Kris Longknife: Tenacious (Kris Longknife novellas Book 12) Page 14

  “A determined woman,” Kris answered. “Penny, can you raise a wall in here? One of those clear walls.”

  “So she can see her baby and that we’re taking care of her,” Penny said, catching Kris’s drift.

  “But not get near the child. Not until she’s talked to me and answers all my questions.”

  “You’re assuming that she can tell you what you want to know,” Jacques said. “I was down there for way too long. I listened to them talk to each other. I still don’t know much more about them and their ship and their Enlightened One than I did when you dropped me off buck naked to be eaten by whatever passes for mosquitoes in that godforsaken place.”

  “I can ask direct questions,” Kris snapped. “Questions you couldn’t do without risking your head being bashed in with the nearest rock.”

  Jacques glanced around the room.

  “No nearest rock,” Kris said.

  “She has a point,” Masao said.

  21

  Penny finished feeding the first bottle to the baby. The tiny one now seemed sleepy. Without being told, Nelly produced a bassinet out of the deck. Its side toward the alien mother was clear. Penny settled the now-sleeping child down. Masao brought her a baby blanket from the supplies Musashi provided.

  The two of them stared long and lovingly at the sleeping infant. Kris noticed how time and time again one or the other’s hands would half reach out for the other. Reach, but never touch.

  She sighed for her friend’s pain.

  But when Penny turned back to Kris, she was all mission. “Mimzy, we’ll need a clear wall between the bassinet and the alien.”

  “Jack, do you intend to stay on the side with Kris?” Mimzy asked.

  “You bet I do,” he said, and moved quickly to stand at his bride’s side.

  “Jacques?” Nelly’s daughter asked.

  “I think she’s seen enough of me. I’ll stay on this side.”

  “Amanda?”

  “I’m with Kris.”

  “Penny?”

  “Masao and I will stay with the baby. You can take the wall down in a second, can’t you Mimzy?”

  “Less time. I can also open a passageway if one of you changes your mind.”

  The coffee table, with its computer-screen insert, vanished into the deck. The conference table and most of its chairs did the same. A moment later, a thin, clear barrier rose from the deck to divide the room in half.

  Kris settled into the armchair at the woman’s head. Jack took the one at her feet. Amanda finished up gathering the last bottles of milk, then passed them through a suddenly open window, to Jacques. He handed the large ones off to Penny and left with the smaller sample bottle.

  The woman slept peacefully while Amanda adjusted her dress to meet the modesty standards of the human civilization that had brought her here, but, so far, could do nothing with her. Finished, Amanda settled into a chair between Kris and Jack, facing the captive. She folded her hands in her lap and joined them, waiting for the alien woman to waken.

  Time passed with leaden boots. Jacques returned, mission no doubt accomplished, and took a chair from the conference table to sit quietly, watching his wife. The glass wall, and maybe other things, separated them.

  Penny and Masao stayed where they were, standing and gazing at the sleeping child. In a secret moment, either his or her hand snuck into the other’s. Kris wasn’t sure who reached out first, and did not task Nelly to find out.

  They waited.

  Since Kris first met the aliens—and had to blast their ship out of space to keep it from ramming the old Wasp—she’d wanted to talk to one of them. Now, with that talk only moments away, she found herself wondering what to say. She ran several opening lines through her thoughts and found them all lame.

  Well, I’m a Longknife. I’ll come up with something when it matters. We always do.

  The woman awoke with a start, glanced around, and spotted the bassinet. She leapt from the couch and charged across the room.

  She smashed into the clear wall and bounced off it. She let out a scream and slammed her fist into the wall. Then she shook her hand in pain.

  ~Your baby cannot hear you,~ Kris said. ~You can see she is safe. Unharmed. She cannot hear you.~

  ~Give Minna to me,~ the woman demanded.

  ~When we have talked,~ Kris said, firmly.

  So the woman charged Kris.

  Jack was out of his chair and blocking the woman in a flash. She tried slugging him, but the big Marine grabbed her wrist and swung her around, pinning an arm behind her back. She went for him with her other fist, so he grabbed that hand, too.

  Both arms pinned, the woman bent over and screamed her frustration.

  ~We are going to talk,~ Kris said. ~It can be easy on you, or it can be hard. Your choice, but you will answer my questions.~

  The woman quit struggling, stood up, and looked Kris straight in the eye. Then she eyed her sleeping child, and snarled, ~I will talk with you, vermin, though you will not understand a word I say.~

  ~I understand what you say quite well,~ Kris said.

