Queen of Chaos, page 25
part #3 of Sequoyah Series
The entrance to the police station was directly in front of him. Enver took a deep breath, rubbed his face with the beer–soaked napkin again, staggered in, and started throwing punches.
He regained consciousness in a restrain–board cell, hands and feet cuffed in place. His head felt like it was going to explode. They must have used a neural rod on him. His muscles were certainly spasming, and one area in the small of his back was on fire. Not as bad as he had feared. Maybe the captain had been right.
“Hey, you.” A police officer was staring at him. “That's a neat trick you got there, fendi. Being drunk, but without any alcohol in your system. That must save you plenty. An' considering you don't got money, necessary.”
Enver swallowed. His mouth was dry, and his tongue felt fuzzy. “I apologize for the disturbance. I hope no one was hurt.”
That earned him another stare, longer this time. “Well, you were fighting like a drunk guy. Which you weren't. There some meds you need, fendi? Chem–aids for the brain?”
“No, officer. I'm afraid I had to make you arrest me. Is Chief Murayama here?”
“What the hell is this, a social call? You can just ask at the desk, yanno. Jen Soo Yi is kinda intimidating but she don't bite people, not on the first date ennyway.”
Enver struggled to think around his pounding headache. “Too risky. You would have thought I was nuts, just like you do now. Listen. That ship that just dumped a crate and ran off? The crate is full of people. Alive. They were caught at a facility that creates clones. Is Chief Murayama here?”
The policeman shut his open mouth. “Uh, just a minute.” He disappeared.
Enver turned his head. There was a water tube just within reach, and he drank gratefully. The pounding in his head slowed to a moderate throbbing.
“You asked for me.”
Enver snapped his head around. The man standing in front of the cell was on the edge of stocky, with dark, heavy hair in a buzz cut and calm, steady eyes. Just like the captain's description.
“A little over a year ago there was an incident. A ship captain and a young man she claimed was her son, and a Toren official who claimed he was a contracted employee. She and the young man didn't have ID, so you did a gene–scan.”
Murayama's face went completely still. “I remember.”
Enver took another quick sip of water. His mouth was going dry again. “She sent me. She sent that container with the people. I am supposed to give you the files on them. It was too dangerous to do it any other way. It's Toren. If they hear about it, they'll kill those people—and me—rather than let it get out.”
“Where is this data? You didn't have anything on you, you know. Not money, not ID, not even an entry scan from any ship in the last thirty days.”
“There's a datatab embedded under my skin,” Enver said softly.“It has everything on them. They created clones from non–Indexed gene data for enslavement.”
“How did you find out about this?”
Enver closed his eyes. “I worked for them.” Silence. He heard the bars of the cell rotate and retract. Murayama was standing with his face mere centimeters away.
“Why the hell did you bring this to me?”
“The captain told me to,” Enver answered without hesitation. “I want everyone responsible punished, me included. Toren will try to stop it any way they can. The captain told me to find you.” He locked gazes with Murayama. “She said you are an honest man.”
¤ ¤ ¤
Ennis dropped the mug of synthetic coffee in Moire's outstretched hand, and took his own to the scan board.
“Pity you ran out of the good stuff,” he commented.
Moire adjusted something on the webspace board. “Eh, this has caffeine. Good enough for me. I remember seeing the manifests for Ayesha. Real coffee was ten times the price of the fabricated stuff, and that was before Yolanda marked it up. Usually sold it to Inner System types that had moved to the Fringe—real spacers never developed the habit.”
Ennis spun his chair around. “Speaking of Menehune, why isn't she here? You've got a pretty minimal crew this time.”
“Wanted her devious mind on Sequoyah, with the troops. Besides, Kilberton is staying as the emergency exit pilot and I didn't want to listen to her complain all the way out and back.”
Ennis grinned. “Like that, is it? If you don't like whining why is Inathka on board, then?”
