“We don’t know when we’ll ever get our hands on more spares,” Clue said. “AstroCorps Rep and Rec are long gone from here, and it’s all small fry until we get to Declivitorion. Which is still more than a year away.”

“We can always leave Rakmanmorion out here to die,” Decay spread his lower hands. Clue gave him a hard look. “Or we can arrange passenger quarters for him on board and take him home ourselves, or take him with us and drop him home on our way
back
. And it’s not looking as though he’s got super-compatible environmental requirements, by the way.”

“You can’t tell me that if The Warm had had these big parts lying around, we wouldn’t have offered to build an extra relative drive or two for
them
,” Waffa said.

“Alright,” Clue held up her own hands, “couple more problems. We don’t have the
expertise
to build a … wait,” she jerked a thumb at the door. “We
do
, don’t we? We’ve got ables now.”

“Two of them are actual relative drive installation and repair guys,” Waffa admitted. “We’ve got them in the engine room because they were the closest thing to engineering techs, but they haven’t got much to do. This is literally what they were printed for.”

Z-Lin raised a finger. “One more. The relative drive takes power. More power than a rocket can provide. And Rakmanmorion’s ship has no fuel left, let alone a reactor. And the
Boonie
has lost her entire…” she noticed Decay was raising his upper left hand. “What am I missing?”

“Those big components?” Decay said. “One of them is a regression coil. It’s basically a big battery, if you take the interface off and seal it up. We can charge it from our engine, same as we did on The Warm for
their
power cells and reservoirs, and then
that
can be used to kick-start the relative field. It’d sustain for at least a couple of months. It would be a one-way trip, but it’d be enough.”

“You said he was six weeks from home?” Clue frowned.

Decay nodded. “His people will have to pick him out of orbit,” the Blaran said. “We don’t have the machinery to land him, and even I would draw the line at adapting a lander for him.”

“We’re really thinking about doing this, aren’t we?” Sally said.

“It’s a couple of days to charge the coil and install a relative field generator on his ship,” Decay said, “or it’s at least twelve weeks out of our way to drop him off. With however much extra time it will take to adapt quarters for him, and – fun though it might be – whatever diplomatic efforts we’d have to undergo at Rakmanmorion’s homeworld.”

“Or three weeks each way to drop him off at Þursheim,” Sally replied.

“If Þursheim is still there,” Waffa said. “Remember, it’s Schrödinger’s planet right now, or whatever. And if it does turn out there’s no help to be had there, it’ll be even
more
time to get him home. And even Þursheim is an added six-week detour since we already went off-piste.”

“All this, versus a potentially irreplaceable set of spare parts that could leave us stranded a hundred thousand years from anywhere if we blow a gasket,” Zeegon pointed out.

Z-Lin thought about it. “We can agree with Rakmanmorion that we’ll come by and pick the parts out of orbit on our way back from the edge,” she suggested grudgingly. “We can tag them easily enough.”

Zeegon turned, eyebrows raised. “Will he
go
for that?”

“You’re asking me like I know
what
the Conquerors of Space go for,” Clue replied dryly.

“Well, look at the state-of-the-art ship they sent out to explore the great unknown,” Sally said. “If we tell him we’re coming to take back our spare parts, what are his buddies going to do? Rub two sticks together at us really hard?”

“He was happy to just get hull plates,” Waffa agreed. “I think his people will be satisfied to just keep the torus and stuff, and reverse-engineer superluminal tech from there if we take the rest.”

“That is a pretty damned optimal result from a blind leap into outer space,” Maladin pointed out.

Clue sighed. “Send Rakmanmorion another packet,” she said, and Decay gave her a nod a moment later. “How are your consumables?”

“I am reduced by [a third] of my flesh,” Rakmanmorion, Conqueror of Space replied after an extended pause.

“Please clarify,” Z-Lin said, although she really didn’t want an answer, “are you referring to your own body mass or your food rations?” she turned to Decay. “Is there anything in the metadata that we could use to synthesise rations for him?”

“There’s
everything
,” Decay said, tapping away. “It’s like a ‘how to wipe out our entire species’ guide in here. But I don’t think you’re going to like this.”

“I had a hunch.”

“Rakmanmorion’s species are big fellows,” Decay said, “and it looks like the majority of their bodies are … disposable.”

“My food,” Rakmanmorion’s response removed any need for Decay to continue. “I had packed sufficient [rations] for a [probably standard] mission, but did not anticipate being stranded. I depend on my [non-vital body mass, not including brain and brainstem] for consumption. It will [grow back] in time.”

“Right,” Z-Lin said, leaning back in her seat and nodding. “So, he’s eating himself.”

“I think I’ve just decided I don’t want to see this guy after all,” Zeegon said.

WAFFA

It was a joy, Waffa reflected, to have an important and relatively difficult job to do, and not to
have to do it himself
. The ables, who had boarded the
Tramp
ready-assigned with the nicknames Monty and Stron, had happily gone about preparing the relative torus with no more than a couple of EVA-fitted Automated Janitorial Drones to assist them. In the approximately seventy hours the
Tramp
spent parked alongside the wreckage of
Boonie’s Last Stand
, the two ables cobbled together a
theoretically
-functional relative field generator and fitted it to the hull of Rakmanmorion’s ship. At the same time, the
Tramp
’s crew – and again, this was mostly the work of ables – worked on getting the regression coil charged and finding an effective way of attaching the improvised battery to the alien craft so the whole lot could be enveloped in the field and fired homewards.

This challenge was also made easier by the fact that Rakmanmorion, and a little swarm of simple but highly efficient and versatile “[flea]-drones” from his own mission kit, had already begun scavenging regulation hull-plates from the
Boonie
and attaching them to his craft. In doing so they had solved the main issue of bonding Six Species materials to the unique composite hardware favoured by Rakmanmorion’s civilisation. After that, it was just a matter of affixing the drive and regression coil to the new hull.

As for Rakmanmorion, Conqueror of Space himself … well, he was a phlegmatic type, although how much of this was directly related to the fact that he had already
eaten
about a third of his own body was anyone’s guess and frankly Waffa didn’t like to think about that aspect of it. They talked to him a bit more over the course of the three-day layover, although thankfully they were never at any point forced to lay eyes on him. The alien didn’t – in fact
couldn’t
– emerge from his primitive spacecraft in person. His species didn’t seem to have designed spacesuits – or they
had
, and the ship’s main module essentially doubled as one. There was no such thing as extra-vehicular activity to Rakmanmorion, Conqueror of Space. Extra-vehicular activity was synonymous with his ship breaking open. Instead of personal EVA, it seemed Rakmanmorion’s people had compensated with the surprisingly advanced flea-drone technology.