You may also want to read Pyrophytes in The Deathworlders series. Same story, different angles.
Date point: 14y 7d AV
Planet Akyawentuo, The Ten’Gewek Protectorate, Near 3Kpc Arm
Professor Daniel Hurt
“You want me to read it by next week?” Julian mopped the sweat from his face and bounced loosely in place. “What was it called again?”
The big man had just finished his morning workout with Walsh and the boys, and still had the healthy and slightly euphoric glow of hard work about him. Daniel had found that was the best time to drag Julian into serious conversation. The trick was to grab him right before he had a chance to dip into the river and clean up, just before the day’s activities made him too busy for talk until late evening. Once he got going he would stay going until his second daily workout, right as the sun was going down. And once he was finished with that, the only thing on Julian’s mind was food, his bed…and his women.
It wasn’t that Daniel was disrespected by anyone, Julian or otherwise, but he was under no delusion where he stood in the pecking order against a vigorous young man and his equally impressive ladies. Which was why Daniel resorted to strategic treachery and ambushed Julian while he was still happily dazed and eager to please.
“Intuition Pumps and Other Tools For Thinking, by Dan Dennett,” he said. “And I want you to write a fifteen-hundred word essay about it once you’ve finished.”
“…An essay?” Some of the blissed-out happiness drained from Julian’s face.
“Yes.” Daniel couldn’t help but grin a little. “No pressure, no assigned topic. Just…write about it.”
The look on Julian’s mug was absolutely unmistakable—schoolboys since time immemorial had pulled just such a face when they learned they might be required to sit still, digest some words, and think about them. Julian was definitely the type who preferred to think on his feet.
“Oh, man up,” Daniel chided him fondly. “It’s not that many words. Some people write twice that many a day for fun…and in any case this is trivial next to the training you needed for Misfit.”
“No no, I get that.”
“Then why complain? You get to read an excellent book and call it work. And remind me, how much is your salary?”
“Nah, it’s not that. Why am I writing essays?” Julian crossed his arms and gave Daniel a genuinely curious look. “That takes up time I don’t really have.”
“Our mission is to bootstrap their enlightenment without over-coaching them, right?”
“…Yeah? I mean, weren’t we supposed to be non-interfering and all that?”
Daniel stood and stretched out his aching joints. The gravity really was something; after a week one hardly noticed it, but the aches and pains seemed to just slowly pile on each other…
A satisfying pop in his back, and he was happy to continue.
“We were. That was my original intent. I don’t think that’s possible anymore, given how heavily we’ve contaminated their culture.”
For all their branch-bending mass, Ten’Gewek were surprisingly sneaky when they wanted to be. Vemik appeared out of nowhere carrying three large werne shanks and thumped heavily down from the tree above them, damn near giving Daniel a heart attack in the process.
Julian wasn’t ruffled at all.
“Con-tam-eh-nayt-ehd. Means what?”
Vemik always exaggerated every syllable the first time he tried wrapping his long, reptilian tongue around the alien sounds of a new word.
Julian had an apt analogy ready to go. “Like when you mix [sap-stinger-honey with dirt.] Sorta. It’s…when you mix things you didn’t want to mix.”
“Contaminated.” Vemik said it quickly, then worked his jaw. “Easy word!”
Daniel got a close-up and prolonged look at the young Sky-Thinker’s growing fangs as he said the word several times, ‘tasting’ it to learn the pattern better. It was a wonder the Ten’Gewek managed to speak English at all, really; between their large, clearly predatory teeth and that tongue of theirs—which when contracted practically filled the rest of their mouth—it really wasn’t surprising their own language consisted mostly of open vowels and simple consonants.
“You say it well, [Sky-Thinker]. And we’ve already talked at length why we wanted to avoid that.” Daniel enjoyed his talks with young Sky-Thinker, though he’d found certain points needed to be regularly reinforced.