Moire gave him a look. “Inathka is probably OK, but I still want to keep an eye on her. Plus she's the best we've got for signal analysis and crab translator maintenance. That wasn't an easy decision. She's got some interesting ideas about using the hulks we have in orbit. She thinks we might be able to remote control the lot, maybe patch in some AI. That could be nice. A little robot fleet all our own, and Toren wouldn't know those ships weren't crewed.”
He had to ask. “What about me?”
“I'm keeping an eye on you too.”
“I mean—”
She glanced up at him with a crooked grin, then focused on her board. “I know what you mean. Yes, you would be much more useful on Sequoyah, but I didn't bring you just for the pleasure of your company. You represent Fleet. Damned if I'm going to speak for all of humanity to the crabs. That's big important above–my–paygrade work, and I want a scapegoat.”
“I thought that was what Harrington was for.”
She snorted. “I couldn't shift him with a case of thermal grenades. Same thing with Linna, since Perwaty had to come with Radersent and she's not letting him out of her sight again. Can't say I blame her.” She tapped at her board again. “Here we go. Sure hope they don't keep us waiting. I want to get back as soon as possible.” She flipped on the intercom. “All hands, dropout in five. Repeat, dropout in five. Dropout is not secure. Action stations.”
Ennis turned back to the board and got the scanners ready and the autoprograms set. Shortly after the announcement Alan, Inathka, and Harrington arrived on the bridge. Alan swung up to the gunner's position.
“Can I make the guns green?” came his muffled voice.
“Yes, on standby,” said his long–suffering mother. “Don't shoot unless I say so. If you start another galactic war you will be grounded until the heat death of the universe.”
“He's got good trigger discipline,” Ennis said softly. He didn't mention that Alan hadn't always been like that. Training had helped, a lot.
“I'm just reminding him to stay that way,” Moire muttered. “Okay, dropout!” She slapped the big button.
There was always a flash of signal just as the webspace bubble popped. Ennis had wondered why, and speculated that the bubble built up a realspace ripple that condensed all the radiation in a tighter space. It lasted less than a second. Then his screens cleared, and he froze, losing precious time to confusion. Did the bubble collapse all the way? Then he realized what the screens were telling him.
“Ships! Crab ships, over twenty of them!”
Moire swore, and kept swearing as she appeared to attack the webspace controls. He couldn't even see her hands she was moving so fast.
“Dammit, they just couldn't resist, could they…twenty? I thought this crowd didn't have that many!”
Inathka tried to speak, squeaked, and tried again. “I'm gettin' the four–signal loud an' clear. Nothin' else.”
“Which ship?” Moire still hadn't looked up. “What a shitty place for an emergency lineup, who the hell picked this place for a meetup…”
“All of 'em,” Inathka said, at the same time as Ennis called out, “They aren't moving!”
Moire hesitated. “What?”
“None of the crab ships are moving. Even though we are.”
“Holy Buddha in a bunnysuit.” Moire took a deep breath and blew it out. “Inathka. Ask them what the hell they are doing here. Diplomatic, like.”
“Um, ya want I should sent the count signal back first?”
“Yeah.” Moire nudged the controls. “There, we aren't moving anymore. I'm still going to work up the lineup, though.” Then, as the thought seemed to strike her, “Alan? Good job with the not shooting.”
“There are a lot of them,” Alan called down. “Why are they here?”
“A very good question,” Harrington said, speaking for the first time. He was looking feverishly around the bridge, probably trying to decide where he should be watching. Too much going on too fast.
“Working on that,” Inathka yelled. “All talkin' at once, an' most gibberish.”
“Are the explorers here? You know, the ones we were supposed to meet? At least they know how to use the translator,” Moire added.
Ennis was desperately trying to get more information from his scans. The ships were still in their original positions. No energy buildups or any sign of hostile intent. The types of crab ships ranged from the kinds he was most familiar with from combat, to some clearly nonmilitary like the explorer's ship had been, and two huge ships similar in size to the one Radersent had been on. The big ships were hanging back, farthest away from the translating device. There were twenty–six crab ships all told.
