Date Point: 4y 2m 1w 2d AV
Classified Facility, Earth
CIA Interrogation Team Planning Session
“Two and a half million people dead. Another half-million expected to die worldwide from the mid-term repercussions, and nobody has even BEGUN to predict the long-term effects. The largest and busiest container port in the United States damaged to the point where the repairs are going to take years. Major earthquake damage all along the San Andreas fault zone, eruptions as far north as Mount Rainier and thank fuck for the tsunami warning systems in Hawaii and along the Asian Pacific Rim because without them the death toll might have doubled.”
There was a grim and angry silence, during which the folder slapped down accusingly onto the table.
“You assured me he told us EVERYTHING.”
“He did tell us about that, sir.”
“The hell he did! He told us it was the one option that would NOT get used!”
“He told us that it was the one option that he wouldn’t use, sir.”
“I want you to go over every single thing that piece of shit xeno”—the word was expectorated with all the venom of a racial epithet—“has told us and God help me but if there’s even a hint that…you know what, just get it the fuck done!”
There was a shocked silence as their collective superior barged out of the room. The tension finally broke when the base commander took a deep breath.
“I do believe that man’s head is about to roll.” he commented, exploiting the full sardonic, drawled breadth of his Georgia accent.
Nobody laughed—the devastation in California was simply too raw and solemn for that. But they did all let go of just a little tension.
“Serve him the fuck right.” ‘Carl’ said. “He screwed the pooch.”
“He’s still our boss.” the CO reminded them. “So keep that to yourself and do what he said. Full review.”
“The Strategic Debriefing is unchanged though, right? Six is still…fragile.”
”…Yeah. For now we proceed as planned. But break the news about Diego to him, see how he reacts. I’m still not convinced he’s serious about defecting.”
Date Point: 4y 2m 1w 2d AV
Orlando, Florida, USA, Earth
Gabriel Arés
“As of this time we are assuming 100% casualties within five kilometers of ground zero. All of the addresses you’ve given, sir, are within that radius. I’m so sorry.”
“I…Thank you. I’ll pass that along.”
“Well, they might have been outside the lethal radius at the time, so we’ll keep your number on file in case any resident of those addresses turns up alive.”
“I appreciate it. Good luck.”
“And you, sir.”
The kids were side-by side on the bed, watching the TV with their fingers interlaced and their knuckles white. He couldn’t read either of their expressions—they seemed to have passed beyond grief and into some miserable calm state beyond, where there was nothing to do but drink in the disaster and pray.
Nobody was listening to the physics expert who was expanding at length on the technical difference between a nuclear explosion and this event, which apparently had the hallmarks of some kind of antimatter-based weapon. They were just watching the hole, still glowing and smoking like Hell’s own aperture.
“They’re dead, aren’t they?” Ava stated. It wasn’t that she was calm and euthymic—it was more that she had no more crying left.
Gabriel couldn’t sugar-coat the answer to that question. “FEMA’s assuming so.” he said. “They’ll call me back if there’s…you know, a miracle.”
“They would have called me by now.” she said.
“And Mom?” Adam asked. Gabriel just shook his head. While his ex-wife and son had often been antagonistic and frustrated with each other, he knew that she had still been his mother. He doubted that even she, as alcoholic and obtuse as she could be, would stay out of contact after such a disaster. Of course, the cell network in the area might just be overworked and badly damaged but…
But Gabriel didn’t believe in clinging to forlorn hope.
He put his arm around them both, and they watched.
Date Point: 4y 2m 1w 5d AV
Classified Facility, Earth
Six
His cell had improved beyond all recognition. The bed was downright comfortable and warm, the desk had been supplemented with a well-stocked bookshelf and a musical device.
This last was bliss next to the eternity of sensory deprivation he had suffered. It was apparently outdated by modern human standards, but used in his case because the “CDs” that he loaded into it came in their own cases with information about the music they contained, and the device’s lack of any broadcast ability.
In short, he felt less like a detainee and more like a welcome guest nowadays.
He had spent hours working through the stack of music left for him, swiftly discarding some, enthralled by others. There was one, however, that he kept coming back to.
♪♫”Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!“♫♪
He was humming along when there was a loud knock on the door.