“I know. Hungry?” He offered Julian and Daniel each a roasted shank, which both men took gratefully. Daniel tore into his; he couldn’t remember ever being quite as hungry as he had been since he arrived on Akyawentuo, and yet somehow the years of accumulated dad-bod flab were just melting off him.
There was definitely something to a hard-working, meat-and-veggie lifestyle.
The three men ate in silence for a short while. Julian and Vemik seemed like they had magicked a competition into being and were racing each other to finish. Daniel’s hypothesis was confirmed when Julian swallowed the last of his meat and grinned triumphantly at his assistant cavemonkey.
Vemik didn’t pause. He simply cracked his bone open and devoured the marrow as well. Julian cursed, strained mightily and failed twice to break his open, then sheepishly admitted defeat and handed it over to Vemik. The young man trilled in victory and snapped it open like it was a twig.
Julian took his bone back ruefully. “I just don’t have your grip strength, Vemik.”
“Soon!” Vemik exclaimed confidently, then extended his tongue into the bone and deftly scooped all of the slimy marrow right into his mouth with one efficient swipe. Julian’s own attempt was considerably messier but he didn’t miss a drop.
Daniel managed not to gag; he’d leave that particular delicacy to the men better practiced at savagery.
“There’s blueberries onboard the ship, Vemik,” Julian said between slurps. The Sky-Thinker was suddenly laser-focused on Julian, who gave a sly little smirk to Daniel. “You can have some if you promise not to touch anything, okay?”
“Okay! I promise!!”
Julian chuckled softly. “Okay. Go get some for the three of us, and no touching!” The last part he had to call out as Vemik bounced quickly down the trail towards Misfit.
It was a delightfully simple manipulation and Julian knew it. “That’ll keep him busy for a while. He’ll probably play with the anatomy display again before he leaves.”
“No doubt.”
“So…non-interference,” Julian prompted.
“—Right! Well, we’re clearly way past that, for better or worse. That means we’ve got to be very careful when and how we introduce concepts to them. We have to think like teachers and psychologists at the same time, except we don’t actually know their psychology.”
“Well, I mean…we sorta do, though. There’s a lot of similarity.”
“Which will be a fascinating academic paper for later, but yes. And that’s the danger. It’s easy to assume they’ll always behave predictably.”
“But that’s the thing,” Julian maintained, “They pretty much do. Well, no. They’re predictable to me at least. Well, okay. Right.” His verbal introspection was always fascinating to watch. “I think we’re fine as long as we can relate to them. That’s easy for me. I’ve got practical stuff, and, uh, ‘sampling’ with Vemik, and Yan likes to tussle. They all like roughhousing.”
“Which I can’t do.”
“Well…why not? You’re no wimp. You’re just…” Julian trailed off, seemingly unable to find a polite counterpoint.
That piqued Daniel’s amusement. “Old? Fat? Broken?”
“I was gonna say ‘respected elder.’ And old doesn’t need to mean wimpy.”
Daniel nodded in agreement. “Fair enough. But Julian, you’re more than half again my weight these days and can grate cheese with your abs.” He raised an eyebrow and gestured across Julian’s formidably powerful physique. “That wouldn’t end well for me.”
Julian rather quickly and self-consciously flexed his middle, then grinned sheepishly and laughed. “Now that is an odd mental image…also, this is the second time you’ve used a cheese analogy with me.”
“What can I say? Cheese speaks to me.”
Daniel was rewarded with a sigh and one of Julian’s patented soft chuckles.
“But seriously, professor…it wouldn’t hurt for you to, y’know. Wade into it a bit more.”
“Not likely,” Daniel sighed. “As much as it looks like fun. I’m twenty-five years older than you, Julian. My daughter is your age. I’ve got joint pain and I had a knee replacement surgery some years ago, and I’m already far too out of shape as it is.”
Julian nodded. “Well…maybe we need to fix that. I mean, I was never really outta shape or anything but, y’know, this is still new to me, too. In fact,” He started pacing, “I think you should work out with us in the mornings. Because you’re right, you need it. And the People will respect you more for it, too.”
