The Myriad: Tour of the Merrimack #1 (8 page)

Kerry blurted earnestly to Steele, to Farragut, (“
No
, sirs! I’m not!”)

The willowy Arran females looked to be rather flat chested, from what one could see of their figures under all that drapery. Perhaps they only developed breasts when they were pregnant.

Donner looked amazed. “May I have her?”

“No,” said Colonel Steele.

Donner darted Steele a nettled glare. “Captain Farragut, is this one permitted to speak for you?”

“Colonel Steele may answer for his Marines,” said Farragut.

The Archon puzzled over this lack of absolute authority, when suddenly, the soldier nearest to the soaring arches clutched his weapon to the ready, dropped into a crouch facing the terrace, and yelled: (“Hive! Hive! Hive! Hive!”)

All the Marines drew and turned. The Archon’s guards also drew their weapons but did not know which way to point. They saw the aliens brandishing weapons out toward their peaceful lake garden.

Kerry’s plant must have sensed her alarm as she dashed out to take a position on the terrace, because it wrapped its tendrils around her waist and flattened itself to her back, quivering.

Captain Farragut touched his dog collar, spoke into the link, (“Hive sign planetside. Report,
Merrimack
. Calli, what do you have?”)

Sensors in the planetside landing disks showed the exec aboard
Merrimack
not just a full view of the Archon’s reception hall, but also the temperature, atmospheric content, and composition of the furnishings. But apparently no view outside, because Calli answered, (“
Merrimack
, aye. What do you see, John? Tell me where to look. We’re quiet up here. Shipboard telltales are not, repeat NOT, showing Hive sign.”

(“We’ve got a swarm of insects.”)

(“Do you want me to shoot the flare? Come back.”)

(“Negative. Do not resonate. Do NOT resonate. Stand by.”)

(“
Merrimack
standing by.”)

The Arrans milled about, mildly perplexed, slightly alarmed but only by the aliens’ behavior. The Arran females giggled tentatively.

Farragut turned to the Archon. “Donner, is that swarming normal behavior for those—” Farragut could not locate the Myriadian word, finished in English, (“Butterflies?”)

The Archon said dubiously, “You are afraid of a swarm of
iffretiet
?” Donner gestured out toward the fluttering swarm across the lake.

“Do they usually swarm like that?” Farragut asked.

“Yes. Is it not well?”

Farragut touched his collar. (“
Merrimack
. Farragut. False alarm. Mr. Carmel, pretend it’s not. We have native species mimicking Hive sign. Run it down anyway. Assume the Hive has found a way to fox our shipboard early warning.”)

(“Aye, sir.”)

Captain Farragut turned to the Archon. “We will return to our ship now.”

“Because of a cloud of, how did you say it, ‘butterflies’?”

“Before we make ourselves look any more ridiculous.”

The Archon paused, absorbing the words, then laughed out loud, surprised. Still, a guarded look lingered in his alien eyes, as he reflected how strong one needed to be to admit such weakness. “I shall address my people. You must stand with me and give your message of peace.”

Augustus warned in a murmur, (“If you appear on camera with him, you validate his authority.”)

Farragut sidestepped the Archon’s demand without a direct refusal. “We will talk again.”

Donner was about to insist they stay, then seemed to catch sight of the pit into which his authority was about to fall. The Archon could not afford to insist and be refused. He stopped, smiled,
commanded
his visitors to go. “Your ship needs you. You shall go quickly. You shall come back.”

Captain Farragut nodded, then remembered to interpret his nod for the aliens, “Yes.” And to his party: (“Fall in. Disks all. Blue, lose the plant.”)

Donner pointed to Kerry Blue. “I want her to stay.”

Objection blazed in Colonel Steele’s icy-blue eyes. But
I want
from the Archon had the force of an imperative. Refusal was hazardous.

Captain Farragut answered, “Flight Sergeant Blue is on duty. She may accept an invitation when she gets off duty. She is allowed to refuse and I cannot make her go. That is our way.”

Donner’s eyes rounded. No telling whether the concept of
asking
a female or the captain’s inability to contravene her answer was the more shocking.

(“The plant, Blue.”)

(“Tryin’, sir.”) The lizard plant wriggled within Kerry’s jacket. This after she and Reg and Twitch had put so much effort into making her uniform look honor-guard crisp, too. (“Whoa, darlin’. That really tickles. Help!”)

Jose Maria Cordillera came to her rescue, fishing out the plant with a clinical grope. It emerged keening, leaves bristling, bulgy eyes soulful, wide-splayed toes reaching for Kerry.

