The New Space Opera 2 (33 page)

The survivors of the expeditionary warship to humanspace were now all dead. Quite obviously, none of them had been as strong as required by God, for they had fallen into heretical thought and even madness. While being put to the question by the inquisitors, a process usually involving one of those volcanic vents, some of them had even clung to their claims that long-range sensing had revealed human activity extending for tens of thousands of light-years. They were Low Family evolutionary heretics, obviously, for it was those science officers dealing with the ship minds and U-space mechanics who made such claims. They were also the ones who
claimed that the humans were using impossible weapons; devices employing energies and science that just could
not
exist in God's universe. It was all quite ridiculous, and Brian became angry at his own disquiet. The humans would go the same way as those disgusting worms, the shindles.

 

While we were hurtling through U-space, it was impossible to get an outside view of the
Gnostic
, even if its AI had been willing to give us access to any of its external sensors or computer systems. However, all of us possessed our own computer hardware, and, with our long experience, me and Shanen were able to link into the ship's internal sensors to get some idea of what was going on.

“The ship looks like this now,” said Shanen, gesturing to the screen of her laptop.

The schematic was at first just a transparent shape sketched out in blue lines, then the laptop's hardware caught up with the program we had created together and filled in the details. The image before us was still recognizable as the
Gnostic
, just. As I stated before, when I boarded the
Gnostic
I had found out just how substantially it had altered its structure, so that it looked like a set of church organ pipes, though with a large difference in length between each pipe. Now those pipes were drastically curved in toward the smallest pipe, which had completely folded around to become a doughnut shape, though with the center hole nearly closed up.

“Right,” said Pladdick. “
Gnostic
is trying to disappear up his own asshole.” He was particularly grumpy today because his cabin had reduced in size by half.

“
Gnostic
get better,” said Parsival.

“What?” I said, brilliantly.

We had relocated ourselves in Pladdick's new room, one that didn't seem to be changing shape as fast as the rest. Now Parsival pointed to the wall to our right.

“What do you mean, Parsival?” asked Shanen.

She stood and walked over to the wall and we all followed her.

“Here,” she pointed, “and here.”

This wall had been slowly sliding upward from the floor. I noticed that what I had at first taken to be a shelf along that wall was approaching the ceiling, and that up there lay a recess into which it would fit perfectly. Down below I saw that the wall angled out and was pushing out from the edge of the floor. After a moment, I looked up again to see a similar outthrust above the shelf, a long triangular ridge below which was a floor-
thick indentation, and surmised that when all these reached the correct position, the wall would lock into place.

“These weren't originally here,” said Shanen.

“
Gnostic
soon correct shape,” said Parsival.

Of course, she had seen more of this than any of us during her long strolls about the ship. She kept herself to herself, did Parsival, which was understandable amid this crew.

“And, of course, we don't even have to guess what that shape will be,” said Shanen.

“A series of concentric toroids,” I realized.

“Absolutely correct,” said Ormod over the intercom. “
Gnostic
is changing its appearance to match that of a Lild warship—one they listed as missing, but which Polity AIs surmise strayed into the Prador Third Kingdom.”

“Why?” I asked, then felt stupid.

“All the better to be able to close right up on the Lild homeworld,” he replied. “Now, Strager, I know that recent events have been upsetting, but don't you have a job to do? Don't you all have various tasks to perform?”

“Why the hell should we?” spat Pladdick.

“Why?” wondered Ormod. “Why because from here, I control life support, and if you don't do what you're told, it might just start to get difficult to breathe in there.”

 

Oddly, the drop-shaft was functional again, but even while allowing the irised gravity field to assist me, I still kept hold of the wall ladder. Hold One had now developed enough of a curve that I could see the distant wall above the hold's contents, but that would not last much longer, for the ceiling would soon cut off that view. I set off to the left and saw that the cargo containers had shifted, gaps appearing between them, but also noted that this had been prepared for, the gaps exposing hydraulic connections between each container.

As I had done a hundred times before, I set about my feeding routine, first checking the interior of each container for escaped shindles, then feeding those that required it. It was very noticeable to me that the information I had collected on these creatures was at complete variance to what I had been seeing here. These ones just weren't dying off as fast as they should, so perhaps their metabolisms had been slowed down? It was only as I was dropping a snail food animal into the last shindle pit that the full implications of these creatures being aboard hit me, along, of course,
with the fact that Captain Ormod was a survivor of a holocaust on a planet whose entire civilization was based on genetic engineering.

“So,” I said. “I would guess that you're keeping a close eye on me while I'm down here.”

Walking back from the last container, I paused to remove my gauntlets. “Now, since I've been looking after these things, I've learned a thing or two about them. They'll occupy their host and take complete control of its nervous system, meanwhile eating it from the inside out and multiplying. Doubtless you have altered these ones so that the Lild will be their favored hosts. It is a nasty plan, but I just don't see how it can work. The Lild might be theocratic, but they are spacefaring, which means they are far from stupid and will possess the technology to prevent the spread of creatures as lethal as these.”

“You are wrong,” said Ormod, who of course had been watching and listening all the time.

“These creatures are a biological weapon you intend to use against the Lild,” I said. “Just tell me I'm wrong about that.”

“You are wrong about that too,” he replied. “The shindles are salvation for the Lild.”

And he would say no more.

