Decided to write an A-Team story for the monthly challenge, part of a followup to One Big Misunderstanding. This takes place about six months after that story. Third of four chapters.
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Chapter 3
“I must confess,” said Peri, quite calmly, “this was not who I expected to make a- gllk!”
Harper’d pressed the gun hard into the soft part of her throat. “Quiet.” He looked up, meeting my eyes, pushing his way up to his feet, keeping Peri dangling from his arms. Scrawny though he was, the training I’d put him through had him in excellent shape, and his muscles stood out like steel cables as he held her in the joint lock. I had my rifle aimed squarely at his face. “I think you can make the shot, sarge. I think you could shoot me right in the head, easy as pie. I know Lars could do it.” He looked to one side, where Lars stood with his arms crossed, his eyes narrowed. “If you do it before I’ve said my piece, Ariel’s going to shut off a lot more than the gravity.”
“If my master is harmed, I’ll have your lungs!
I’ll gouge out your eyes, and rip out your tongues!”
“Harper,” I said, calmly, without rancor. “This isn’t the smart play. There’s no way we can pull off your plan, now.”
“If the Choir drone dies,” said Harper, his eyes narrowed, “then there’s no proof of anything. It’s already been damn dangerous in here. More dangerous than it was supposed to be, because she couldn’t intercept a hostile ship. The Stillness is a gift straight from the Source, sarge. If we get ahold of it...”
“What’s this?” said Bergman, standing up slowly, shaking his arm, wincing a bit. “You found a way to subvert the ship?”
“I can put this ship in our hands, without anyone off the ship ever finding out,” said Harper. “If she’s dead, there’s no one who’ll spill the beans. This ship, on its own, could cripple the entire Choir. Who do you think is going to try to shit on humanity, when we can wipe out a planet at will, sarge?”
“That’s who you’d have us become?” said Lars, his grip on his sword still steady, his expression calm. “Slay those who offend us? Purge their planets? Become precisely what they fear us to be?”
“We wouldn’t have to!” said Harper, his voice breaking a bit. “We could scare them! Make it clear that they’d never win, and we can have peace!”
“Not with me,” said Peri, her voice choked, and grating. “You’ll never have peace, Child of the Divine. Not until you silence me.”
“Do you hear it?!” said Harper, his teeth gritted. “This is what they’re like, sarge! The threats! We didn’t do anything wrong! We didn’t hurt anyone! We tried to offer them gifts, we tried to be kind, and this thing threatened us every inch of the way! We’re prepared to throw away our lives for this fucking callous monster, but you won’t sacrifice one mindless drone for the chance for humanity to live? They’re never going to trust us. They’re never going to forgive us. They’re going to kill us sooner or later, when they get scared. We’ll either spend the rest of our short existence walking on eggshells, or we’re going to show them that they can’t fuck with us!”
“You know,” said Bergman, lightly, a smile spreading across his face, “the kid has a point. Perhaps this deserves a little more debate.”
“There’s no debate, here,” I said, firmly. “Let her go, Harper. You’ve made enough of a shitshow as it is. I’m disappointed in you.” The words hit the boy like a physical blow, and he looked to one side, his grip loosening.
“You know,” said Peri, “the boy is right. My sensory mechanisms have never been very good at interpreting Subspace. This ship could let you exterminate me. You’re caught in the horns of a dilemma, sergeant Bayheart. Let him shoot me, and I will be suspicious, but that is all. As pointed out, this is a dangerous mission. If you let me go, I will know, for certain, that your people would have taken this ship if only they had been a little bit less closely watched. I will never trust y-”
“You hear that?” said Harper, his arms tightening again, cutting Peri off, his expression furious. “They were never going to trust us. The thing sent this drone just to confirm its suspicions. I agreed to die for humanity, Sarge. I didn’t agree to die for some fucked up monster that would sooner see us die in the attempt!”
“I’m not going to give you a speech, kid. That’s more Bergman’s style. I just thought you wanted to show we were better than the aliens. That’s why I’m disappointed in you.”
The words cut Harper like a knife. His eyes widened slightly. Then he released Peri, letting the drone drop to the ground, the gun falling with it. He looked down at his feet, which is probably why Bergman got to him so easily. Suddenly, Harper’s eyes were bulging, one of Bergman’s hands on his chin, the other on the back of his head, pinky and thumb pressing into the carotid artery. Shorter than Harper, he had the kid bowed backwards, using him as a human shield.
“Foul blackguard! If you think that this shall pass-” began Ariel, only to stop as Bergman pinched a little tighter and Harper turned blue.
“Shut up,” said Bergman, softly, calmly. “I doubt that you’ve got the stomach to kill humans, even in a fit of vengeance, if what I suspect is true. And there’s no way the Kalisaxian AI would let you kill us, even if you could. Now be quiet and let the real people talk.”
“Bergman,” growled Lars.
“Don’t worry. I’m not planning on killing the kid. Not today. I just need to make something clear. Harper, little buddy, if you ever let your stupidity push you to do something that threatens me again, if you ever act like a child in front of me like this again, I’ll flay you.” His fingers twitched, and another shining switchblade appeared between his middle and ring fingers, the blade shining, barely half an inch from Harper’s eye. “Do we understand?”
Harper didn’t answer. His adam’s apple bobbed furiously in his long, skinny throat.
“Bergman, drop the knife before I drop you,” I said, firmly.
“Of course, sarge.” The knife disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, as Bergman straightened. Harper didn’t move as Bergman let go of him, walking back over to the corner. He shivered slightly.
“Do you know why I don’t accept the gifts, Harper?” asked Peri, softly.
“I don’t care,” he said, his voice a little bit strangled as he sat down at the edge of the room.
“You should. You see, in this world, there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons.”