The eyes, the pitiable sounds melted Kerry’s heart. (“Can I keep it?”)

Cordillera frowned kindly. (“Kerry, look at the light here. And this is what they call
dark
. It will not like the ship. Let us put your friend back with his mates, shall we?”)

(“Is it a boy?”)

Cordillera hoisted the leafy tail for a quick look. (“I have not the foggiest clue.”) Tail down. (“Come on. Send him home.”) He bundled the plant into her hands.

Kerry had been crying for days. She thought she was done with that, but a tear stole down her cheek. A froggy tongue licked her face.

She gently replaced the creature up on its ledge. It hurt, putting away something that liked her. Kerry Blue felt in sore need of
liking
.

She took her place on her LD. She just knew Colonel Steele was never going to let her out of the can again.

At the captain’s signal to the ship, the starry, starry sky, the soaring white columns, the reflecting pool, the bright swarming butterflies vanished around her. She did not hear her own parting thunderclap.

4

M
ERRIMACK’S
COMPRESSION CHAMBER formed around the landing party. Chill. Dry.

No sooner had they arrived, and the captain was pulling off his dog collar. “Right. Anyone tell me what I drank down there?” He flipped his landing disk up with his foot, caught it.

“Ever consider to be thinking of asking that question before you are swallowing the alien substance?” Dr. Shah asked through the chamber’s com. “More circumspection concerning what you are ingesting is being in order, I am thinking.”

“ ‘Excuse me while I see if your gift is any good’ doesn’t make for fast friends. Anyway, what can it hurt, Mo? Arran germs are all right-handed. And Donner’s an interstellar colonist, so he knows that, too.”

Earth’s basic genetic code was not universal. The pre-Star Age fear of alien infection had been much ado about nothing. The molecular structure of the Myriadian proteins did not even share an orientation—a handedness—with human proteins, much less a base code.

“Arsenic has no hands,” said Mo Shah.

“You told me these boys were lightweights, Mo. I can hold anything they can. Anyway, I didn’t taste anything bitter. I tasted alcohol.” Robust even among humans, John Farragut ought to be able to drink any Myriadian under the table.

“I am only using arsenic as an example,” said Dr. Shah through the com. “You are assuming your drink was being the same as the Archon’s drink. The Myriadians are being expert poisoners.”

Xenobiologist Dr. Weng added over the intercom, “The Myriadians have some nasty inorganic poisons. Particularly something they call yellow gas. It’s yellow—”

A muttered growl from Dr. Sidowski sounded in the background: “Gee, I wonder why they call it yellow gas.”

As Weng continued: “—and the smell, well, no one knows what it smells like. If you smell it, it’s too late. It enters through the mucus membranes and does serious nerve damage—”

Ski, talking over Weng: “A total brain fry.”

Weng: “—just like that.”

Ski, with an audible finger snap: “Just like that.”

Weng: “Yellow gas is lethal in parts per trillion.”

John Farragut cut the xenos off equably, “I was rather counting on Donner wanting me alive and friendly.” He turned to his IO in the decompression chamber with him. “Augustus, what was that remark you made about my validating the Archon’s authority? Is his authority in question?”

“Opposition must exist,” said Augustus.

Dr. Patrick Hamilton was outside the compression chamber, but you could sense him bristling against the Roman’s all-knowing attitude as he announced with great authority over the com, “We have detected absolutely no evidence of any political dissension, or anything like an opposition party, any civil discontent whatsoever in Myriadian society.”

“Which in itself argues my point,” said Augustus, unruffled, rather bored. “As a true dictator, Donner controls all the media and all the dissemination of information. Given that he has suppressed any breath of criticism, the likelihood of discontent festering appears all the more certain. Totalitarianism may go over smoothly with those compliant muffins who pass for women in this species, but there must be a male somewhere on these three worlds who wants Donner’s job. The Archon has a
lot
of guards.”

“He does,” Farragut agreed.

Dr. Hamilton fell silent, and the other xenos set to reconsidering in a mutter-fest.

Augustus continued, “Just because you cannot see dissent does not mean dissent is not there. In this case, the complete absence suggests presence.”

Shown ridiculous, Pat Hamilton turned angry. “Leave it to a Roman to know about hidden, antagonistic subcultures working their machinations within an oblivious society!”

“I don’t believe the Archon is oblivious,” Augustus said evenly. “And I don’t believe it’s the subculture who is maintaining
T’Arra
secrecy in this case.”

“You used that word before, Augustus,” said Farragut. “
T’Arra
.
T’Arraiet
. What is all that?”

