Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (55 page)

Then they did something new, which although he was apprehensive, could possibly be something more physically threatening. Something he could hope would lead to his death. He couldn’t see exactly what it was because it was done from behind him, but they lowered an object over his head, and he saw only a trace of light leaking in from below, from near his neck area. However, he could hear what they were saying perfectly, and it came from speakers embedded in the object placed over his head, which were not positioned exactly where his own ears were located. The sound came from higher on the side of his head, closer to where human ears were found, he realized on reflection. He felt despair when he was asked similar questions as before, and there was no threat or physical action taken against him. In the near darkness, he couldn’t help but think of what he was asked about, and he thought frequently of how good it would feel to kill not only these humans but also every human.

****

Mirikami was explaining something difficult for Bledso to believe. It didn’t sound entirely ridiculous to her, because he had previously conditioned her to accept as true his assertion that the new alien design body armor sensed the wearer’s thoughts. That was actually a true statement, if you were a Kobani. When a Kobani was wearing the armor, the suits
did
react faster than a normal human was capable of doing. He’d implied that this mind-to-suit linkage enabled the armor itself to react faster than was otherwise possible. He’d not mentioned that it was a superconducting nervous system and Koban muscles, which really gave the user that speed. The suits actually slowed the wearer down very slightly.

Before he donned his own helmet, he winked at Nabarone, providing a hint of the stunt he was about to try.

The mental link with the suit’s AI was the basis for the plausible portion of his story. He smiled unseen under his own helmet, as it settled into place. Now he would embellish the story with the logically smelly details that made the remainder of the explanation pure bullshit. No need to reveal his Mind Tap ability.

“Admiral, the helmets I had brought here for you and the Krall are not attuned specifically to your neural systems. Neither of you can properly interface with the alien AI system, to link your mind to it for sending controlling thoughts. I’m sure you appreciate that when we are in combat, we have no way of placing a helmet on the head of a docile Krall warrior and doing this.”

The implication being that this wasn’t a practical demonstration of a real-time application of a tactically useful technology. A typical Krall would really be shooting at you, not merely thinking about doing it.

“My own helmet was individually adjusted by the Torki for me, as it is for each suit fitted for my people, to sense individual unique mental patterns. However, it can send you information in a broadband signal that your mind can receive as emotions and mental images.

“I’ll ask the Krall questions, and you and I will each sense what it is thinking in general. Because I have the helmet that’s properly adjusted, I’ll be able to better sense what thoughts filter through from the Krall, but in tests we know that you should receive them as well, but more attenuated. This isn’t pleasant for any human, but we can catch glimpses of what this sub leader, whom I captured outside their joint clan council dome, knows about another invasion. If you’re ready, take my hand and then touch the back of the Krall’s hand, where you’ll note even the fingers are secured, although it can’t move them.”

She answered, expressing some apprehension. “I suppose so. I feel rather foolish wearing this contraption, and not particularly happy to be touching a clammy cold hand.” Realizing what she said she quickly amended her words, because she was also holding one of Mirikami’s hands.

“I meant touching the Krall’s hand of course, Captain.”

“I understand what you meant admiral.” Of course he did, with hand-to-hand contact with her. He’d explained that his AI was helping improve the linkage between her and the Krall with the physical contact. In reality, it was only his Mind Tap doing that.

“You can pull away from contact at any time, and I assume you still have a satisfactory visual inside your helmet, of the Krall, of me, and of the room?” It was a perfunctory question for her benefit, because he saw mentally that she did.

Bledso looked directly at him, glanced over to the Krall, who was helpless to move his hand away from the dual contact, and then she looked around the room. There was Nabarone observing them, and the same two armed men that had guarded the last prisoner she’d seen.

It was a remarkable vision system. “The outside image on the inside of this completely enclosing helmet is astoundingly vivid, and I hear room noises and your voice perfectly. There’s no visual distortion like at the edges of a faceplate, as there is in any suit I’ve worn previously, nor any false color shifting that I can detect. I can’t even see the blue-lit protrusions that I know are mounted on the outside front of my helmet, right in front of my face, but I can see yours. You said those are the energy beam projectors.”