That was also a fair point, and proved once again that Julian was no intellectual slouch.
“I intend to! But don’t assume it’ll go the same for me,” Daniel warned. “I’ve hob-nobbed with professional athletes and I’m certain I’ve never met one among them anywhere near as good as you or sergeant Walsh seem to be. I think you in particular forget how far ahead of us normals you are.”
Julian, like he always did when anyone praised him, grimaced uncomfortably and shrugged his broad shoulders. “…Well, sure, I guess. But I got there,” he maintained. “And sure, I had Adam to help me but that’s just good coaching. You’ve got the military fellas to help, so why not? You’ve said it yourself, it’s important to relate to the Ten’Gewek in a way they can wrap their heads around, right?”
“You’re right.” Daniel stretched a bit more and paced around the campsite. “We’ve got that return trip next week anyway, maybe it’s a good time to get serious about this. Which is why you’re doing that essay.”
One of Daniel’s secret little rewards in life was when he could stop Julian dead in his tracks. The shaggy-haired woodsman had more or less become the unofficial leader of the mission, whose dominant position in their little “tribe” had been confirmed when his girlfriends had returned. With that he had gained a huge boost in his self-confidence, along with a certain…stubbornness that had begun to manifest in his personality. Nothing bad yet…
But it was good to keep him curious. Julian paused, considered Daniel’s words, mopped more sweat out of his hair then shook it out. “So, okay. You wanna make me smart, so—”
“No, Julian.” He let it hang.
“…You lost me, professor.”
“We need to be precise about what we mean, which is a big part of what I’m talking about. Smart doesn’t mean anything in particular. Book-smarts? I don’t want to turn you into some ivory tower scholar, filled with knowledge about irrelevant things. I think you’d hate me for it anyway. Raw intelligence? I can’t do anything there and frankly your natural brainpower is pretty impressive anyway. What I need to do, is teach you how to think. If I had one criticism to level at you it would be that your critical thinking skills are woefully underdeveloped.”
That clearly struck a nerve and earned Daniel an annoyed look and a quiet, intimidating growl. “I was abducted straight outta high school, professor. I didn’t even go to community college.”
“I know!” Daniel raised his hands placatingly. “And that’s exactly my point. Thinking is a trade, with all sorts of interesting and specialized tools and you never had the chance to formally study it. Now’s the time.”
Julian conceded the point with a sigh. “Okay…I get that. But why essays? It’s not that I hate…” Julian paused, re-considered, then grinned ruefully. “Well, okay maybe I do hate ‘em.”
“Did you, perhaps, once upon a time, also hate lifting heavy objects in the gym?” Daniel asked, lightly.
“…I think I hated the idea more than anything. Actually lifting is…kinda fun.”
“Hmm.” Daniel gave him a Look. He didn’t need more than that, he made his point by tone and expression alone.
Julian finally ran out of stubborn, and deflated. “…Fine. Fine alright. I’ll write the goddamn essay. Hell, I’ll even try and enjoy it, just for you.”
“How very generous of you,” Daniel snarked, then thought of an analogy. “I’m not making you do this for no reason, either. Why do you lift? Why can’t you just, I dunno, do a bunch of push-ups or Crossfit or whatever?”
Julian cringed slightly at the mention of Crossfit. Clearly, this ‘Warhorse’ character had strong opinions on things, and had taught those views to Julian.
“Because that’s basically just conditioning, really. Building strength is the most important thing. If you’re strong and healthy it’s easier to train up for anything else, and nothing else gets you stronger faster then weightlifting.”
“So that means you’re now better at, say, climbing?” That was easily the most noticeable thing about Julian’s physicality, beyond the obvious; he tackled trees like he was a modern-day Tarzan, and while he wasn’t born to it like his Ten’Gewek friends, he could fling himself among the branches well enough to hang with them.
“Yeah. Fuck yeah. ‘Horse didn’t let me do much of anything but lift, stretch, and condition for almost a year. It really sucked at first, not gonna lie. Early on though he let me try a rope climb and the peg board…”
“It was easy?”