 

Eight weeks passed, during which I pleaded and threatened but got no response from the captain or
Gnostic
. I went on strike, refusing to go down to feed the shindles, then relented after two days without food or water myself. During this time, the
Gnostic
continued to change its shape, to join up the tubes of its structure into a ship consisting of a series of concentric toroids five miles across. One day, the food synthesizer abruptly reconnected and started working again, then some of the other automated systems began to come back on. Taking my usual journey down into the hold, I observed that many of the cargo containers not containing shindles had been repositioned, and that some of the handler robots down there were now on the move and busy separating out six containers and beginning to open them. When I tried to get a closer look at what was going on, a handler, a thing like the bastard offspring of a forklift truck and a praying mantis, moved into my path and would not let me through.

I went off to feed the shindles, and again wondered what Ormod meant about salvation. Certainly, being small and threadlike and almost transparent, these shindles were different from those first discovered, but what
else
had been done to them? Were they intelligent, as Polity AIs now thought that the originals were? Did Ormod intend them to take over the Lild? I just had no idea.

The next time I went down to feed the shindles, the handler robots had dismantled the six containers and used them to build a big shed on the hold floor. Sounds of industry came from inside over ensuing weeks, but there wasn't even a crack I could peer through into the interior. I told Shanen about this, and a few days later, I saw her sporting numerous bruises and a bemused expression. Doubtless, to relieve the boredom, she had tried to go up against one of those handler robots. Seven weeks into our journey, I arrived one morning for the usual feeding routine, and it was only when I actually entered the first cargo container and brought over one of the food snails that I saw something had changed. The pit was empty. Checking all the other containers I saw that they were empty of their shindles too.

“What are you doing, Ormod?” I shouted.

He surprised me by replying. “I want them hungry.”

Then finally we arrived.

 

“Well looky here,” said Shanen.

Ormod had reinstated access to the ship's sensors, and we now had a large screen on which we could observe the Lild home system. With computer programs running to contract distances and highlight stuff, we soon saw a busy place indeed. The Lild homeworld was larger than Earth but only enough to knock surface gravity up about 10 percent. It was a water world, with only a few islands at the poles, and though it possessed no natural satellite like Luna, it certainly had plenty of unnatural ones. Big space stations hung in orbit in an even grid, and, taking a close look at one of them, I guessed that a lot of the visible hardware was defensive weaponry. Then, far out at a point halfway between this world and the orbit of the next world—an icy orb about the size of Neptune—we observed the fleet of Lild warships and warship construction stations, hanging in space like a scattering of huge coins amid massive slot machines.

“I would guess they're making preparations for something,” I said.

“They are preparing for the extermination of the human race,” said a voice behind me, and I looked around to find that, after eight weeks, our passenger had rejoined us.

“Professor Mace,” said Pladdick, stepping forward with something nasty in his expression. Like us all, he had been really frustrated about all
this but, since he was a heavyworlder, that frustration sometimes resulted in fist-shaped dents in the walls.

Taking if not her life then at least her health in her hands, Shanen caught hold of his shoulder. “Just a moment, Pladdick. I think now is the time for explanations.”

Elvira Mace nodded, and taking a wide circuit around Pladdick, strode up to stand beside the screen. She gestured at the Lild warships. “Already
Gnostic
is picking up and analyzing vast amounts of data.” She tapped at the console to bring the homeworld back onto the screen. “Much has now been confirmed, and we are updated on a lot.”

“Tell me,” I said. “Why are
you
involved in this?”

She glanced at me. “Not all the survivors of Circoven look like Ormod.”

“I see.”

She now gazed at Shanen for a moment. “You know much about this, having served on the sister ship to this one, but I will reiterate for the rest.”

Shanen nodded obligingly—still a little glassy-eyed, I noticed—and guessed that the last eight weeks had taken her far too close to her boredom threshold.

Mace continued, “The Lild species is a divergent one, with two branches that cannot interbreed. The theocratic elite and ruling class have shells that closely resemble our galactic spiral. Though somewhat interbred, they have managed to retain a grip on power through religious oppression and sheer aggression. The lower class is a hardier and generally more intelligent branch of the species, but less aggressive. Without any kind of intervention, this state of affairs could continue for centuries. Without any intervention, the Polity will end up with a Lild fleet at the Line in a couple of decades.”

“Wait a minute.” Shanen held up a hand. “Are you saying that what you and Ormod are doing, whatever it is, has Polity sanction?”

“I am saying that, for the present, Earth Central Security is looking the other way.”

“Plausible deniability,” I said.

“Precisely.”

“So what are you doing?” I asked.

“I will leave the final explanation to Ormod, but let me continue.” She gave a tight little smile. “Each Lild warship has a captain and six under-captains, should the ship separate into segments. These are all members of
the ruling-elite branch of the species. However, they often return to the homeworld, where the main concentration of the species lives in tunnels in the seabed corals—a massive cave system with internal water separated from that of the sea itself. You see, for religious reasons, they cannot breathe water contaminated by their lesser brethren.”

“I do see,” I said. “With the defenses around that world, it would be very difficult to get in to drop a bioweapon in the sea, let alone get one down into those tunnels.”

“You do see.” Elvira smiled. “Then I leave it to Ormod to explain the whole setup further. He is awaiting you and Shanen down in Hold One.”

“What about us?” Pladdick gestured to himself and Parsival.

Elvira eyed him. “I will explain further, but you two are not anywhere near suicidal enough for what comes next.”

“I'm not sure I like this,” I said, but I was already turning to follow Shanen toward the door. The reality? A week of not feeding the shindles had left me bored and listless, half-alive, and wondering about my chances of, like Shanen, going up against one of those handler robots with whatever weapons I could fashion, just to find out what they were doing. Yes, I was getting through that damned watershed, but I wasn't through it
yet
. This meeting with Ormod promised something that would stir me up inside, make me feel alive. I could see the excitement in Shanen's expression as she glanced back at me before stepping out into the corridor. Of course, she was a worse case than me.