Qualea Drop (The Spiral Wars #7), page 44
"For the benefit of the Akcho," she replied. "The place we seek holds many old secrets the reeh would rather you don't know. Secrets maybe even the reeh have forgotten. This was explained to you, I presume? Or did you merely not understand?"
The clatter of approaching steel footsteps behind told her why the qwailash now appeared to be staring past, and over her head. Trace did not bother turning, and was not surprised when Styx spoke in a rapid clatter of qwailash speech.
"We waste time," the translator spoke in Trace's ear. "We will proceed."
The qwailash stared for a moment, then turned and scuttled away, short lower legs racing. At first, Trace was concerned that Styx has merely scared them away, but Chasa and the dogreth followed, so Trace did the same. The carpark door remained open after the qwailash, and Trace followed the dogreth inside.
"Any insights into qwailash thought, Styx?" Trace formulated silently, in case the dogreth by now had accumulated any working English translators.
"They are frightened," Styx replied. "Their language and behaviour betrays a greater prominence of fear than any organic species I have observed. It is why they are defensive, rude and xenophobic."
"Looking like a giant tasty lobster will do that," Rael suggested. "Can't say their smell makes me hungry, though."
"Maybe that's why they smell bad," Terez suggested, bringing up their rear. "Convince everyone they taste bad too."
"In most higher-order species a strong smell comes from priorities of reproduction or social hierarchy," said Romki. "It's more likely that this stink somehow reflects a higher rank."
"Don't worry Major," Terez said cheerfully. "I'll follow you even though you don't stink."
"Thanks Leo," said Trace. "That means a lot."
The qwailash took them down stairs, then along a walkway suspended below the stadium underside. To their sides, bright lights glared into cavernous spaces below, and air conditioning throbbed, with a steady gust of warm wind. From far beneath their feet came scuffling noises, and once a full-throated bellow. The air smelled particularly bad, as though down in those deep pits, something had died.
They turned left, out along a wall between pits, and the lights here were dim. Trace peered into the depths, and saw only shadows. Ahead, their qwailash guide stopped before a cloaked figure, and chattered something new.
"This is our best controller. The animals obey only him, and his associates." Trace peered, and saw beneath the dark hood only a featureless blank. A lestis.
She made a namaste of her palms, surely an unfamiliar gesture to the lestis, but it seemed appropriate. Its head inclined briefly, indicating it had perceived some formal gesture. "Friend lestis," she said in Hindi, having some hope that in whatever passed for hearing in a lestis, Hindi would lie within its comprehension. "We wish to purchase your services. We can pay well."
The lestis remained motionless for a long moment, giving no indication it had understood. It surprised her to find one here, running creature fights for the qwailash from their underground dungeons. Romki warned her often of the dangers of anthropomorphising aliens, but she'd come to think of the lestis as more enlightened souls than many on Qalea. Of course, that was possibly her own bias speaking, to assume that any minds preferring meditation to mindless consumption would be the 'good' guys. The smell wafting from below was truly unpleasant, and she wondered if that multi-purpose sensory organ allowed lestis to smell anything at all.
The lestis gestured to Trace, moving to a steel personnel basket hanging over the side, similar to what window washers might use on tall buildings. "Uh," said Rael. "I'd really rather you didn't, Major." There was only room for two in the basket, and the lestis was taking the other place.
Trace patted her Sergeant's arm and walked to the lestis's side. She had her rifle, and with three more marines providing cover above, plus Styx's twin cannons, it seemed safe enough. The basket swayed as she stepped onto it, and latched the frame closed behind her.
"Major," came Styx's voice in her earpiece, "if you put on your visor, I believe I have established a rudimentary translator between yourself and any lestis. I believe it can comprehend your speech to some degree, its singular sensor can detect sound vibrations as well as light. Its own transmissions are far below the visual range of most organics, but I can see them, and I believe the patterns are beginning to form a language I can decipher." If one had a brain that could simulate entire urban histories from multiplying data-points.