That part was new, too. The door was no longer being opened by his handlers and his compliance demanded—now they were requesting entry, letting him rule the space a little. It was another liberty, received with a gratitude he was no longer finding so pathetic. If the situation was reversed, he knew full well that any human prisoner in his own custody would not have been treated even a fraction so well.
The hood, earmuffs and restraints were the same, but that part was just sensible. He was still a prisoner, claiming defection, actual motives still uncertain. The logic of his treatment from start to finish was crystal-clear, methodical, oh-so-sensible. He shuffled along, by now trusting his handlers implicitly.
“Hello, Stephen!” he began “What…What happened?”
Stephen had a grim expression as he placed a newspaper on the table between them.
An involuntary groan cascaded down Six’s whole body as he read the headline: “San Diego Destroyed!”
There was a long silence as he read the summary below the full page spread of the huge glowing hole where once had stood the thriving Downtown whose streets had so enthralled him.
“How many?” He croaked, eventually.
“Maybe as many as three million. It’s not clear yet.” Stephen replied.
All the joy and comfort of his newfound privileges fled him, and he withered in his seat.
“There’s no hope now, is there? Your people are going to want justice for this.”
“We are.” Stephen agreed “But peace is still on the table, believe that. Justice doesn’t have to mean genocide.”
“I thought we were smarter than this…I really did.”
He sighed, and rubbed his face. It was amazing how the body language just swept over him—all hosts instilled some of their instinctive behaviours on the occupying mind-state, that part was familiar. But the degree to which the human body imposed its own mannerisms was an order of magnitude more powerful. He doubted he’d ever be the same again for having occupied one.
He looked up and met Stephen’s eye. “What do you need from me?”
Date point: 4y 2m 1w 6d AV
Scotch Creek Extraterrestrial Research Facility, British Columbia, Canada.
Kevin Jenkins
♪♫I don’t know about you, but this looks like imprisonment/ what’s worse is that the prisoners don’t know that they’re prisoners/ even defend the…♫♪
“Jesus fuck, he’s alive…”
“What? Who?”
“It’s Arés.” Kevin answered the phone. “Jenkins. Fuck, Arés, I thought you were dead.”
It was a genuine pleasure to hear that same hispanic lilt come over the line. “Guess I should thank a bullet in the back for that. I went on vacation with my son, we’re in Florida.”
“Well, I’m glad man. I heard about…the thing, that you stopped.”
“Know what happened to him?”
“Sorry, dude. No-can-discuss.”
“If that bastard was respons-”
“No. Can. Discuss. Man, you’re a cop, you should understand this shit.”
”…you’re right. Sorry, Jenkins.”
Arés hung up.
Tremblay gave him an appraising look. The general was off-duty, or at least as much so as he ever got, and nursing one of Kevin’s own home-brews. “He wanted you to break confidentiality?”
Kevin sighed. “Yeah. I mean, I can see why. Poor bastard’s just lost everything, I’d be out to kick ass in his position.”
There was a minute of silent thought before Tremblay spoke again. “So, answer me truthfully. If I hadn’t been sitting here, would you have, I don’t know, dropped a hint or something?”
“Nah, man.” When Tremblay arched an eyebrow. “Maybe a few months ago, maybe. But not after learning about those fucking biodrone things.”
“You don’t think Arés could be one?”
“Hell no! But, y’know, I finally get the whole “loose lips sink ships” thing, right?”
Tremblay nodded, apparently satisfied. “It’s a shame there’s not much we can do for him.” he said. “He deserves something.”
“Hm.”
They drank in silence for a bit, before Kevin asked, apropos of nothing: “The Brits are going public with the Cimbrean colony soon, aren’t they?”
“Day after tomorrow, I think.”
“Hmm…”
Date Point: 4y 2m 2w AV
Classified Facility, Earth
Interrogation Team Planning Session
“I wish I could tell you. We’re very much…what was the phrase? ‘In uncharted territory’ now.”
“Can’t you speculate?”
“I’ll try, but Stephen, you need to understand that I am not human. I think that’s the communications failure that led to this.”
“Why does that change anything?”
“Humans are deathworlders. You’re evolved to live on a planet which is routinely dangerous, and you’ve especially evolved to rely on—and exploit—other humans for your survival. While every social sapient obviously has the instincts for guessing at the motives and possible future actions of others of their species, and other sapients, your instinct for it is much more acute. So please, be skeptical of just how accurate my conclusions are likely to be.”