  ~Your kind can understand nothing,~ the woman said. She looked like she might spit at Kris, thought better of it, and just stood in place.

  Kris motioned for Jack to let her go. The look he gave her was one big question mark, but he did, quickly coming to stand beside Kris’s chair.

  The woman slunk into her place on the couch, as far from Kris as possible. Her eyes stayed focused on her child.

  ~What is the ship?~ Kris asked.

  The woman gave Kris a look of utter disdain. ~The ship is the ship. We live in the ship. The ship has always been and always will be.~

  THAT SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING SHE LEARNED BY ROTE, Jack said on Nelly Net.

  YES, IT’S A CATECHISM ANSWER, Jacques agreed. TRY SOMETHING ELSE.

  ~Who are the people?~ Kris tried.

  ~We are the obedient ones. We follow the Enlightened One, who leads us safely through the stars.~

  CATECHISM, AGAIN, Jacques said.

  HOW ABOUT I SHOW HER THE TWO MOTHER SHIPS WE BLEW UP? Kris asked.

  I’D SAVE THAT FOR THE FINAL BLOW IF WE STILL CAN’T GET THROUGH HER FACADE, Jacques said.

  OF COURSE, HER FACADE MAY BE ALL SHE’S GOT, Penny put in. ALL THEY’VE GIVEN HER AND ALLOWED HER TO MAKE OF HERSELF.

  THAT’S A HORRIBLE THOUGHT, Kris admitted, and tried again. ~Why are you not on the ship? Why are you on that planet with the pyramid?~

  ~The what?~

  ~The big stone thing you walked away from,~ Kris tried. Apparently, words like “pyramid” didn’t enter into a ship-raised vocabulary.

  The woman tossed the question off with a wave of her hand. ~I do not know. The Black Hats came. They said I was a poison to the ship. They said I had tried to turn away from the enlightenment. They dropped me and the others off by the Place for Making Amends for All Errors. They gave us water and some food and told us to walk away in that direction and we would live to make more amends for our errors.~

  She shrugged. ~So we walked until we came to the dark green place and now we live to wash away our errors.~

  ~And your errors were?~ Kris asked.

  Again, the alien woman shrugged, eyes still locked on her child. ~You sound like Zinton. He said that the Black Hats and The Enlightened One were crazy. That we hadn’t done anything that other people hadn’t done. We hadn’t done anything wrong.~

  ~Was Zinton the man we found dead on the flat land of glass?~

  ~So you know of Zinton. Did the demons take him?~

  ~His body is still lying where he fell. Who killed him?~

  She shrugged again. ~The men tried to silence his wild talk. It was bad enough we’d been expelled for our errors. Talk like that could only make our penance worse. We were there to make amends for our errors, not commit more.~

  KRIS, I KNOW YOU AREN’T GOING TO LIKE THIS, Jack said on Nelly Net, BUT I DON’T THINK THIS POOR KID HAS ANY IDEA WHAT’S GOING ON WITH THOSE MOTHER SHIPS. SHE’S JUST A
COG IN A VERY BIG AND NASTY WHEEL. AT FOURTEEN, CARA KNOWS MORE ABOUT WHAT’S GOING ON IN HUMAN SPACE THAN THIS YOUNG MOTHER DOES ABOUT THE SHIP SHE WAS RAISED IN.

  I’M STARTING TO FEAR THAT YOU’RE RIGHT, Kris admitted.

  ~What do the ships do as they travel between the stars?~ Kris tried.

  ~The ship does the will of the Enlightened One,~ came back without a moment’s reflection.

  ~And that will is?~

  ~To destroy vermin like yourself,~ came casually, with no personal animus at all.

  ~Why must vermin be destroyed?~

  Now the woman did look at Kris. ~Vermin must be destroyed because vermin are vermin. Only those who follow after the light can be allowed to breathe, to eat, to do the holy act of breeding. For all else, that is profanity and must be stomped out. That is the right way.~

  She eyed Kris, the way a human might examine a wondering ant, then shrugged. This shrug started at her toes and went all the way to the top of her head. ~But you are vermin, what is life to you?~

  ~It is very important to me,~ Kris said.