“Yes. However, without the rest of the suit’s power system connected, they’re not activated. We’re operating on helmet battery power alone, which will last only a short time. We had best start our interrogation.” Actually, they would have about an hour of external vision, since there was no power drain for weapons or stealth, but he didn’t want to maintain this charade for that length of time.

“I’ll activate the AI’s link between you and me, and then with the Krall. I’ll warn you just before I let the Krall’s mind link in. It may be intensely hostile.” That was an understatement.

“Oh. I do sense you, I think.” She said. Mirikami had gently provided an emotional sense of caution to her, to be prepared for an onslaught of hatred and violence. “You want me to be ready for a wave of violent thoughts. This technology is fascinating.”

“I’ll let the Krall’s thoughts link in now.” He filtered them only slightly, because he didn’t want her to consider this fun, or something anyone would like to try casually.

“Oh my God!” She gripped Mirikami’s hand tighter. “He wants to cut us up alive and eat the pieces as we watch. I can actually sense the vile taste he thinks he would have to endure to do that.”

“I told you these links are not easy or pleasant. Do you wish to continue?” He knew she only half heard his words in the onslaught of Krall hatred, but he had to respect her mental toughness as she took rigid control of her emotions, using the same mental frame of mind she’d had when she was the XO on a battleship in the second attack on K1. Mirikami hadn’t known she was part of that fleet action.

“Let’s get on with it. I don’t like this bastard either.”

What followed were a number of questions in Standard, which all produced the expected violent mental response for anything said in the human language. Then Mirikami asked a question about the supplies on K1, followed with a similar, slightly differently phrased question in high Krall, which Bledso naturally couldn’t understand.

The first images were of a mighty fleet leaving K1, gloriously unhampered by human harassment. Not like the flash of savage irritation displayed when he thought of what had occurred when the other fleet had lifted from Poldark. Then he visualized as the new fleet Jumped to some generic image of a heavily populated human world. He didn’t know which world that would be, but the landing warriors slaughtered cities full of human populations, in a torrent of killing, he personally would earn many status points.

Naturally, this Krall didn’t envision any effective resistance from the stupid animals encountered. He didn’t employ the wider thinking of a strategic planner of some leader like Kanpardi or Telour, or even of most Major clan leaders. He quickly descended into the thoughts of many personal kills, and earning great status. He thought of the tools of war he needed to fight these great battles, and of forcing war production to increase on their own worlds, making the weapons his clan needed to rise to become a Great clan, with him as a great leader.

Then, at the height of Kartok’s thoughts of personal fervor and ambition, Mirikami made a minor miscalculation, and asked him when the
next
invasion would happen. One in which his Ditka clan would not play a significant role, and which he now knew that as a captive he would not be present to see or to participate. His life as a warrior was over, his bloodline ending.

Mirikami had hoped he would receive the same sense of an imminent launch, as he’d received days earlier when he’d asked the same question. He wanted a sense of urgency imparted to motivate Bledso. Except the passage of those days had led Kartok to realize he wasn’t going to escape captivity, and that there would have been a new Tor Gatrol selected by now. He wanted one of the punitive plans of any one of the new war leader candidates to be implemented, to punish humanity severely, even before that next invasion was launched.

The images of the clan leaders, in a great hall making the selection of a new war leader flashed through their minds, laden with Kartok’s emotions of destruction to come. He was visualizing the total destruction of a human world when Mirikami snatched his hand from the Krall’s, ending the stream of imagined devastation. The final mental picture had been perceived as observed from high orbit, with flames covering the entire surface of a human world, mixed with vast explosions. Mirikami already knew this warrior didn’t know what the Olt’kitapi ships actually did, none having been used for many generations. He was improvising what he’d like to see happen from space.

“I’m sorry Admiral, every time I’ve provoked this one with too many questions it causes him to fantasize, mostly about what he wants to happen to all of humanity. He isn’t particularly happy with us, as you might imagine. He now has slipped into a berserker mode of thinking, where all humans die horribly as he watches in pleasure, and he sometimes dies in his own mind in an orgy of glorious killing. When he calms down we can resume.”