”…Okay. But please try.”
On screen, Six’s recorded self sighed and rubbed his chin.
“I imagine that by now, my personality backup will have been activated. Being as senior as I am, I can tell you how I would react to this news and how it might affect their response.”
“That’s fine.”
“I would be shitting myself. This is a full-blown catastrophe from the Hierarchy’s perspective—our mandate is secrecy and deniability, and now an enclave has been raided and a city-busting self-destruct option deployed because there was no faster alternative that would have guaranteed destruction of all our assets. Seventy-Two has probably been decompiled. They may find him blameless, in which case he will be recompiled but that takes months.”
“Decompiled…so, they’ll have taken him apart and read his memories?”
“Read everything. His decision-making process from start to finish, what he knew, everything he experienced and thought right up until the moment the process was begun. The analysis is thorough beyond description—there is no organic equivalent.”
Six coughed, and thought. “What they will see, is that I went silent, and that some time later, a precisely targeted assault hit Seventy-Two’s base of operations. Frankly Stephen, that operation was a huge mistake on your peoples’ part.”
“Why’s that?”
“You mean besides the two and a half million deaths?” Six snorted. “It means I’m now known to have failed to retain at least some secrets. They certainly won’t suspect that I am now collaborating with you, but If I were my restored self, I would recommend an immediate full decompile and analysis before any merger went ahead. And on top of that, I would insist on the backup being the dominant personality. Releasing me back into the Hierarchy to work from the inside is no longer an option.”
“I think we’re drifting off topic here.”
“You’re right, we are. Sorry. As for what they will do next…” Six shrugged expressively. “We can probably rule out the best-case scenario where they come to the same conclusions I have about our chances. We had already, fortunately, established that any kind of a direct conflict would carry unacceptable risks both of widespread discovery and of your people actually winning. Which means their most likely avenue of attack will be sabotage and politics.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, that they will influence the media to portray humanity as a dangerous threat on par with the Hunters. They will infiltrate the security councils and vote in favour of resolutions that are detrimental to Earth. If they can, they will attempt to return to Earth and do the same thing to your own politicians and media outlets. If your people build starships, they will attempt to spin it as a waste of resources. Seventy-Two’s networks will not have died with his enclave, there will still be avenues they can use to back politicians who might put heavy taxes on space industry, or they might engineer internecine warfare down here to distract you and keep you looking down.”
They stopped the playback.
“That’s not a lot to go on.” Said their new boss. As the CO had correctly guessed, his predecessor had been swiftly (though quietly) fired over San Diego, and the new incumbent was keen to avoid a repeat.
“Or too much.”
“Exactly. I need more than a few educated guesses at their possible strategies if I’m going to form a coherent response.”
“Six hasn’t been in the loop for months now. At this point, we can’t reasonably expect him to give us more than that, sir.”
“Then what use is he to us?”
There was a general looking-around. ‘Carl’ finally broke the silence. “For what it’s worth sir, I’m convinced that he means every word about trying to change the Hierarchy’s approach and become our agent on the inside.”
“You think we should release him?”
“It’s a huge gamble, but at this point, we’ve got every truly relevant bit of information, and the rest is speculation that we can probably do for ourselves. And I think that gamble would pay off.”
Heads nodded.
“I’ll take that under advisement. Is there anything more of use in that recording?”
“You’ve got the gist of it, sir. He was fairly consistent in his opinion of how they’ll respond. He did, however, namedrop a potential individual of interest.”
“Oh? Who?”
“Nobody human. He thinks they’re where Seventy-two got his ‘biodrone’ implants from.”
“Intriguing. I think I’d better call my British opposite number.”
“The Brits? Why?”
The boss chuckled. “Let’s just say they got their hands on something that makes Scotch Creek look like a scifi convention…”
Date Point: 4y 2m 3w AV
Ceres Base, Sol
Drew Cavendish
“I call.”
They laid their hands on the table.
“Okay, that’s two pair threes and nines for the Englishman, and…Three Queens for Togo-san. Sorry, Cavendish.”
“Bollocks!”
“Pay up, ya pommie bastard, he won fair and square.”
Heikichi grinned uncertainly, still a little uncomfortable with the way the Drews casually insulted each other at every opportunity, but by now used to it and well aware that it was all friendliness.