“Yeah, those guys are here. I'm gonna tell everybody else to shuddup.”
“Diplomatically.”
“Yah, whatever.” Inathka was busy for a moment at her station. Ennis passed on what he had found out to Moire. She was very pale and had never taken her hands off the webspace controls. “Hookay. Got our guys on the line. They say all here not fight.”
“I like the sound of that. But why are there so many of them?”
Inathka paused. “Whaaa? I just asked 'em one question…the explorer guys writin' a book for me. Says some…I guess these're names? They wanna see the freaks. I mean us. Humans. More name things. This don't make sense—whaddya mean by ‘see all being seen’? It's got that honorific diddle at the end too, so they important somehow.”
“Witnesses?” Harrington guessed.
“What the hell are they witnessing?” Moire gritted. “They never needed them before.”
Inathka was muttering to herself. “An' somma them wanna…think it's talk to you. Your name, Captain. An' the word is kinda like ‘trade’ but also like ‘family’. I don' get it. Hostages?”
“Welcome to the wonderful world of Hsurwyn culture and communication,” Harrington said. “You know, since they do seem quite firm that they don't want to shoot us, it might be wise to add Radersent to this discussion. He at least knows a little of how we do things, and may be able to explain what's going on here.”
Moire nodded. “Inathka, set up a link to Radersent's quarters. Get Perwaty first and explain what's happening, and then put that line dedicated through our translator.”
“Gottit. Huh. Now they say you in a war.”
Ennis and Moire exchanged stunned looks.
“They've only now figured this out? The war has been going on for years,” Ennis said. Was something wrong with the translator? Were these crabs from a completely different group than the ones they had been fighting?
“Nah. That's you, as in ‘captain an' her people.’ Not humans general–like. An' the word coming up like war, it got ‘large family’ and somethin' that looks like the regular ‘war’ but it ain't exact.”
“Just me? That means—fighting Toren? Who told them that?” Now Moire sounded angry.
“Not me!” Inathka said quickly. “I never got left 'lone with it. I mean him.”
“Captain?” Perwaty's voice came over the comm. “We got the signal you spliced in. Radersent's real agitated. What's happening?”
“We're real agitated too,” Moire snapped. “We've got a damn crab armada we just dropped in the middle of. They seem to have gotten a good idea what's happening with us and I want to know how. I'd also like to know why they are here. Get Radersent working on it.”
“Right away, Captain!”
“We need some time,” Moire said. “How about giving the assembled audience that secret message? If it's translated from the original bureaucrat they may fall asleep and we can escape.”
“Or it will enrage them,” Ennis said before he could stop himself. “Don't worry. Umbra is the least bureaucratic institution I've ever worked with.” Moire rolled her eyes. “OK, Inathka. Tell everybody we have brought a message from a…from a much larger group of humans that also want to talk to the Hsurwyn. Do you still have it set to go?”
“Yeah.” Tapping sounds, then silence. “Whaaa…they usin' that word again.”
Harrington could no longer contain his curiosity. He peered over Inathka's shoulder. “Ah. And the prior communication was–yes, I see. We know they appear to have political connections between families.” He glanced back at Moire. “I believe they are inquiring if you are allied with this other group of humans.”
Moire looked at Ennis. “Does it matter? And how do they define an alliance? If it means not shooting at each other, sure.”
“I hesitate to extrapolate from human cultures, but when there were still tribal societies on Earth it very much mattered who your allies were and if they would speak for you. The Hsurwyn have never met Umbra but they have met you. If you say you are allied with them some of your status is transferred, as it were.”
“Hmm.” Moire glanced at Ennis again. “Tell them yes, we are allied. I hope that won't get either of us in trouble later on.”
“We can always blame the translator,” Ennis said, grinning when Inathka gave him a baleful look. “Nothing personal. This is how diplomacy works.”
“Guvmint,” muttered Inathka. “Righto, got the message goin'.”
“Get Perwaty back,” Moire said. Inathka tapped at her board, then nodded. “Perwaty, what's Radersent got to say for himself?”