Trace pushed the visor down over her eyes, as the lestis hit a button and the basket began to descend. "Lestis friend," Trace said, "my drysine friend thinks she can translate between us. Is your creature well trained?"
Sure enough, the visor showed some faint play of blue light from beneath the lestis's cowl. The light danced for a moment, then congealed to form words upon the display, with an almost-artistic flourish. "No," said the lestis.
"Not well trained," Trace translated, as the basket hummed toward the enclosure floor. Her heart attempted to accelerate, but she breathed deep, and held it still. "Well there is considerable firepower above this pit, and I do not wish your creature harmed. If you think it may attack, perhaps it is best that we don't go down to meet it in person."
"Persuadable," the next word appeared in blue light on Trace's visor. Someone less controlled might have rolled her eyes. Venturing into the most dangerous part of the Qalea underground with vicious arena fighters for guards was one thing. Doing it with controllers for those creatures who could only communicate in vague one-word answers was something else.
The floor of the enclosure was visible now. There was straw on the concrete floor, and some big, simulated trees planted in pots. Beside the trees, a large straw roof made a shelter. Against one far wall, a big steel trough, recently washed by a jet hose, but not thoroughly enough to erase a few spatters of blood and gore. Where the thing shat, Trace decided she didn't need to know.
With a jolt, the basket reached the bottom. From the darkness beneath the straw roof, a shadow stirred, then rose, a great unfolding of limbs. A huge shadow.
Trace breathed especially deep and long as the thing emerged. It stood perhaps five meters tall, with massive armoured shoulders. Its enormous head was horned, both from the top of the skull in great, curling rams-horns, but also from the lower corners of its mouth, in huge, thrusting tusks. From armoured sheaths along its forearms, blades of natural claw protruded beyond each massive fist, extending now further as it regarded them with a malevolent stare.
"Oh fuck," said Rael in her earpiece. "Major... just don't move. I'm not sure all four of us can kill that. Styx, can you get inclination down on that thing?"
"Yes," said Styx. "But observe the lestis, Major. Follow his lead."
The creature took another two steps forward, looming like some demon from an ancient Buddhist hell. The lestis opened the basket frame, and stepped forward. Trace was not tempted to join him. Confronted with this, even the biggest croma warrior would pause. Doubtless the biggest croma warrior would have enjoyed the experience somewhat more as well. Reeh genetic technology bred such things, for the entertainment of crowds. Genetic technologies were the greatest industry of the Reeh Empire, and creations like this, in the hands of the qwailash, doubtless placed some financial value into reeh hands at some point.
Blue light emanated from the lestis's cowl, clearly visible in the gloom, and the controller spread his arms to the enormous creature. Astonishingly, the creature dropped to all fours, forearm claws retracting somewhat, then appeared to sniff at the lestis. It made a low grumble, deep in its throat, that seemed to make the walls vibrate. Then a pulse, and Trace felt a disorientation, and steadied herself with a hand upon the basket frame. A faint nausea followed, with great familiarity. The Zondi Splicer weapon, nausea and blackout, now recently experienced again at the Purist Headquarters.
"Styx?" she said cautiously, in a very low voice. "I think I just discovered the source of that neuro-weapon on the Zondi Splicer, which the Purists copied. The lestis is doing it to the creature." On all fours above the slim, cloaked figure, the creature's four eyes were slowly closing. "And the creature seems to be enjoying it. It calms a creature this size, but it knocks a human out cold... or at least it does once the reeh weaponised it."
"Fascinating," Styx admitted. Trace believed that she might actually mean it. "The lestis carries no technology. It must be a biologically evolved defence mechanism. I detect no harmonic or other vibration anomaly up here, the range must be limited."
The lestis now turned, and beckoned to Trace, quite unmistakably. "I think it wants me to say hello," said Trace, stepping from the basket. "If we're going to operate with these things, it needs to know we're its friends."
She walked forward, and now becalmed, the creature was awe-inspiring. It regarded her with half-lidded eyes as she approached with hands out to show empty palms. Drawing level with the lestis, her vision again began to blur, and once more the faint sensation of nausea, but nothing like as powerful as its weaponised versions.