The truth was, Drew C and Drew M were now fast friends, with the stoic and efficient Brit serving to neatly offset Drew Martin’s antipodean ebullience. On the job, both men were complete professionals. Off duty, they were the hub of the base’s intercorporate social life, running as they did a little unofficial venture—known universally as “the Speakeasy”—in a corner of the survey drone service hangar. There was no alcohol to be had: everybody needed to be sharp at all times in case of emergencies, but it was amazing just how entertaining fruit juice could get if you knew a few secrets.
There was a general cheering from the Mitsubishi contingent as Drew handed over his chips then stood up to go mix a Triple-B—a “Blue-Balled on the Beach”.
He paused as the facility-wide tannoy chimed.
“All mining and construction section chiefs, please report to Meeting Room A. Mining and construction chiefs to Meeting Room A, thank you.”
Drew M just shrugged at him. They left the Speakeasy in the capable hands of Emma Henderson, one of the BAE engineers whose job revolve around keeping all the air inside the facility, and jogged up the stairs to the third floor of the survey drone hangar module and took the well-travelled shortcut through the misplaced Cargill Hydroponics Module.
The CHM’s managers had wisely decided to install a clear tunnel to keep traffic separate from the experimental crops, rather than ban the use of one of the most convenient routes through the station, meaning that for a minute or so they walked surrounded on all sides by growing plants, greenery and botanical research. The accidental placement of the CHM at the heart of the facility rather than on its outskirts had proved to be a real morale-booster—everybody seemed to love it, and there were always a few off-duty workers just hanging out in the tunnel, enjoying the sight of life flourishing in the experimental conditions.
From there, one of the many intersection modules, each of which played a vital role in damage control and life support. They hung a right through one of the three E·ON Power Modules, another intersection module, and finally into the Facility Administration and Resources Module.
It was a running gag on base that the companies which comprised the Ceres LLC had jointly and equally paid for this particular module because none of them individually wanted to buy the FARM.
Meeting Room A was just like any other meeting or boardroom. The same table, the same chairs. The large, expensive and structurally compromising windows seemed like an anachronism in the otherwise utilitarian Ceres Base. There was little point in having a breathtaking view of the inside of an irregular concrete dome, after all.
But eventually, that dome would be the innermost of a triple pressure hull 3D-printed in concrete made of Ceres’ own regolith. Eventually, landscaping and lakes and a simulacrum of a park on Earth would fill the open space inside the domes, complete with a projected sky and a day/night cycle. People could endure confinement inside the pressurised modules only for so long before the desire to get outside and feel a fresh breeze on their face could grow distracting. The facility intended to have that opportunity available for morale purposes quite early on, as soon as there were several sturdy layers of airtight concrete between the fragile human occupants and the voracious nothing outside.
The Drews weren’t the first to arrive, nor the last. They settled in at one end of the table and swapped small-talk and speculation while everybody filed in, some still dirty and sweaty from hardsuit time.
The last to arrive were the people who had presumably called the meeting. Only the very senior management wore suits on Ceres, and these four did—the representative managers for BHP-B, BAE and Skanska, along with the facility administrator, Adele Park, who did a quick head-count and nodded.
“Thank you all for coming.” she told them. “Before we begin, I need to confirm that the content of this meeting is subject to your non-disclosure agreements. Is everyone on board with that?”
There was a general nodding, and so she stood aside for the BAE rep.
“Last week, BAE Systems successfully bid on a contract for the British Ministry of Defence to begin construction of a fleet of starships.” he said. Drew C raised a hand. “Yes?”
“Last I checked that barrier’s still out there.” he pointed out.
“It is, but the customer doesn’t seem to care. May I continue?”
“Right, sorry.”
“The contract is for three spaceborne destroyers. We were fortunate in that we’ve been adapting our existing blueprints and coming up with new ones pretty much since the Second Space Race began, so we’ve got the plans. We just need somewhere to build them.” he indicated the BHP-B and Skanska reps. “That’s where our friends in the mining and construction industries come in.”
“Ceres is an ideal location for a dry-dock. We have existing infrastructure, none of the debris that would threaten a shipyard built in orbit over Earth, it’s a low-gravity environment and there’s a ready supply of raw materials right here, rolling straight out of the ore processor. We just need one built.”
