Space Rocks! (3 page)

“But war is serious business. In considering the possibility, we cannot only name our advantages. We must take honest stock of our disadvantages as well. The first of those is numbers. There are twelve billion humans back on Eo. I'll say it again: twelve billion. By comparison, there are about six thousand Xotonians. So it doesn't matter how good our blasters are when compared with their guns. They outnumber us roughly two million to one.”

At this terrifying statistic, the crowd broke down again—loud bawling, howls of terror; some even fell and began to pound the cavern floor in despair.

“Yes, there are at least two hundred million kilometers between us and most of them,” continued Kalac, “but this only highlights a second disadvantage we have: space travel. We all know that in the Time of Legends the Xotonian race could travel the stars as easily as we walk between caverns today. But those days are long behind us. The humans have spacecraft. We don't. That means that even if we defeat them, they can just come back again. And again.

“So I propose to you all an alternate plan. One that preserves our advantage of surprise entirely,” said Kalac. “Let us attack the humans without attacking them.” There was a buzz of general confusion as the crowd tried to pull itself back together.

“Pardon me, Kalac,” said Loghoz, “but that is a logical contradiction.”

“Perhaps it would be better if I showed you what I mean,” said Kalac, and it wheeled forward a view-screen large enough for even those in the back of the crowd to see. Kalac activated the screen. It showed a green map depicting a well-known part of the cavern system. I couldn't help but notice how shabby the Xotonian display looked compared with the human hologram device.

“This is an area of the Gelo caverns,” said Kalac. “And these are the mines that the humans have dug.” It clicked the view-screen remote. Now the mines, square shafts shown in yellow, were overlaid upon the twisting caverns. At several points the yellow and green were nearly touching.

“But by destroying supports here,” said Kalac, indicating a point on the map, “we could cause a major subterranean collapse. Both the human mines and the natural caverns below them would fall in on themselves. On the surface, this would result in a major asteroid-quake.” Now the map showed the zone of collapse shaded in purple, completely inscribing the mines and caverns.

“This would happen right beneath the human mothership,” said Kalac. It clicked again, and now the outline of the grounded human vessel sat squarely in the middle of the purple zone. The crowd gasped and began to whisper among themselves.

“This collapse would damage the human spacecraft, perhaps critically, and destroy much of their mining equipment. Best of all, the humans would believe it was simply a natural disaster,” said Kalac. “They would never even know that any Xotonians were involved.”

“Just a moment,” said Dyves, another member of the Council. “Those ‘supports' you pointed out are kilometers of solid rock. Destroying them would be impossible. Simply impossible.”

Kalac paused. “Not if we use the Q-sik.” Another murmur rumbled through the crowd.

“From the time of Jalasu Jhuk,” said Kalac, “each Chief of the Council has been passed down an eight-digit numeric code. This is the code to open the Vault. I know that to some of you, using the Q-sik may seem brash, or even sacrilegious. But we face an unprecedented emergency. I believe we can remove the device, use it just once, and then return it to its rightful place.”

“But what's to stop the humans from returning?” asked Glyac, the fifth member of the Council. Up to this point, the casual observer would be forgiven for wondering whether Glyac was awake or not.

“What will stop them,” said Kalac, “is themselves. If we attack the humans directly, even if we win, they are certain to come back in force. We've observed them enough to understand that retaliation is in their nature.” Sheln grumbled and shook its head.

Kalac continued, “But if a ‘natural disaster' destroys their settlement, well, the humans will conclude that asteroid mining is too unsafe to pursue any further. And even if they return, they will pick a different asteroid to mine. After all, there are millions of others in the solar system. Presumably with just as much iridium.”

I could tell the crowd was coming around to Kalac's way of thinking. Hudka still wasn't convinced, though.

“Doing nothing is not an option,” said Kalac. “The humans show no sign of leaving. Starting an open war with them is not an option either. We'll lose. Using the Q-sik to create an asteroid-quake is the only way to avert disaster.”

Kalac had made its case. It was done. And maybe it was right? Maybe the humans would declare their invasion a bust and go back to their little blue dot. I felt a sudden pang at the thought of the four laughing humans leaving our asteroid forever.

No, I told myself, they're just a bunch of gross two-eyed space invaders who don't even belong here! Good riddance. Right?

“Does the Council,” said Loghoz, “wish to propose any other—”

“Yup! Over here, kid!” cried Hudka. Loghoz sank when it realized who was speaking.

All eyes were now on us. I shrank from the attention. My grand-originator is a remarkable Xotonian, but it can also be an embarrassing one.