"Hello beastie," she murmured to the enormous, biologically engineered killing machine. "This might not be the best time to mention how sad I am that you have to live down here in this hole. I hope where we're going will at least give you a chance to stretch your legs."
The beast rumbled a reply so deep she felt her ribs vibrate.
26
In the early dawn, as a pale glow spread in the east, and birds sang in the fading crackle of the last departing shuttle, Jindi's earpiece crackled. He frowned, limping on his return from the treeline and his early morning toilet stop, and extended the microphone.
"Hello? Who is this?" Others were emerging from the trees, or heading into them. A mother hustled several uncooperative children. There was no water anywhere save for the bottled stuff croma had brought down. He'd only slept a few hours, interrupted constantly by the howling descent of some new shuttle, then by the occasional forward move of his part of the queue. Now they were half the distance from the landing zone perimeter that they had been. There had been a pause in the arrivals of new refugees in the night, as travelling groups had to sleep sometime, but they'd resume soon enough.
"Hello Jindi," came a female voice. "My name is Liala. I am commanding the evacuation of Rando. You may have heard Major Thakur speak of me during your training for the attack on the Splicer."
Jindi paused beside a termite mound nearly as large as he was. "Liala?" Commander of the evacuation, she said. There had been rumours, relayed by Chuta and Krissik with their more advanced coms, of the strange alien now in charge overhead. Jindi recalled the Major speaking a few times of the drysines, who were in turn spoken of many more times by corbi. "I think the Major said something about Liala, yes. You were made on Defiance, in parren space. How did you find me?"
"You have a drysine surveillance bug with you. It can access local coms networks, but the signal is weak and lost in the chatter. I have only now accessed its signature."
Jindi's eyes widened. Of course, the bug. He'd nearly forgotten it existed these past days, but occasionally he'd seen or heard it buzzing. "Um, sure. Hello Liala. What can I do for you?" And what in hell was the commander of the entire evacuation doing in contacting him? Didn't she have other things to do? But then, he recalled the Major saying how smart the drysine queens were, and how they could literally do a thousand things at once.
"Jindi, I see that you are at the Melo Evacuation Zone. You may be aware that the evacuation is experiencing some difficulties. There is a chance that croma command may halt the evacuation entirely in the near future. Furthermore, there is a new reeh assault inbound, inbounds ordnance has been released and should reach Rando shortly. If you would like, I can have a shuttle down to evacuate you and the corbi that accompany you immediately."
Jindi stared in disbelief at the brightening dawn. Then at the thousands of stirring corbi in ordered groups amidst the trees and termite mounds, washing in bottled water, stretching aching limbs from a sleepless night on hard ground.
"You... I..." he shook his head, trying to gather his thoughts rationally. "You can't do that, Liala. I mean, it's not going to work, I'm in the middle of a long queue and even if I wanted to jump to the front, everyone else would get angry and whoever you sent to do it would get mobbed. And I don't want to jump the queue anyway, there's thousands of us here, all just as deserving as me."
The words nearly stuck in his throat. She said the evacuation was ending? But it was supposed to last thirty days, so far it had barely been half that. But then, unless she sent a team of croma marines down to snatch his entire group while fending off all those who protested the unfairness, he couldn't see how it would work. Being brave and fair was easy when you had no choice.
"Thank you Jindi," said Liala. "This is the correct reply. I will have your entire zone evacuated within the next few hours. Good luck."
Jindi picked his way between waiting zones of corbi, watched suspiciously by some, wary of any attempt to jump the queue. Thus far there had only been a few, each resulting in a fight. Even as he walked, he could see resistance soldiers around the shelters erected by the landing zone gesticulating to each other, and several running to warn others without coms. Then, as he saw his group's familiar carts ahead, and Cheyga's yellow shawl hung on several tall sticks to make a shelter, a bright flash from above.
