Indian Hill (35 page)

“Is this Supreme Commander a pretty popular guy?” I asked casually

“What exactly do you mean by popular, Mike?” Frertek asked almost if he was trying to grasp a question out of a non-developed infant’s mind. And I guess for all I knew about their culture I was just that.

“Do you vote in your leaders?”

“Oh no, hu-man.” I must have really been looking ignorant, this was the first time Frertek had slid down into the Genogerian method of addressing me. “He is the Supreme Commander by birthright. He can be challenged only by those of high blood and only during the Marquetith.”

“The mar what?” I asked, puzzled.

“It is something much like these games, it is much more ritualistic though. Very seldom do injuries occur during their bouts. But the winner is crowned the Supreme Commander.”

“How often do these ritualistic fights take place?”

“Roughly two and half of your earth years.”

“And once the bout has been decided it cannot be challenged?”

“No hu-man, we do not have impeachments like on your planet, he is our Supreme Commander and all on this ship would die a thousand deaths before we would see any harm befall him. Come Mike, we will go to the eating hall, all this question and answering has made me hungry. And do not worry, it is not the Genogerians’ eating time, you will not be subjected to see any of your peers eaten.”

“How comforting,“ I answered.

“Yes, I agree.” They really d
id not
have a sense of humor. How do you go this far into your evolution without laughing? Maybe that’s how the Germans were always kicking ass on our planet.

It actually ended up being a relatively enjoyable lunch. Frertek was quite chatty and gave me a lot of insights into his civilization. I think he was what we on Earth would call bragging. He was always comparing it to the foibles of my planet.

“You know Mike. if we had been around here when your Earth smashing meteorite had hit we would have stopped it. Our planets are very similar except for the obvious fact of who won out in the evolutionary tract. My kind by right should be ruling your planet; it took an interstellar mistake of vast proportions to change that outcome. So basically we are only taking
back
what was rightfully ours from the beginning.” I dropped my juice. It spilled all over my shirt, but I didn’t even notice.

“So, so, you’re here to stay?” I stuttered.

“Well not me personally, but once the invasion is complete we by all means plan to make this one of our colonies.”

“You’re just going to take our planet?” I cried.

“It is only yours by mistake hu-man, and at the pace you are going we are only speeding the process up by a few years at most.”

“What gives you the right to come from God knows where and take what is ours?”

“We take whatever we wish to. We are not hampered with the overabundance of emotions that you hu-mans have. This planet will be an excellent colony for us, and with a minimum amount of work to restore it.”

“So you are just going to come in and wipe us out as if the meteorite never hit?”

“Oh no Mike, we plan on using your kind for our physical labor, and like the Genogerians we will most likely use you in our conflicts throughout the galaxies. Your kind has proved over and over again your skills at killing, treachery and trickery. You will fit in most well with our scheme of things. And the way that you procreate so quickly
your kind
will
also
make a wonderful food source.”

“You’re going to eat us?”

“Well, not all of you.” It seemed by his tone that he couldn’t believe that I was outraged with the fact that we were now a step lower on the food chain. “Do not be alarmed Mike, while we do plan to greatly reduce your numbers we have no desire to extinguish your species like you do to so many of the other species on your planet. To kill you off would not be beneficial to our species. You work hard and kill gloriously, and when prepared properly you taste wonderful.”

“How comforting,” I said for the second time
that
day.

“Quite,” he answered. I really think he thought that I was appeased.

That little bit of conversation put a huge damper on the rest of my meal. I tried my best to show Frertek that I was thoroughly pleased that they weren’t going to wipe us out, only enslave and eat us. I think I would have much preferred option one. Mankind would be more inclined to fight to the finish if they knew it was a matter of extinction or not. Just take this small group of concert-goers for instance. We had butchered each other for survival, would we have been so inclined had we been told we would merely be enslaved and a certain portion of us rooted out? I don’t think so, we would have settled for the more peaceable solution because the survival rate would be significantly higher. What of the quality of life? Was a mere increase in quantity worth the degradation in quality? I’d rather go down guns a blazing to th
o
se things than to die an old decrepit slave having done their bidding my entire life. That one flash of existence would have infinitely far outweighed the dragged out dredge my life and my future generations’ lives would become. And so I kept with my plans to get off of th
e
ship. Although I must admit it was much more
in the planning stage
than anything of true substance. I rationalized, smoke and mirrors pretty much summed up my entire time here thus far. I would first need to get through my next competitor and that in itself was going to be no easy matter. I d
id not
think he would care if I told him that I needed to get off of this ship to tell our home planet of the imminent danger that they were in. My guess is that he just wanted to finish me and Durgan off and he would be quite content to spend the rest of his days aboard th
e
ship doing their bidding. Who knows, I could be wrong but that was my impression and at the time I had no one else’s to go with. I prodded Frertek for as much information as I could about the ship, pretending as best I could to be completely awe struck about everything he said, which actually wasn’t that far from the truth. When someone tells you that the ship you are in is roughly the size of
Maine
, you have to be a little dumb-founded. I guess Frertek was in a good mood or maybe he thought I had no chance of surviving the next round, or maybe it just didn’t matter to him what I knew. What could I do with any information he told me anyway? It’s not like there was a Radio Shack on th
ere, I couldn't phone home
. Although maybe
I could
. He told me that the entire outer hull that wrapped around the ship was the hangar which contained somewhere on the order of ten thousand ships. The next inner layer housed humans,
and
other non-friendly aliens or their version of livestock
.
I learned that my ‘window’ was merely a projected image on a plasma screen, I felt cheated
. The next inner layer contained close to ten million Genogerians, their warrior class. The inner layer contained the more advanced race of Progerians, they roughly numbered in the two
and a half
million range and then the inner sanctum where only those of the high blood were quartered, and there was where the Supreme Commander reigned supreme.