He handed over to the Billiton rep, who activated the wall screen, showing off what were, to Drew C’s informed eye, clearly some pretty hasty plans.
“Stage one is going to be open-cast mining of Ceres itself.” he said. “There’s a lot of water-ice not far below us, that’s what we’ll mostly be digging through, but we can use it. We’ve already got a small supply pit meeting this facility’s water demands: if we expand that dig into the drydock pit then we’ll generate enough of a surplus to last us for years. Yes?”
This was in response to a construction team leader who was asking why the shipyard couldn’t just be built on the surface.
“Sinking it below the surface will protect the construction work from meteoroids and solar radiation. As a side benefit, the long-term plan for Ceres Base includes subterranean expansion, and the wall of the shipyard pit would serve very well for getting that expansions started, when we get that far. Not to mention the aforementioned valuable water.”
He glanced at his notes. “While the mine itself is going to be pretty standard, we’ll be working in vacuum and weak gravity, which are going to complicate things. Were reassigning Andrew Cavendish and Andrew Martin to foreman the project.”
“Really? Us?” Drew C asked.
The rep chuckled. “If you weren’t aware, Drew, as of three days ago you’re actually the man with the most EVA experience in the history of the human race.”
“That’s…news to me.”
“Well, it’s true. That thruster assembly you constructed on Monday was your eighteenth spacewalk and took you past the eighty-three hour mark. You’ve walked more often and for longer than Anatoly Solovyev. There’s nobody with more EVA experience, and that means we need you watching out for the miners when we bring them in.”
There was a general murmur of agreement and congratulations. Clearly the milestone had gone overlooked by everybody else as well. Drew had other things on his mind.
“If I’ve been out there that long, how’s my radiation count?” he asked.
“You’re fine. Those Red Bull suits have some imported alien radiation shielding technology in them. You got a worse dose when you were cutting granite back in two thousand five.”
Drew didn’t know if he exactly trusted alien technology—when it came to radiation, he felt a lot better with several meters of concrete protecting him, rather than some flimsy xeno solution, but he shrugged it off. The company stood to lose far too much if they lied to him about his dose.
“Okay. Do I get a raise?”
There was general laughter. Finally somebody was asking the important questions.
“Yes, Drew, you get a raise.” The rep smiled, rolling his eyes.
“Bloody lovely. I’ll draw up our safety guidelines and training.” he promised.
“Good. Anyway, once the pit’s at size, installing the gantries and structures to turn it into a shipyard is Skanska’s job. Tom, you want to take over?”
Drew only half-listened as the briefing continued, and barely registered Drew M nudging him in the elbow and murmuring “Good on yer, mate.”
He was getting paid more, and that meant he was a step closer to that tropical island.
Date Point: 4y 3m AV
Amnag-Dwuz Biotech Head Offices
Planet Origin, Corti Directorate Core World
It took less than a second for Director Nmrb’s life to change drastically. He went, during that second, from reading productivity reports and financial information, to falling out of his chair and fouling himself in terror as the expensive imported Cq’twj-wood door of his office—a wood renowned for its sterngth and solidity—was physically ripped out of its frame without there having been any kind of a hint from any source that there might be something outside of it that might wish to do so.
He crawled under the desk, mentally pulsing the panic alarm signal through his cybernetics.
The desk was physically picked up and, to add further insult to the scenario, was flung across the room with contemptuous ease. This did have the dubiously positive side-effect of revealing the identity of his assailant—five humans.
He would have vented again, if there’d been anything left in his system to manage it. Each one of the deathworlders was wrapped head to toe in equipment that had a dull, functional appearance to it, and carrying their weapons with apparent ease when he doubted that he himself would have been able to lift them unassisted.
“Fuckin’ ‘ell, boys!” Exclaimed the biggest one of them, probably the one that had accelerated his table across the room, where two of the others were using it for cover against any potential targets that might come through the door. “And I thought the fuckin’ robo-worms smelled bad!”
“Mind on the job. You. Name.” The new speaker, clearly a ranking individual, addressed Nmrb directly.
“N-Nmrb!” Nmrb squeaked. The big, loud one was carrying a gun that was a good half as large again as the others, and yet Nmrb’s translation implant was tentatively interpreting his body language—the face, sadly, was impossible to see behind the cloth and goggles—as nonchalant good humour.