Mirikami vowed to himself to try to stay away from any question that might lead to visions of entire worlds being destroyed. Not that this wasn’t a real possibility, but yielding to Krall demands on the conduct of the war and obeying their terms would lead to the end of human civilization. There were three surviving species serving as living testimonials of the Krall’s eventual goal, and no living trace of the many civilizations the Krall had fully erased.

He was surprised at Bledso’s reply. “I don’t need to experience that unreasoning hatred again, Captain Mirikami. I had doubted how you could have predicted the Krall’s future actions, based simply on your observations and knowledge of what they have done in the past. I now see how you have been able to see into the darkness of their very soul, if they have one, and understand their fanatical resolve and overwhelming confidence that they can and will fight us to extinction, at any cost. I caught a mental image of their slave workers, being forced to replace the clanships they will need to return to their full aggressive strength. We can’t wait for that to happen. They are at their weakest they have been since they first attacked us, thanks to your surprise raids on their shipyards and Eight Balls.”

“Admiral, does that mean you can recommend an attack on K1 to the president?”

“No, not recommend. With your surveillance data in hand, I can
insist
we attack as soon as we can gather the fleet elements and plan the strike!”

There was something to be said in favor of properly applied bullshit.

The first order of business when the Mark returned to the Koban system was for Mirikami to learn what the Raspani and Torki scientists and technicians had learned about the redesigned Olts made by the Philodor Torki. He requested they try to discover how the chips embedded in a Kobani’s brain were able to communicate with those different Olts continuously, when both users were in Tachyon Space. If they could modify the chips that were intended for Kobani use to work the same way, remotely with one another when in a Jump Hole, it would speed and improve long-range communications tremendously.

A secondary goal was to redesign the standard Torki Olt to match the Philodor design. That replacement would be a slow process for the crab’s population as a whole, because the original implantation method of an Olt happened when a Torkedia, a young and primitive minded Torki, returned to the parent colony after years of wandering the seas. Following Torki custom, they sometimes consumed a deceased old adult, thus reusing an existing Olt, which migrated to position itself in their developing brains. When they were expanding their populations, they fed them brand new Olt circuit chips in their food, or for the first time they were introducing a new design of Olt. The mature Torki would feed new Olts to the young returning Torkedia.

The Raspani wanted to start embedding a similar chip technology of their own, when they implanted new mind enhancer chips in the brains of essentially empty-minded individuals. Namely, those Raspani that were recovered as wild herds on abandoned Krall planets.

Blue Flower Eater, and Coldar were waiting with Maggi, Marlyn, and Noreen as The Mark of Koban landed on Haven.

Jumping down onto the still steaming tarmac from the open fifteen-foot high portal, Mirikami and several companions literally did a hotfooted run over to meet the others. They needed long high leaps, possible only to a Kobani, to keep their boot soles from transmitting scorching heat to their feet. The remainder of the ship’s complement was willing to wait five minutes for the pavement to cool.

Maggi planted a hug and kiss on her new husband with a bit more enthusiasm than the socially conservative Mirikami was expecting. She and his friends knew he was embarrassed by public displays of affection when it involved himself.

Noreen and Dillon, both originally from liberal planetary societies, were entangled in a mutually passionate embrace, pressed tightly together. This elicited a humorous comment from Marlyn. “Should we just turn our backs for a few moments until you two finish?”

Thinking the remark was directed at him and Maggi, Mirikami flushed and quickly started to pull away. Looking over Tet’s shoulder, noting who Marlyn was actually looking at when she said that, Maggi decided to have fun at her subdued husband’s expense.

In a lilting voice she said, “Why Tet, the way you braved that hot pavement to race over to sweep me off my feet, I thought you were taking me back to our quarters. I think everyone could wait another hour. We’ve been apart for nearly a month, and we’re still newlyweds after all.” She fluttered her eyelids, and tossed her blonde curls, enjoying the deepening redness of his face.

It made Marlyn and the others crack up when they heard her, and saw Mirikami red faced and flustered. The two aliens, hearing Maggi’s words and accepting them at face value, politely excused themselves and turned away towards the science lab. It was common knowledge that their three alien allies speculated that the sexual preoccupation of humans went a long way towards explaining their general hyperactivity, and that this was perhaps why this young species kept expanding with so much vigor.

“No, wait!” Mirikami blurted. “I’m ready to go with you…, right now.”