“Yeah! Like, so easy I got to the top and bust out giggling. That was when I really started to figure out what he was doing. It wasn’t about the weights at all.”
Daniel had his victory and grinned. “Exactly.”
Vemik chose that moment to thunder back at a high gallop, his precious blueberries cradled safely under one arm.
Julian turned his head to look and chuckled softly. [“All of them, Vemik? That seems a little greedy don’t you think?”] Julian rolled his neck with a mighty pop and a happy sigh.
[“But they’re tasty!”] Vemik said, defensively. He looked contrite in the way that only a young man could when confronted with an obvious faux pas.
Julian folded his arms and grinned sideways. [“Yeah, but I also don’t have any more. They don’t grow all year ‘round, Sky-Thinker.”]
[“…Okay.”]
They did, of course. Modern hydroponics and global distribution was a hell of a thing.
Back on-topic. “So Julian, about that essay…”
“Fine!” Julian laughed, “I’ll start reading tonight. But you better get a good night’s sleep, professor. We’re waking up early tomorrow.”
There was more than a hint of slightly malicious glee in his voice, and Vemik caught the meaning as well.
[“We will make you strong,] professor!”
The young Ten’Gewek thumped his brawny, ever-expanding chest and nodded seriously. Like most of the men living nearby—from Yan on down to their smallest apprentice—Vemik had taken a keen interest in Julian’s twice-a-day workouts with the rest of the human contingent and wanted to know everything about what they were doing. The Ten’Gewek all participated eagerly if not necessarily seriously, and Walsh in particular was happy to oblige them.
The tribe’s women seem to like watching the men strut their stuff, too. Perhaps their motivations were as predictable as Julian had surmised.
Really, none of that was surprising. Strength was a special word for the People, much like medicine amongst many of the native tribes of America. In their culture, strong had morphed into a broader concept and wasn’t merely about the body. Strength was good, all good things were strong. Anything that was “strong” was virtuous, anything “weak” had sinister connotations.
Which was an easy and logical conflation for them to make, since sheer muscular strength was natural and easy for them. Even on a world filled with supergravity megafauna—some of which were huge, like werne bulls and yshek—their innate athletic power was impossible to ignore. Physical strength for them was more or less a matter of simply eating enough meat and living life as their instincts encouraged.
So far that complex set of meanings had been Daniel’s saving grace. He was the sky-thinker that Sky-Thinker looked up to, one that Yan would sit with cross-legged and open like any good friend, telling twisty stories and raunchy jokes long into the night. That gave him a strength in the minds of the more level-headed Ten’Gewek that his body simply didn’t have. It a good position to be in…but in light of everything that had happened, it simply wasn’t enough anymore.
If only he were twenty years younger and still an avid runner. He’d have an easy in, because endurance—like the kind that came naturally for a fit, active human—was something they found to be enormously impressive. For a Ten’Gewek of any stripe, that kind of strength came only with great effort. Achievable, certainly—Yan could manage almost ten kilometers now, galloping along as fast as Julian could jog—but getting to that point definitely took a lot of painful work.
Which was a big part of why they admired all of Daniel’s fellows on the mission. Xiù and Allison took a nice leisurely jog every morning while the men lifted weights or did other hard work. None of the Ten’Gewek could keep pace for their entire run, though the women in particular were variously keen on trying. Vemik would bounce through the morning happily outlifting everyone but Walsh and the older Ten’Gewek men, then later in the day he’d spend about forty minutes simply trying to keep moving while Julian easily jogged circles around him. He did it while wearing a weighted pack, too, much to Vemik’s envious frustration.
Then the two would make friends again and go hunting together, or maybe beat on iron with the others. Idyllic, in its own crude way…but it wasn’t advancing the goal. In Daniel’s opinion there was maybe an unbalanced focus on the directly physical aspects of life. The Academy needed attention as well, and it seemed more and more that the Ten’Gewek might be focusing too much on something comfortably familiar, rather than grapple with the thorny questions of life, the universe, and everything.