Gasps and yells from the crowd, then people falling flat, covering their ears and those of their children. A second later and all were still alive, so it was only a fragment strike. Then an ear-splitting CRACK!, followed by a deeper, echoing boom like a thousand simultaneous rolls of thunder. It must have penetrated very deep into the atmosphere for such a short delay between flash and sound, Jindi thought, forcing himself not to look up as he limped on.
When he reached his own zone, everyone was staring upward, in fear and disbelief. Jindi finally risked a look, and saw the giant white funnel pointing down toward them like a finger, ending in a great, rolling sphere of expanding cloud where the massively hypersonic fragment had detonated in the thickest atmosphere just overhead, a few kilometres short of the ground.
Multiple new flashes lit up the horizon all around, and the crowds shielded their eyes, fragments striking from a shower of recently intercepted rounds. Then, far away, one struck full force, and the dawn glow turned to full day. That one was out to sea, Jindi reckoned, crouching with his head down. He wondered if tidal waves followed such things. They were five kilometres inland here, but if he'd been on his beach...
"Stay down and stay calm!" he shouted at those who were now looking at him, as though there were anything he could do about it. "They're probably not even targeting us directly, it's just a big attack and we're in the firing line for all their stray shots!" As the more distant thuds and booms began to reach them, a succession of delayed shockwaves from a sky on fire.
He found Chuta crouched with two of his men, fiddling with coms controls to try and get more information on what was happening. "Chuta, everyone has to be ready!" he said urgently. "The shuttles are coming, this entire zone is going to be evacuated very soon!"
"How do you know?"
"Liala contacted me! The drysine in charge of the entire evacuation -- we're all getting lifted really soon, I think some of the big shuttles will be coming this way, so we'll have to move up in good order, whole zones are going to get shifted real fast!"
Even as he spoke, beyond the fading thunder from the sky came a new sound -- howling engines, somewhere far.
Liala was aware of many things. A tangle of data, ships in motion, one hundred and fifty nine at present in orbit, fourteen on approach, seventeen on departure for the Cho'nu jump point. Twenty-one croma warships in defence, seventeen reeh warships on approach, mostly targeting the freighters.
Blocking, intercepting trajectories from her forces, a pleasing geometric pattern maximising firegrid interceptions, forcing reeh evasion and defensive movements. Amity blasting now on full thrust, manoeuvring for maximum pattern variance, Coroset accompanying wide, then a tangled spiral of predictions, reeh ships anticipating these two warships in particular, shifting defensive focus and creating a cascade of unfolding variables outward toward the infinite edge of drysine perception. A flash as one reeh ship disintegrated, and the intense sensation of the whole string of interlocking probabilities lurching sideways as neighbouring reeh ships adjusted, recalculated, responded, communicated.
Liala maintained seventeen simultaneous conversations, three ending now as she oversaw Amity's independent manoeuvres, another two beginning. Conversation augmented understandings, organics were a mass of base-level impulses, real-time monitoring of psychological states updated Liala's understanding of probable factors skewing her projection models. One shuttle pilot told her of accumulating engine difficulties, another grounded at Teono Five Zone that crowds of waiting corbi were growing unruly, while Jindi at Melo demonstrated some future value that elevated the necessity of evacuating his entire zone to ensure he survived. Perhaps it was sentiment, toward the Major's friends. Liala made a mental note and stored it for later self-analysis.
To'ba was not engaging, the croma command warship monitoring the situation for reports home. An accumulation of data from incoming warships indicated the war was not progressing as the croma had hoped, though almost identically to how Liala had predicted. She studied a moment's disjunction that they hadn't asked her first. Humans would call that pondering of the collision of intersecting probabilistic outcomes 'irony'.
Commanding the To'ba was Admiral Ku'tala, a refocus that caused a minor data-cascade of acquired medals, combat records, past speeches and personal details. They revealed a preference for aggressive military action over political gestures, a further run of psychological profiles accumulated from Styx's studies of croma society predicted that Ku'tala would call for the evacuation of Rando to be abandoned, and the fleet strength assembled here spread amongst the other struggling operations along the front.