“The proper way to say
Arran
and
Arrans
. Just adding your own endings to words is typical American butchery of a foreign language.”

“Do what?”

“The
T’
prefix indicates belonging in the same way an
n
ending does in English: Terran, Roman, American. The
iet
is a common plural. If you call yourself a Terran down there, they’ll think you’re from a place called Erran.”

“I don’t usually call myself Terran anyway,” Steele muttered. The Marine had a distaste for all things Roman, especially the Latin language.
Terran
was too Roman of a word for TR Steele. “
Earthling
is good enough for me.”

“Then call yourself a
T’Earth
if you want them to understand you,” said Augustus. And to Farragut, “Or a
T’Kentucky.
To attempt saying
T’Terra
does leave oneself prone to spitting.”

“So we are
T’Americaiet
,” Farragut said, to prove he got it.

“Speak for yourself,” said the Roman.

Farragut smacked the wall of the compression chamber with a flat palm. “Hey, Mo, get me out of here! I got things to do!”

“Be breathing deeply, Captain Farragut. “It will be going faster.”

Even in a quick decompression environment, the nitrogen had to bleed out of the blood before Dr. Shah could release any of the shore party into the ship’s atmosphere of fifteen pounds per square inch.

“I got a better idea, Mo. Reverse the decompression. Squeeze the whole ship up to Arran sea level.” Then, with a side glance to Augustus, amended, “
T’Arra
sea level.”

“If that is what you are wanting, sir,” said Mohsen Shah.

“I do. And patch me through to the control room.”

Calli’s voice responded in a moment. “Control Room, aye.”

“Calli, have Survey find some deserted real estate where we can put down a baseball diamond.” The population of the entire planet Arra was a mere thirty million. Next to Earth’s trillion, that was no population at all. “Some place the Arrans won’t even know we’re there. I want to get some dirt under our feet.”

“Aye, sir.”

“And a beach?” Steele suggested in a murmur at the captain’s side. “My dogs like water.”

“Mr. Carmel. A beach. And, what the hell, a ski run.”

“Aye, sir.”

The captain clicked off. “Okay, TR, walk your dogs. But when they aren’t playing, they’re flying extra patrols. Something is not right with all this and I won’t be caught flat-footed.”

“Yes, sir.”

The captain could trust TR Steele not to trust aliens.

And to the xeno team: “Gents. The
T’Arraiet
. I want to know where these boys are from—and what in Creation is a
kzachin
?” Back into the com. “Mr. Carmel!”

“Control Room, aye.”

“Pipe the Archon’s address to the nation into my quarters.”

“Aye, sir.”

Com off, Farragut turned around, “Flight Sergeant Blue.”

“Sir!” Kerry snapped to startled attention.

“At ease. It seems you may be in a position to gather some information for us.”

The xenos in the decompression chamber started altogether, aghast.

The captain gave a near shrug, answering their protest, “Donner asked for Flight Sergeant Blue.”

“He did not
ask,
” Jose Maria Cordillera revised.

“I noticed that.”

“Pretty uppity for a being whose empire comprises a population less than Spain.”

Ignoring Augustus, Farragut continued, “Flight Sergeant Blue, you can refuse this order if you don’t feel comfortable with it.”

Colonel Steele interrupted, “
Respectfully,
sir. I object to using my soldier—”

Kerry mumbled, “I’ll go.”

“—as some sort of Mata Hari. Flight Sergeant Blue is not a diplomat. You have no right—”

“I’ll go.”

“—to put her in jeopardy without advance recon. We know nothing about these beings, what they’ll do to her, what they want her for—”

“I’ll go.”

“Blue?” Steele looked down, as if just now realizing she was there.

“I’ll go, sir.”

Steele felt his mouth open. Mouth shut. Ice-blue eyes turned back to Farragut. “Permission to speak.”

“You’re already speaking, TR.”

“Sir.” The broad shoulders squared off properly. Abashed.

“So keep talking.”

With a soft chime, the panel lights turned green, the air within and without the compression chamber equalized at five atmospheres. Farragut turned his attention aside momentarily. “Open the hatch, Mo!”

The seals parted with a sucking sound. The hatch swung open, and Farragut ducked through first. “Flight Sergeant Blue. Go get some rest. TR, you were saying.”

Steele followed the captain through the corridor, a half-pace behind, for they were both big men and
Merrimack
’s passages were not generous. “I was saying, this is a very bad idea, Captain. Flight Sergeant Blue has a ninth-grade education.”