Step one was getting Julian interested in those very questions, to change the trajectory of his attention. Daniel already had Vemik, Yan, the Singer and others interested. What he didn’t have was their respect. At least, not like they respected the others. Especially not like Julian.
The big woodsman was right, really. Dan needed to get more at their level if he was going to make the sale, and that meant step two was to get back into shape. He sincerely doubted he’d even remotely compare to anyone else on the team…
But nobody except Vemik and maybe Singer was really listening to him, and the reason was as primitive as the setting he found himself in. He was weak and in a place like Akyawentuo, words spoken by a weak man meant next to nothing.
Time to change that.
Date point: 14y 7d AV
Agricultural intermodal transportation station, Three Valleys region, Gao
Biodrone
It had been a week since the biodrone had received an instruction from its controller. Not that it cared—it was, after all, effectively a robot. The biodrone had simply reverted to a set of contingency protocols for loss of contact. Those protocols required that the biodrone carry out its most recently-assigned orders, but also allowed for rudimentary decision-making and basic biological maintenance. Had the biodrone been so ordered, it would have neglected food or water or sleep or hygiene, but that would inevitably lead to the physiological death of its host.
This particular biodrone had once been a naxas farmer by the name of Gwiir, before the Hierarchy had used Gwiir’s communications implant to eviscerate his mind. The biodrone knew this, but did not care. That information was not relevant.
The biodrone did know that there was a resistance force led by Great Father Daar that was slowly sweeping the planet clear of biodrones such as itself. It knew that because Gwiir had been listening to the radio at the time he was hijacked. The biodrone had never been ordered to turn the radio off.
The orders had been to prepare the planet for a Hunter invasion. That was over a month ago, and so far the Hunters had not arrived. The biodrone had spent most of the intervening time sitting in Gwiir’s house and waiting for that invasion. When its blood sugar dropped below acceptable parameters, the biodrone ate a tin can of fish or nava or nutrient dough. When its intestinal discomfort or bladder pressure rose above acceptable parameters, it went to the bathroom and relieved itself.
Deep within the dungeons of the biodrone’s paper-thin shell of a psyche, Gwiir was slowly rotting away.
The biodrone saw through the window that something was approaching. Its host had good eyesight, and the biodrone was able to determine that the something was in fact an armed team. The biodrone cross-referenced this with the information from the radio, and concluded that this must be Daar’s forces.
The biodrone flagged this as a threat to its mission. It could not wait for a Hunter invasion if it was killed by hostile forces. So the biodrone retrieved the key to Gwiir’s gun cabinet and found his varmint pulse rifle. Gwiir had been reasonably proficient with the weapon, and so the biodrone knew how to operate it. Keep pointed in safe direction. Keep claw off trigger until ready to fire. Check target and surroundings before firing.
The biodrone brought the rifle over to the window, took aim at the approaching forces, and dispassionately opened fire. The kinetic rounds splashed harmlessly over the attackers’ personal shields. The biodrone noted this, but as it had no other weaponry at hand, it kept firing.
Then there was a startlingly loud crack. Or at least, it would have been startling, if the biodrone had the ability to be startled. The biodrone continued firing, and passively catalogued the attacker’s weapons as projectile weapons based on chemical energy and combustion.
More loud cracks. A bullet tore through its arm. Gwiir screamed. The biodrone, however, simply terminated its pain-processing subroutines, and kept shooting at the advancing forces.
Another background subroutine raised an alert: pulmonary activity was falling far below acceptable levels. The biodrone looked down and saw blood bubbling from its chest. Physiological diagnostic programs automatically categorized the injury as lethal. The biodrone recorded Mission Failure into its memory before falling blood oxygen levels forced it to shut down.
Gwiir briefly regained control of himself. He looked around, felt faint, smelled his own blood. Realization took hold. He sighed and collapsed, and had just enough time to curl into a comfortable ball. For the second time, Gwiir died.