“So you don’t intend on destroying Earth.” I stated.

“Oh by no means, if we had wished to do that we would have done so long ago and been done with it.
Y
our planet so closely matches our own in terms of gravity and atmosphere and it comes neatly stocked with an endless food supply. It would be detrimental for us to destroy your planet.”

“How do you plan on taking our planet
over
? You have watched us fight, you know that we are not merely going to lie down and let you waltz on in.”

“Waltz on in?”

“I mean just come to our planet and
we
hand it over.”

“No, the plan is a simple one that we have used throughout the galaxy. We will demoralize your p
opulace first
. We will start with an overwhelming display of force and then offer what your people call an olive branch. Once your people have realized that they cannot resist our awesome might we will have won. Your kind will roll over like all those before you have.”

“And how exactly do you go about displaying this awesome show of force?” I knew it was a long shot but I had to push, what could it hurt? He seemed to like to brag and I was a captive audience.

“It’s quite brilliant in its simplicity. First we level two or three of your largest population centers around the planet. The sheer magnitude of the destruction is usually enough to quash any resistance, but occasionally a small faction or two will rise up and that is when we
let
loose the Genogerians on them. To have terror reigned on from above is one thing, but to fight the
m
up close and personal has made stronger species than your own quake and shiver. The longest we have ever had to battle for possession of a planet was I believe eighteen of your Earth months. The Drenodiuns were an incredibly resilient fighting force.”

“Were.” I interjected.

“Yes, they proved entirely too difficult to bend to our will so we did away with them.”

“What do you mean you ‘did away’ with them? You wiped out a whole species because they wouldn’t just surrender to a hostile alien force and give up their home planet, their freedom and ultimately their lives to you?!” I was fuming. My planet’s very existence was hanging on a thread. A thread which the Progerians held.

“It really wasn’t that big of a deal, they tasted horrible no matter how much seasoning you put on them.”

“What happened that you destroyed them all?”

“They were a lot lower in their development than your species is right now. They were somewhere more along the lines of the late 1700’s in their technology. Their weapons were very crude. We obliterated a few of their larger settlements but they did not have the mass media like so many planets do. They actually had no reliable means for the news to carry. It was weeks, sometimes
even months before news of the
atrocities spread, so the seed of doubt had not been planted into them like it will be on your planet when images of Brazil razed and burning are flashed across the globe in live time. When the Genogerians landed the Drenodiuns fought for everything they were worth. They fought, they died, they inflicted a lot more casualties than we had anticipated, and they just wouldn’t give up. Even when we could come to a tentative agreement with one country, none of the others would follow suit. And after we fought from country to country and finally had them succumb to our rule, still they fought. The governments called them rogues or rebels, but we knew better, we knew the governments were funding their operations. The Supreme Commander decided, especially since they tasted so bad, that ridding the land of them would do us no undue harm or misfortune. We removed all of our troops and dropped huge pods of poison onto their planet. Within three weeks all the Drenodiuns that lived on that planet were either dead or dying.”

“How could you?”

“Oh do not worry, the poison is very fast in the breakdown process. We were able to inhabit the planet less than six months after the pods had done their work. Clean up after th
o
se
types of
attacks can be tedious but colonists seldom mind difficult work. The poison was specifically designed to kill only the Drenodiuns so food was still in abundance, even more so because obviously the top predator of the food chain had been eliminated.”

“So you didn’t destroy the whole planet?”

Frertek snorted. “What would be the sense in that? Contrary to popular beliefs on Earth there are not hundreds of thousands of habitable planets out there. They are very rare and precious. To destroy a perfectly good planet makes no sense, it makes no sense whatsoever.” And he seemed a little peeved that I would even think that his species was capable of such a thing. Geez, what was I thinking.

“Frertek, what happens to me if I win this competition?” Would he answer?

“Well as you know Mike, I statistically doubt that you will win, but because you asked I will answer. As we travel from galaxy to galaxy you would be paraded around as the champion of the Earth games. More than likely you will face champions from other species. You will keep fighting to live or you will die.”

“So there is no happy ending to this fairy tale?”

“Being among a superior race should be enough reward in its own.” And there wasn’t a hint of sarcasm in his voice. Well, I guess if you kick ass all across the galaxies you have a right to be cocky. If I ever got a hold of a plasma weapon he was going to be the first to taste it.
A
s I had been for a long time about a lot of things, I was wrong again. Frertek babbled a little more and I nodded at the appropriate times like a good little lap dog and he eventually led me back to my house. I was actually relieved to be coming back. The women didn’t say anything but they also appeared relieved that I hadn’t offended anybody and ended up on t
hat n
ight’s menu. I was exhausted; Frertek’s ramblings had worn me out. I felt like I had the weight of my life, all the women’s lives, and the lives of everyone on my planet squarely weighted on my shoulders. Even if I won
and could get off of the ship,
what would I be going back to? Certainly not the planet I had left. Well, I reasoned, at least internal Earthly disputes would cease to exist.
T
he alternative wasn’t any better, not by a long shot. One thing I took from Frertek was that Earth still had time. Th
e
ship, as vast as it was, was not a true invasion/occupation force, it was a scout. The real battle cruisers were a good three to four years off even with their buckle drives, whatever that meant. The scout ships were just that, scouts. They were there to put the fear of God, or whatever deity the Progerians worshipped, into the doomed species and to occasionally chase off any other species that might be trying to move in on their intended territory. The universe was vast but not so vast that on occasion two competing species wouldn’t fight over a planet or a system. The battle cruisers were the true invaders, but a scout ship could still deliver considerable damage.