Most believe that Hudka is the oldest living member of our race, though there is some debate on this point. Gatas always claimed that it was three days older, but Hudka disagreed. Strongly. Gatas had effectively lost the argument a while back, when it went completely deaf and could no longer hold its own in shouting matches with my grand-originator.

Xotonians generally give Hudka a bit of respect for its advanced age. Hudka calls this the “not-dead-yet factor.” But it has never been in Hudka's nature to tell others what they want to hear. And when you've been that outspoken for that long in a community as small as ours, you've already given everyone you've ever met several doses of opinion. In many ways, Hudka was now just a small, wrinkled vessel for opinions. And the older Hudka got, the louder those opinions became.

“Hudka, please,” said Loghoz, sighing.

“Don't you try to get high-thol'grazed with me, Loghoz. I was on the Council when you were still an egg sac!” said Hudka. Loghoz blinked.

I looked to Kalac. My originator was straining to keep calm.

“Hudka, you are no longer a Council member,” said Kalac in an overly measured tone. “We cannot have every—”

“Aw, not this one again,” said Hudka to the crowd. “Kalac, didn't you just blather on for an hour? I wouldn't know. I think I fell asleep right after you started talking!”

Nervous laughter from the crowd. They were torn. A lot of them thought Hudka was a nutty old crank, but the spirit of a Conclave is democratic. Anyone who has an idea should be able to share it.

“If the Council agrees, Hudka may address the Conclave,” said Loghoz at last. “All in favor?”

Four thol'grazes went up—three grudgingly. Only Sheln seemed particularly eager to hear Hudka out. It clearly just wanted Kalac to be publicly embarrassed by its own originator.

“All opposed?”

Only one thol'graz. Kalac's, of course.

“By a vote of four to one, the Council resolves to allow Hudka to address the Conclave,” said Loghoz. “But please, Hudka, try to keep it brief and to the point.”

“Thank you, Loghoz. You're smarter than you look, and don't ever let anybody tell you different,” said Hudka. Loghoz blinked again.

“First off,” said Hudka, enjoying the attention, “iridium.” Suddenly Sheln was the one who looked nervous.

“This mushroom-head had the cergs to stand up here in front of all of you and say that the humans are going to take all of our iridium and leave us poor Xotonians without power,” said Hudka, pointing right at Sheln. “Guano!

“If you know anything about science—which I'll grant that most of you folks don't—you'd understand that this much iridium”—Hudka held two brips the barest width apart—“is enough to power our entire city for a whole year! Such was the genius of the technology our great ancestors created. I personally have enough iridium in my closet to keep us in power for ten million years. Even I'll be dead by then!

“Fact is, there's ample iridium for Xotonian and human both. Iridium's not the issue,” said Hudka definitively. At this point Sheln had turned nearly plaid with anger.

From what I understood, Hudka was right. The ancient reactor that powered all of Core-of-Rock was incredibly efficient. It only required a tiny amount of iridium to keep running.

“Second: attacking the humans,” said Hudka. “Both of these so-called plans the Council has presented are just attacking the humans. One's a direct attack. The other's a sneak attack. Same difference. Folks will get hurt, maybe even die. I ask all of you why we would attack before we've been attacked? Is this the Xotonian way? To strike first and ask questions later? That's not what we tell our younglings to do. That's not what we should do. All of you who want to rush to violence should be ashamed of yourselves.”

Sheln sure didn't look ashamed. Kalac didn't either.

“Now I'll grant you that these humans could turn out to be tough customers. They sure are ugly, so they might be mean too. Point is: We don't know! And we can't attack them without at least talking to them first. Yes, fighting is necessary sometimes. But we owe it to ourselves to try to settle our differences peacefully first. At least we'd be acting like civilized Xotonians and not a pack of bloodthirsty thyss-cats!”

Sheln hissed. Kalac shook its head.

“Third, and last of all: the Q-sik,” said Hudka. “We're supposed to guard the Q-sik, not use it! Most have forgotten, but we tried using it once before, and that brought disaster upon our people.”

Everyone knew that Great Jalasu Jhuk had tasked us with protecting the Q-sik. That was its first commandment. I didn't understand what Hudka meant when it said we'd already used the weapon, but I saw some of the older Xotonians nod knowingly.

“The Q-sik is a weapon so powerful, the legends say it can tear a hole in the very fabric of the universe!” continued Hudka. “That's not something I take lightly. So I'll say it again, loud enough for even old Gatas to hear: We shouldn't use it on the humans!

“Our enemy isn't a pack of humans who can barely shuttle between their home planet and this little asteroid. The real enemy is out there. Watching. Waiting for us to do something stupid.”