“Only two less than Lieutenant Colonel Steele,” Augustus noted, behind them.

Steele shot a sharp glare over his taurine shoulder. With forced calm, he said, “That’s not true.”

It had been true at one time. True longer than it should have been. TR Steele had belatedly earned a GED instead of a high school diploma. It had then taken him eight years after that to earn a two-year associate degree. The armed services liked their officers degreed.

“Not exactly a Cambridge man, are you?” said Augustus. He knew a sore spot when he had his heel in one.

“Your point?” Steele snarled.

“Let the soldier do her job.”

Captain Farragut stopped, turned full round. “Augustus. You’re agreeing with me. Doesn’t that concern you? I thought you’d be sneering at my idea.”

“No. It’s a time-honored tactic. Use of a female operative actually has a high probability of success against an otherwise guarded male. In any sexual species, males become spectacularly unguarded around a female. They fly into your windowpane, run in front of your car, sing to your cat, bring your daughter home drunk. Donner’s vast intellectual superiority over females of his own species may leave him especially vulnerable to spilling information to Kerry Blue. I have to recommend for the operation.”

“And I recommend against,” said Colonel Steele. “Kerry Blue knows nothing of first contact protocol, diplomatic protocol, or any protocol. She’s not qualified.”

“She’s qualified recon, isn’t she?”

Steele bit on that one hard. Spoke thickly, “
Not
the kind of training we give our soldiers in recon. For the record, I want to lodge a formal objection.”

“So noted.”

“And off the record,
sir
, be sure to buy her a red dress for her efforts!”

The captain stared after the Marine’s stormy exit, baffled at the vehemence. Steele’s scalp showed visibly red through his white-blond hair. Farragut cast an appealing glance toward Augustus, and then to Jose Maria Cordillera, who had been following, cat-quiet, after the three of them. “Is he—? Are they—?” he stop-started. “What the hell was that?”

“On or off the record?” said
Don
Cordillera.

“Either. Both.”

The learned man observed, “On the record, there is nothing to suggest the lieutenant colonel’s objection is not logical, well-considered, for the good of the corps and for the Marine in question.”

“Off the record.”

“Off the record, what I just said lies in steaming piles in the pasture.”

Augustus gave a slight nod with the lifting of his forefinger, as if accepting a bid from the auctioneer. He bought Cordillera’s second assessment.

Farragut frowned, troubled. “Is Kerry going to be all right? What do we know of Arran customs?”

Augustus scolded with a harsh laugh, “You’re a Boy Scout, John Farragut. Customs?”

“All right. What do we know about Arran
sex
?” he asked the real question.

“It is not violent,” said Jose Maria Cordillera. “Kerry is a seasoned veteran on that front, you must know.”

Kerry Blue. They called her the morale officer. They called her lots of things—oddly mean things, considering how much they all liked her. A good eighth of the Marine company and part of the
Merrimack
’s crew had liked Kerry Blue.

“I don’t mean that as an insult,” said Jose Maria Cordillera. “She is a coarse, loose, ill-educated young woman. I am personally fond of her. She has great heart. You are scowling, young captain.”

“That red-dress comment torqued me off.” Farragut cast a glower back the way Steele had stalked off.

“It was meant to.”

Still the captain fretted. “Is the Archon going to recognize the word ‘No’ if he hears it?”

“Not to worry,” said Augustus. “From all reports, I don’t think Kerry Blue knows that one.”

The Archon, in his address to the denizens of the Myriad, put his own spin on the encounter with the visitors from outer space. Not to miss the obvious chance for self-glorification, Donner painted the Earthlings in ferocious colors, swaggering marauders tamed by the Archon’s wisdom, his firmness, his fairness.

Captain Farragut watched the address on a monitor in his quarters as he changed clothes and oiled his baseball glove. Some of Donner’s assurances to his people revealed what the Myriadians feared most: Prospectors. As if Arra were the only heavy world in the galaxy, and beings traveled light-years just to come steal their mineral wealth. Donner let the Arrans know that he put a stop to any alien prospecting.

Donner also felt compelled to assure his people that the Earthlings were not agents from Origin. Apparently all was not serene between mother world and colony.

Farragut noticed a glaring lack of reference to any other starfaring race who might have brought the Original colonists to the Myriad. From the speech it was clear that the Earthlings were the first FTL power this species had ever met. Donner assured his people that
Merrimack
was not a shipload of Arran natives returning to claim their home world. That had apparently been the colonists’ biggest fear—that they had colonized someone else’s home. Someone with big ships and big guns.