“A lot, Captain. Took me a while to get him to calm down an' use small words so's me and the translator could understand. This is a really big deal. Those ships that are just watching, like the transmission you sent said? Well, they are hooked in with some kind of major crab group. The way he's saying it there's only a handful of these big leaders, and they kinda run the crab world. OK, not so much leaders as clans, I guess. He says ‘greatest–she’ for those ones.”
“Queen,” murmured Harrington. “The clan is the queen's connections, relatives, and descendants. And subqueens.”
“Yeah, he said some a' the…queens, like you said, they join up. 'Become a child' is the term he used. Anyway, they have been arguing ever since the explorers got back and told everybody what happened and getting rescued by aliens and stuff. You wouldn't believe what's been going on. So the big queens sent somebody when the explorers said we were going to show up again. To see if it was true.”
“See if what was true?” snapped Moire. “We've been at war with the crabs for years! They knew we were aliens then. What's the big surprise? Why are we getting every crab in the quadrant wanting to show up and say hi? They used to blow up rather than let us even look at them!”
Perwaty sighed. “Yeah, I thought that was strange too. Asking Radersent gets him agitated, but I think I got a bit more now. There was that big war a long time ago, right?”
“With the Breakers,” interjected Ennis. “The ones who left that gravitic mine in the sargasso.”
“Yeah. So, it was a big war. The crabs we talk to now are the descendants of the survivors, and Radersent says they were few and ‘on the very edge.’ Not sure edge of what, but they were spending most of their time staying alive, and by the time they could go home and check in, it wasn't there.”
“Home?”
“Everybody else. The center of the culture, I guess. Anyway, they don't know what happened. Don't know if they won and the Breakers are gone, or if the Breakers won and could come back.”
Ennis thought this out for a moment. “Wait a minute, how can they think we are these Breakers? Don't they know their own enemy?”
“They forgot, Commander. This was thousands of years ago, right? Guess a lot of these edge crabs never knew that much about them. The explorer clan, they had a few that did and preserved the knowledge. When you helped out, and they saw more, they were sure you weren't them. The explorers have high status, enough they weren't shot for talking to aliens. The crabs got paranoia about the Breakers like you wouldn't believe.”
Moire sighed. She let go of the webspace controls and sat back in the pilot's chair, rubbing her eyes. “Where did I go wrong? OK, I admit I wanted to know what started the war, but this is ridiculous. We've been fighting and dying because they didn't keep their enemy identification files up to date?”
Ennis felt a chill, remembering. “That place you dropped the explorers off in their wrecked ship. That huge object. The one that was the size of a moon and was half blasted? Ask Radersent who did that.”
Perwaty responded almost immediately. “You guessed it. Breakers. Oh, and he says that was on the edge. One of the few things from the old time that are still there.”
Moire blinked. “That was on the edge of the war? Damn. OK, maybe I believe them. I'd be hiding for years making sure the Breakers couldn't find me if they could do that. Now, back to why the crabs seem to know my personal troubles. Any luck with that?”
Perwaty chuckled. The change startled Ennis, who hadn't noticed much funny in their situation. “He was trying to help, Captain. He thinks there might be some crabs that could do something for you. He doesn't understand why you would be angry.”
Moire looked skeptical. “Why would any of them want to help me? And how could they? We can't use their supplies or their weapons.”
“Seems like some, the ones that believe we aren't the Breakers, don't feel right they fought us. 'Course, some of them still think we are the Breakers, so war ain't over yet.”
“Of course not, that would be too easy,” sighed Moire. “Guilt, now, that's interesting.”
“I get the feeling the Breakers are just about the most evil thing they can think of,” Perwaty commented. “They don't want to think they were acting like 'em themselves.”
“But what about—”
“Hey, all outta message,” interrupted Inathka. “They all startin' ta talk at once again.”
“Tell them lovely to make their acquaintance, I hope their tentacles never get munge, and I gotta go,” Moire said, sitting up again and glancing over the webspace board. “Diplomatically.”