“Oh, please,” said Sheln, “you can't seriously mean—”

“The Vorem,” said Hudka ominously.

T
he crowd exploded at the mention of the Vorem. Most were laughing, although I thought I could hear a nervous pitch in it.

Every Xotonian youngling was told frightening tales of the evil Vorem Dominion, an ancient empire that supposedly ruled the stars and all the black spaces between. In our legends, the Vorem had chased Jalasu Jhuk all over the galaxy. Our Great Progenitor always used its wits and courage to stay one step ahead of them.

If you didn't finish your chores, the elders chided us, a Vorem centurion might just come and get you. If you misbehaved, the Vorem imperator would leave you a lump of black tourmaline instead of a present for the Feast of Zhavend.

Past a certain age, few truly believed these stories. But it was hard to completely shed the fear they inspired.

“Order! Order, please!” cried Loghoz over the ruckus. “Order while the Conclave is in session!”

“Go on. Waste our time,” cried Sheln to Hudka, “and by the end of this Conclave, we'll all be your age.” By Sheln standards, the joke was a pretty decent one.

“If you were my age, I'd knock your ish'kuts in!” cried Hudka. Sheln lunged forward, and Dyves strained to hold it back.

“Hudka! We all know about the Vorem,” said Kalac. “But we can't worry about old stories when we have a real threat, right here on the surface of our asteroid.”

“They're not stories,” said Hudka. “The Vorem are real. And they still want to destroy us!”

“Hudka, the Observers search the skies continually with their telescopes and scanners,” sneered Dyves. “If the Vorem actually existed—if there were any Vorem nearby, we would have seen them.”

“No!” cried Hudka. “They don't have to be nearby. Their ships can travel faster than the speed of light. Just like we used to be able to do! That means they can cross an entire galaxy in a matter of hours.”

My grand-originator may have had the crowd earlier, but now, faster than the speed of light, Hudka was veering into nutty old coot territory. What it was saying sounded ridiculous, even to me.

“And for your information,” said Hudka, “when I was a kid, I did see a Vorem battle cruiser! Saw it. Plain as the sun, blinking right there on a scanner screen in the Observatory. It was searching this sector, I tell you. Looking for us!”

I doubted that a single one of the assembled Xotonians had not already heard this story. Almost all of them had discounted it as pure nonsense. The crowd started to chatter loudly now, in a tone that was less than respectful. My grand-originator had lost them.

“When you were a kid, T'utzuxe had running water!” someone cried out to much laughter.

“When Hudka was a kid,” yelled another, “the sun hadn't formed yet!” An even bigger laugh.

It was one thing for me to tease my own grand-originator about its age. It was quite another for a mob of strangers to do it. I was furious but powerless to do anything.

“Hey, when Hudka was a kid,” said Sheln, never content to let a joke die a quiet, dignified death, “it was so long ago that everyone, uh, wore rocks instead of clothes!”

The crowd was silent.

“Because . . . Hudka . . . very old . . .” Sheln trailed off.

“Let the record show,” said Loghoz, “there was never any official confirmation of the incident that Hudka describes. Hudka was the only one who actually saw this supposed Vorem battle cruiser.”

“I take it back, Loghoz,” said Hudka. “You are as dumb as you look.”

“Hudka, I have had just about enough of your disrespect!” cried Loghoz, bursting into tears once more. “The Custodian of the Council is an honored and ancient title! For thousands of years, the most punctual and literal-minded member of the Council has held . . .”

Loghoz lectured on, but Hudka was no longer paying attention. “I can see which way this Conclave is headed, kid. Don't need to watch it play out,” it said quietly to me. “See you back at home. I'll make us some dinner.”

“But Hudka, wait—”

Too late. It had already hobbled off, disappearing into the crowd.

“Thank you, Loghoz. Highly informative,” said Kalac, gently cutting off Loghoz's blubbery diatribe midway through a biography of Enuz the Rigid, the third to hold the title of Custodian. “If no one else wishes to make any more motions, I suggest we bring both of the Council's proposals to a vote.”

“Wait, wait,” said Sheln. “Hudka is so old . . . wait . . . Hudka was a kid so long ago . . . but . . . hold on . . .”

“Oh, give it a rest, Sheln,” said Kalac.

The Council called a vote on the two proposals about how our race would deal with the humans: a direct attack or an artificial asteroid-quake. A Grand Conclave is only called to decide matters of great importance, and everyone, young and old, may vote.

The Xotonian people chose the asteroid-quake plan by a vote of 4,217 to 1,871. As far as I could see, there was only one abstention. For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to choose either option.