“Good. You’re being abducted. Do not argue, do not resist, do not try to call for aid. We will know if you do. We don’t intend to hurt you, but the strength difference means you’ll be safer if we don’t have to restrain you. Do you understand?”
“Contact!” one of the others reported. “Robo-worms, three of them.”
Nmrb fought his emotions under control. The Annebenellin guards in this building were equipped for human suppression, this should be a short fight.
It was.
“Drop ‘em!”
The human who had reported contact fired his weapon. It chatter-spat three bursts of firepower. He did not need to shoot any more than that.
“Clear.” he reported, in a flat, calm tone of voice.
The leader turned his attention back to Nmrb. “Do you understand?” he repeated.
They left via the roof, where what was unmistakably a hunter dropship decloaked in the ripping winds, just long enough to collect them.
The second they were aboard and their weapons made safe, the team diverted their full attention to him. Nmrb took a look around the interior. Hunter though it had once been, the ship had obviously been badly damaged at some point and then hybridized with human technology to get it spaceworthy again. The interior was cramped and rugged, with straps and netting holding a variety of equipment snug against the walls and ceiling wherever there was room. Despite this, there was still plenty of space inside, a legacy of the fact that humans were physically much more compact than Hunters.
The commanding human produced a cloth and a flask of water, which Nmrb used to accomplish the humiliating process of cleaning himself. One of the soldiers just opened the ramp and threw the soiled thing out once he was done, apparently unperturbed by the terminal-velocity drop outside, or the angry wind that snatched at him.
They had given him time to think at least. Time to recover his wits and his dignity.
“You have questions for me.” he said, exercising the full extent of his species’ emotional discipline.
“Our commanding officer does. We’re just the collection detail.” said the leader.
“And your commanding officer is…?”
“Always angry.” said the big one. The humans laughed, even the leader.
They were headed into orbit, and that alone troubled Nmrb. While the Hunter raiding-ship was especially designed to infiltrate even heavily-defended words, relying on its tiny size and cloak to evade detection, nothing that might loiter in orbit could possibly do so for very long without the use of ultra-advanced cloaking technology. Even the puny dimple in local spacetime made by its own mass gravity would have to be smoothed out.
Nevertheless, they landed, without having gone to FTL, and without having re-entered the atmosphere.
There was a detail of more human soldiers on deck, plus a human in a different uniform. She stepped forward smartly and addressed Nmrb directly.
“Welcome aboard HMS Caledonia.” She said. “My name is Lieutenant Ellen McDaniel: As your advocate, my job is to see to it that your rights as an intelligent being are not violated during your stay here.”
“Why am I here?” Nmrb demanded.
“You have been detained on suspicion of conspiracy to perform an act of genocide.” McDaniel told him. “Furthermore we suspect that you are complicit in-”
“Genocide?!” Nmrb exclaimed. McDaniel didn’t so much as blink.
“As I was saying, you are also suspected of complicity in the detonation of a weapon of mass destruction within the bounds of the city of San Diego on Earth, leading directly to the death of more than two million individuals.”
She handed him a datapad. “Your arrest is legal under section nine hundred and seven point two, paragraph twelve of the three hundred and third resolution of the Dominion Justice Council.”
“You aren’t Dominion signatories.” Nmrb snapped, scanning the datapad.
“The right of non-members to exercise Dominion law against signatory members is outlined in section…”
“Yes, yes…” Nmrb was familiar with the principle. It was both irritating and alarming to see that the humans had become so well-informed about the minutiae of Dominion law, so quickly.
He pressed his thumb to the biometric patch at the datapad’s corner, confirming his legal status—detained for questioning, but not yet on trial, with a maximum duration to his detainment no longer than three standard diurnals, and not a short unit duration longer.
“Thank you. Please follow me.”
The Caledonia’s layout had a degree of familiarity to it, but some unique twists. It was almost a Corti ship in its construction, but there were elements to the architecture and configuration that were more in keeping with Alliance shipbuilding principles. Whoever had originally built it had obviously not been human, however: the deathworlders’ aftermarket modifications cut through the ship like a sour note, crude but sturdy in contrast to the technological elegance that surrounded them. The most striking change was the introduction of thick steel doors at regular intervals along the corridors, operated physically and probably requiring more strength than most beings could muster. It was clearly a counter-boarding measure, though Nmrb couldn’t for a moment envision who—or what—would be so self-destructively reckless as to board any vessel known to contain more than one human.