  ~May I have my baby back, now, vermin?~

  Kris reviewed what she’d discovered and found it not much to her liking. ANY IDEAS, GANG?

  YOU WANTED TO TALK TO ONE OF THEM, KRIS. THEY DIDN’T WANT TO TALK TO YOU. NOW YOU’VE TALKED TO ONE, AND SHE HAS NOTHING MUCH TO TELL YOU. ARE YOU ALL THAT SURPRISED? Jack said.

  I CAN’T SAY THAT I AM, Kris admitted, then tried a new twist. ~Look at me. I am no vermin.~

  ~You are vermin,~ the woman said back, not even bothering to look at Kris. ~I can smell the dirt and fear on you. You are vermin, and I would kill you if you were not surrounded by men who do your bidding. Is there any greater proof than that that you are indeed vermin? You, a woman, telling men what to do. That is not enlightened.~

  SO THEY ARE A MALE-DOMINATED SOCIETY, Jacques said. A MALE-DOMINATED SOCIETY WHERE I SAW THE OLDEST WOMAN BOSSING THE MEN AROUND A LOT. NO BIG SURPRISE THERE.

  Kris frowned at Jacques’s thought, then went back to her own. She wanted to tell the woman that she did not want to be at war with the ships. NELLY, IS THERE A WORD FOR “WAR”?

  NO, KRIS. THERE ARE A DOZEN WORDS FOR “SUBMISSION” BUT NONE FOR “VIOLENT CONFLICT RESOLUTION.”

  AGAIN, NO SURPRISE, the anthropologist said.

  Kris had to resort to the only words she had. ~We do not want to be hunted.~

  ~Prey do not understand death, but you will die. When the ship comes, you will die in numbers too great to count, and we will take our trophies.~

  Kris had had enough.

  “Nelly, run the videos of the mother ships dying.”

  “Do you think that is wise?” Nelly, Amanda, and Jacques said at once.

  “I don’t think you better do that,” Penny said.

  “This conversation is going nowhere. Let’s see if we can crack her out of all these rote answers and get some real talk from her.”

  The woman glanced at the vermin as they babbled in their vermin tongue. She showed no interest in what they said and turned back to her child.

  Then the screen on the wall behind the bassinet came to life.

  ~The ship!~ she cried in recognition.

  ~Yes, that is one of your ships,~ Kris said.

  ~There is only the ship,~ the woman insisted.

  ~Your ship is one of many. Now watch what we humans did to this ship when it tried to kill my people.~

  Quickly lasers, rockets, then Hellburners smashed into the giant mother ship. Quickly, it began to blow apart. The screen cut from the last vision of the exploding ship before Kris fled to a view of the wrecked and broken hulk tumbling dead in space. Nelly filled the screen with pictures from her nanos as they cruised through the empty voids of the hulk. The final view was of the great hall, lifeless and empty. The view rose to take in the ceiling and its stars.

  Now the screen changed to show Navy ships giving battle to the vast horde of alien warships. Cameras caught them as they fought, were caught, burned and died. They had launched a camera on some of the junk that covered for the rockets that lofted the Hellburner. It recorded the fight, the mother ship being slammed twice and beginning to burn itself out. The vision of destruction changed again.

  ~This is from my ship as we approached your great ship,~ Kris said.

  The mother ship withered and burned. Great balls of explosions blew out into space. Then the ship, starting from the bow, blew itself to bits from the inside.

  ~Every woman, child, and man died on that ship. Every Black Hat. And most definitely the Enlightened One. Did he lead them right? Was that where the ship was meant to end its days? I blew it up,~ Kris snapped. ~I and the ships I lead hammered it until the Enlightened One blew up all of those who followed him.~

  ~You lie. Vermin die. Vermin wither up and die. They cannot stop the ship!~ the woman screamed.

  ~Your ship cannot stop me. It cannot stop my people. We are not vermin,~ Kris snapped.

  ~Yes you are. You are all prey,~ she said, head whipping around, eyes going wide with near madness. ~You will all die. You are vermin! I can smell the fear on you. I can smell the dirt. Your way is only death, and we, the people of the ship will kill you.~

  ~Like those ships, huh,~ Kris said.

  Nelly began to rerun the video.

  The woman turned her face to the far wall, her back to the scenes of dying ships.

  Nelly created a projector and flashed the video on the wall in front of the woman.