The aliens turned back a moment, and Blue said, “Our respective species have waited thousands of years to be free of the Krall. Please, obey your basic instincts if that is necessary. What is a mere additional hour, or even two?” 

That appeared to strike all of the humans, except Mirikami, as hilarious.

Clearing his throat uncomfortably, Mirikami asked them to give him a moment. Then he introduced the third man that had crossed over the hot pavement with him and Dillon. “Maggi, you of course have heard Marlyn mention Sergeant Bill Crager. He’s no longer running a Kobani spec ops camp on Heavyside, and he was on Poldark helping to screw up the Krall fleet when they lifted off. He was also one third of the team that retrieved that Krall clanship commander drifting in space over Poldark a day later. That source of intelligence helped us get safely down onto K1. Bill, I’d like you to meet my wife, Maggi Fisher, a supposedly bright bio-scientist that has apparently devolved into the role of a humorist.”

“Gracious Lady, I’m pleased to meet you.” He offered only his hand, in the now common but archaic Kobani gesture. “Joe Longstreet has told me about you and your sense of humor. Perhaps that’s because Joe has also been a target of your jokes. I’m anticipating being one of your lab rats this week, Doctor. I’m visiting for my final gene upgrades for Mind Tap. Although I’d expected to receive them on Koban.” The last part sounded disappointed, as he looked at the tame seeming city starting to grow around Haven’s fledgling spaceport.

Maggi offered her hand, and grinned. “Don’t worry Bill; you’ll still receive the mod on Koban. It’s only a short in-system Jump. By the way, I want you to call me Maggi, not Doctor. We’re striving to eliminate some of the formality that Hub society ingrained in us for three centuries. We’re too far outside their influence here to pretend we share the same lifestyle and experiences now.

“When you get to Koban, I’m sure you’ll enjoy seeing the world where the bulk of your new genetics evolved. All except for the Prada longevity gene complex, and the nanite induced age regression, which we got from Human Space. Are you going to opt for the latter? It’ll change your appearance enough that you can’t go back to active duty as Sergeant Crager. You’d look young enough to pass for your own wayward son.” 

“No thanks. I’ll stay looking my present age for a time, Mam. I’m enjoying being back in the field, working with some of the young men I helped train, and find that I’m able to keep up with them.”

He looked at Tet. “I’ll also volunteer to try out the new chip for communicating directly with our alien friends over there, and with other Kobani from inside Tachyon Space, provided that technology will work for us.” He nodded towards the Raspani and Torki, the first friendly aliens he’d seen directly. There had been Mind Taps and Tri-Vids about them of course.

“I haven’t spent much time in space or in a Jump Hole in my career up to now, but I think with the long life I might have, that this will change. I’d like to be able to phone home, so to speak.”

Mirikami broke in. “Bill, if you wish, you can come along with me and I’ll introduce you to Blue and Coldar. They’re going to brief me on what they learned about the new communications ability that Cal and Mel experienced.”

“I’d like that, and to meet some of our allies at last.” He looked at Maggi. “If I have the time that is. When were we going to Koban?”

“You have plenty of time, because I was going along to the science building with Tet. I want to hear what they learned as well. I can bed my randy Captain later.”

“Maggi!” Mirikami protested in mild outrage.

As it happened, all of them on the ramp wanted to hear the briefing, since the subject matter concerned technology that any Kobani might wish to have. The entire group followed along behind Blue and Coldar. The aliens, waddling and skittering respectively, were sharing clicking, scraping, squeals and lip smacking sounds as they engaged in a conversation, walking at the front of the mixed group. The topic appeared to be on the subject of human sexuality, and from behind them, their body language suggested there was frequent alien equivalents to laughter.

When they reached the large segmented laboratory, divided into human, Torki, and Raspani designed equipment, and various shared areas of research, they were led to an auditorium type room, equipped with multispecies seating, and holographic visual presentation projectors. A number of human scientists joined them from other parts of the lab. One of them was Alex Born, who had been the fourth Kobani recipient of the Raspani designed chips. Coldar went to the front, to speak first.