Their tour was not a long one. McDaniel led him into a room whose original purpose had probably not involved the human-built furniture that dominated the middle—a large oval table and several chairs.
“Mr. Nmrb, sirs.” McDaniel said, impressing him with her ability to pronounce his name correctly.
The room contained several more humans, these ones very plainly commanders to judge by the apparent structure of the rank insignia they wore. The one anomaly was wearing no obvious uniform at all, just patterned dark green lower-limb garments, a black torso-garment, and a dark green head covering with a badge on the front depicting a blade bisecting two parallel blue lines, and the motto “By Strength And Guile”.
“Right.” he said. None of the others spoke, giving the impression that this…under-identified individual either outranked them, or held their esteem. He flopped a large hardcopy printout onto the table. “D’you recognise these fookin’ things?”
Nmrb examined the image, eager to co-operate and be returned to the planet below.
The things in the image were a little hard to place for a second, but then he interrogated his memory cybernetic, and felt dread settle on him.
He was looking at a complete set of the custom neural implants. These ones had been carefully removed from their recipient’s brain and preserved as best as crude Terran surgery could allow, but the delicate nanofilaments that actually did the work of interfacing with the recipient’s neural structure on the ultrafine level were all unsurprisingly severed. There was no way the patient could have survived their excision, assuming they had been alive at all when they went on the operating table.
“Those are not from our standard catalogue.” he said, stalling for time.
“That’s not what I asked. I asked if you recognise them.”
The Corti reputation for intellect was not accidental, nor the product of bluff and propaganda, and Nmrb was sharp even by Corti standards. He resurrected knowledge and skills that he had not been called upon to exercise in many years, and analysed the items in the picture with a cyberneticist’s eye, rather than an administrator’s.
“This one appears to be a custom motor neurone bridging implant.” he said. “It seems to have been specialized for installation in your own species, but-”
“I didn’t ask you what they are.” the human repeated. Something about his tone of voice shot straight into the primitive depths of Nmrb’s hindbrain and sent desperate signals to the effect that something very dangerous was angry at him. “I asked you whether you fookin’ recognise them.”
“I d-don’t.” Nmrb stammered, lying.
“That’s funny, because they’ve got all the signatures of having come the labs YOU worked in and administrate.”
“In which case,” suggested one of the other humans, this one wearing insignia which if Nmrb understood the logic correctly—indicated that he was the highest-ranking officer. “Allowing him to continue his analysis of their function may be worth our while.”
Nmrb decided that he liked this one, even as he recognised the strategy of using the voice of aggression and the voice of calm reason in opposition against one another to pressure him.
He cleared his throat, and bowed slightly to the advocate of sensibility. “As I was saying. This next one is…a top of the line interspecies communication implant, we don’t even sell these yet. This third one look like a…neuroplasticity inhibitor?”
“You sound confused by that.”
“Neuroplasticity inhibitors are built to correct a disorder that affects about one in every eight thousand Corti.” Nmrb explained. “I can think of no reason why one would be installed in a human. This fourth one appears to be a high-end augmentation package. Those are highly customisable so I cannot tell you its exact function, but typical options would include cybernetic instant-access memory, logical sub-processors, focus and attention boosters, or even communications. We currently have no production models of any of these implants suitable for installation in a human.”
“Why not?”
“Economically unviable given the quarantine of your homeworld.”
“But you could build these.”
“We did build these, it seems. Just from looking at a picture, I cannot give you more information than I already have.”
“So this is a custom order. We will need to know who the client is.”
“And how am I supposed to explain this breach of client confidentiality to the board?”
The unmarked one with the surly attitude spoke again. “The ‘client’ is responsible for the destruction of a city on Earth, and we’re fookin’ angry about that.” He snarled. It really was incredible how this being’s anger seemed to directly bypass every refined Corti mental trick and intimidate the lingering animal part. “D’you think that explanation might work?”
“Given your…unexpected and alarming apparent ability to operate away from your homeworld despite the existence of a supposedly impenetrable barrier, I’m sure that this information will have…some effect, yes.” Nmrb agreed, finding it quite hard to retain his composure under the human’s oh-so-carnivorous glare.
“Good.”