  The alien turned, but Nelly turned the projector faster.

  The woman closed her eyes and screamed at the top of her voice. ~Lies. It is all lies!~

  “Jack, put a dart in her,” Kris ordered.

  “It will be a mercy to take her out of her pain,” Amanda said.

  22

  Kris Longknife paced the brig. The alien woman was in one cell, a padded cell made up to specs found in Nelly’s records. It turned out that the Wasp’s standard configuration didn’t include something so archaic as a padded cell.

  The baby was fussy again. Penny had fed her the last bottle a bit ago. She and Amanda had considered pumping some more breast milk from the drugged mother, then thought better of it. There was a reason Kris had put the woman behind bars.

  The look of hatred on her face as the sleepy dart took effect would chill the blood of a granite gargoyle.

  The woman stirred. Her eyes opened. ~You again,~ she mumbled.

  ~I am still here. You are still on my ship.~

  ~You lie,~ she said, her mouth twisting in hatred. ~Vermin do not have ships.~

  NELLY, COULD YOU MAKE EVERYTHING BETWEEN HERE AND THE OUTER HULL TRANSPARENT?

  I’M NOT SURE I COULD DO THAT, KRIS. IT’S NEVER BEEN DONE. AND IF IT WENT BAD, I MIGHT JUST BE OPENING A HOLE IN THE SHIP.

  LET’S NOT DO THAT AND SAY WE DID, Jack suggested on Nelly Net.

  YES, LET’S, Kris agreed.

  ~You will not believe anything I say,~ Kris said.

  ~You are vermin. You should not say anything. Only people talk.~

  Kris turned to Jacques and Amanda. “Any suggestion how we get past this?”

  Jacques shook his head. “You might put her in a space suit and force her to take a look at our fleet.”

  Jack shook his head. “Not unless we sleepy dart her again. I wonder how many times we can do that in one day?”

  “Besides,” Jacques said, “her programming may be so hardwired, it’s unbreakable. Even if she saw it, would she believe it? The Black Hats she talks about threw her ass off their ship as an example to terrify the others, and she still thinks it’s her fault, and she needs to make amends. They killed that one guy for talking sense.”

  He scrubbed at his face, then finished in frustration. “You’ve talked to her, but a lot of good it’s done you. Kris, until us vermin earn the right to talk in the presence of these Enlightened Ones, all that’s gonna happen is a lot of dying.”

  “I don’t like what Jacques just said,” Amanda said, “but I can’t di
sagree with him, either. Trying to talk to them is like smashing your head against a brick wall. Jacques has gone to an extraordinary extent to get them talking, and this woman is still a brick wall. Give it up, Kris.”

  Kris turned back to look at the woman. “I guess that’s all I can do.”

  I’m a Longknife, but this woman’s invincible ignorance has beaten me. The society that bred her has made her blind to anything they don’t want her to see.

  ~Give me my baby. Minna is hungry. I am heavy,~ the woman said, lifting one breast.

  Everyone looked at Kris. She nodded.

  Jack pulled out his automatic, and the woman backed away from the barred door to sit down on the elevated block that passed for a bed. Penny entered the room and handed the child gently to the woman, future mother to mother.

  The woman took the child and immediately brought it to her breast to suckle.

  Penny just as quickly backed out, and Jack shut the door with a firm click.

  Kris went to stand just outside the padded bars. ~We will take you back to your people tomorrow.~

  The mother did not look up from her baby, so intent was she in rearranging her mussed hair, stroking her face. ~Why take me back? They will be able to smell vermin on me and Minna.~

  ~You can wash in a stream,~ Kris said.

  ~You cannot wash vermin off. I’ve slept with a vermin,~ she said, looking daggers at Jacques.

  ~All the women have slept with a vermin and gotten up none the wiser,~ he said.

  For a moment, that seemed to break through the woman’s walls. For a second, Kris thought she might be open to considering just what that proved.

  But only for a moment.

  The woman shook herself. ~I have been surrounded by vermin. The stink of it will never wash off. They will never take me back.~

  Kris puzzled on that for a moment. Then she made an offer. ~You can remain on our ship. We will care for you and your child. Two babies survived the destruction of one of your ships. We are raising them with care.~

  The woman looked at Kris bleakly, then turned her back to her and began to sing a song that Nelly could not translate. “It makes no sense. It is just a lot of words that rhyme.”