Unlike a human, he didn’t make any preliminary remarks or introduce himself, diving directly into the explanation of why the Philodor Torki had improved their Olts, and how it was done. The clicks, scrapes, and chittering of Torki speech was subsumed beneath the amplified sound of Standard, issuing from the sound replicator attached to his carapace and fed from his Olt, which handled the translation.

The translator program was operating somewhat differently when Coldar was not in normal conversation mode. The change in voice quality oddly seemed to resemble Dillon’s, because Coldar had apparently modeled his lecture mode of speech around that of the human scientist, after hearing one of his presentations on genetics. It brought a smile to all of the humans present except one. Dillon himself appeared oblivious to the obvious mimicry, probably because his own voice sounded differently to him than it did to others. Coming from a large purple and yellow crab, it was incongruous, but easily understood.

“Because of the previous feral Krall infestation on Philodor, few places were safe for even the seashore dwelling Torki, who were forced to migrate to the smallest of islands for isolation. The sea life on Philodor does not produce the sort of calcium carbonite buildup of microscopic sea life, which could form the small islands your language refers to as coral atolls. In addition, Krall interference with ecology had produced global warming, and rising sea levels had long ago covered many low islands and swamped shallow shores. For safety and dispersion from possible returning Krall visitors, the Torki there spread to widely isolated points in the oceans, well beyond the normal Olt communication range.

“Here on Haven, and most worlds where Torki have been transplanted, our colonies have remained within one or two thousand miles of one another, with linkage between the most distant outposts made through colonies strung in between. On Philodor, to remain scattered and hidden if a Krall clanship returned to look for them, they found it necessary to spread far apart, as much as to the opposite side of the planet. There were too few in-between colonies to form continuous Olt links between each far-flung population. We have long known that an Olt’s linkage is not blocked by intervening mountains, or by the curvature of the planet, because the range dependency had nothing to do with physical obstacles. There is a form of quantum entanglement used to link the Olts of a colony, and if a colony is moved to a new planet, where other Torki already live, a synchronization of the Olts of the two colonies automatically takes place when the distance involved drops below the designed built-in range limit.

“The Philodor Torki experimented, and learned that the range limit, and a preset number of quantum entangled particles to use in our Olts apparently was set thousands of years ago by the Olt’kitapi, based on the average colony separation distance that our primitive ancestors maintained on our well-populated original home world. We outgrew that limit as our civilization matured, but we were not hampered by establishing closely spaced breeding colonies on new worlds, so it was never an issue. After the Krall came, we were not permitted to have many breeding colonies, and those we did have were kept close together for Krall manufacturing convenience.

“On Philodor, they solved their range limit for wider colony dispersal by increasing the number of quantum entangled particles, and using more than one type of entangled particle. The various new quantum entangled systems improved the sensitivity of the links between distant Olts, making the entanglement more stable and provided redundancy. It wasn’t physical objects or distance placed between Olts that caused the original range limit. It was the sensitivity of so few entangled particles, which were subject to disruption by external forces the farther away the Olts were. That ended the links when two Olts were moved too far apart.”

Coldar stopped talking, as if he’d made his point. All was clear, at least to his mind.

Seeing frowns and puzzled expressions on the faces of the non-physicists in the audience, Max Born offered a clarification.

“Gracious Ladies and Gentle Men, what Coldar has implied is that the Philodor Torki made their Olts vastly more sensitive, by increasing the degree of quantum entanglement that had always made them work. They now have a signal level well above the old noise level, which caused a loss of usable signal, a signal that was always present, but which was washed out over longer distances. Blue has an explanation as to how this new sensitivity relates to the effect discovered when the individuals on the Mark and on the Beagle were within Tachyon Space.” He motioned for Blue Flower Eater to address the group.

The Raspani wrinkled his forehead in the frown looking smile of his race. “I have learned to limit my technical explanation to humans that are non-scientists.” He then reconsidered what he meant by non-scientists.

“I mean those of you that do not specialize in physics. We have come to realize that humans have learned far more of biology and genetics than Raspani, Torki, and Prada have, even if all of our knowledge of this subject were combined. Other than a small gene change made by the Prada, to lengthen their lives to create older and wiser leaders, none of us ever dared to modify our own genes. In this too, you humans show more adventure than do we.” He squeezed in his elbows in their version of a shrug.