“Ah, The Rules of the Game,” said Lars, nodding. I glanced at him, and Bergman raised an eyebrow in an unspoken question. “I have always considered myself a man of culture.”
“Yes. It is a very good film. I found it very interesting. Wouldn’t you like to know my reasons, Harper? Or is it easier if I am simply a faceless, mindless threat to you? I’m good at playing that role, as you may have noticed.”
“Do we have time for this?” I asked.
“Couple hours while the Subspace Nexus is rigged,” said Harper, his arms crossed around his shins, his knees pulled up to his chin. “Got nothing else to do besides get lectured.”
“There is a reason I, more than most, do not trust the gifts you offer,” said Peri. She breathed deep. “I met the Divine. Understand that what I tell you now, I do not share with other sapients, and I would be grateful if you do not share it either. I am telling you because you must understand me.” She sat down, a few feet from Harper, faced in the same direction, fingers laced together, legs crossed beneath her. It was a very human affectation. “I was not the only hive-mind on my planet. The mental linkage that made each of my drones a synapse in my neural network was a common feature of many species on my world. When one of us achieved sapience, technology, the trick spread quickly. It was only over time that we learned to keep secrets. When the Divine came to our world, we were locked in a war. On the verge of extinguishing our biosphere through a full nuclear conflict. We had grown apart, and few more distant from our harmony than I. I was... warlike. Belligerent. More so than any other. I had many resources, and more enemies.”
“Huh,” said Lars, fishing around in his pack. He took out a can of sterno, and set it on the floor, lighting it quickly, and taking out a set of hot-dogs. The tiny fire burned merrily, casting surprisingly cheerful shadows across the room. “Contagious sapience. I’ve never heard of such a thing. The galaxy is beautifully unique, isn’t it?”
“When the Divine arrived, they took representative drones from each of us. They asked us to prove which of us was worthy. Some offered diplomacy. Some offered art. Some offered science. I offered a threat. If they supported my enemies, I would consider them an enemy. They laughed, and then they chose us. They gave us a wealth of technology. And within a year, we were the sole mind remaining on our world. With the gifts of the Divine, my fellows stood no chance against us. Even united. Within five years, we had colonized our home star system. We spread out rapidly. And when we met our benefactors... We were grateful.”
“Really?” said Bergman, laconically. “Sounds like you weren’t much for living with others.”
“We had grudges against the others. Imagine a world of a thousand immortals, squabbling and fighting for millenia for every scrap of resources. In space, those resources were available in abundance, and the galaxy was so blessedly calm. The Divine had done nothing but aid us. They were new, and they were kind. And so we greeted them as our saviors. For providing to us the gift of the stars. They laughed, and told us that they had a challenge for us. They would strive to wipe us out, utterly. If we could kill but one of the Divine, then we would be allowed to spread. To coexist.”
“Did you?” said Lars, leaning forward, holding a hotdog over the can of sterno. The crackling smell was making me hungry.
“I do not know. I fought many engagements with the Divine. But I never won decisively. I made many incursions onto their ships, but I could not see what happened to the drones therein. Perhaps I succeeded. Perhaps I failed. Perhaps there were never any of the Divine aboard the ships at all. The Divine were hardly under any obligation to keep their word. It makes no difference. I was driven back to my world, my forces shattered, my technological base annihilated. And I began to rebuild.” Peri let out a sigh. “Four times I did this. Each time I expanded for a time, more stealthily and carefully than before. No matter what I did, they always found me, hunted me back to my home world, and bombed me into a near coma. By the fourth time, I did not have the resources left to reach space. I had to engineer the destruction of my home world simply to escape the gravity well, to retrieve enough of the debris of the endless wars to escape. Hundreds of thousands of cycles had passed. I destroyed the handful of automated defenses left in my system. And I found a galaxy empty of the Divine.”
“Lucky for you.”
“Is it? I experienced both the rise and the fall of the Divine. The first time I rose, they were in the infancy of their power. Mighty, but still one among many species. The second, they were embarking on pogroms, and at war with countless other species. The third, they ruled triumphantly over a silent galaxy. The fourth, they didn’t even respond to me before annihilating me. When I rose again, I won, simply because they were gone.”
Harper was staring down at his feet.
“The gifts were poison. All they gave me turned to ash. I was forced to learn my own techniques, to rely on myself, and it still was never enough. I sacrificed everything, and when I finally found space... I found a crippled galaxy. Eight hundred thousand years, and no one has ever even approached the level of the Divine. Their viruses, their monopolization of resources, their legacy, the lurking fear of what they represent... It has made all of those around us afraid to reach for greatness. I am one of only three known hive mind species extant among the stars, and I suspect that it was because the Divine held a special loathing for my kind. Certainly, they were well-suited to countering my advantages.”
"We’re not the Kalisaxians,” I said, unmoved. Every species out there had a sob story. Life was a hard game.
“No, you’re not. You will not simply die out. If you rise, your kind may never fall. The Divine were doomed by their own genetics, their own philosophies. You are not so benignly flawed. The Children of the Divine surpass their parents.” She was quiet for a moment. “My kind had a philosophy. Or a religion. The difference seems subjective.”
“Religion? In a hive mind? You’re effectively a single creature,” said Bergman. “What could you worship, beyond yourself?”
“It was a thing from before I ascended and became the last of my kind. Many followed it. My own view was... heretical. That was one of the reasons I was at odds with so many of them. It stated that there was harmony, and there was discord. To worship harmony was to offer the greatest freedom one could to others. To seek a state of mind and behavior where others were afforded the freedom to act, without compromising one’s own freedom. Discord was to deliberately cross the lines of others. The greatest of sins, to intrude on the freedom of another. When the Divine arrived, and offered me their gifts, I began to believe. I thought that the Divine represented true harmony.”
“I’m guessing that you didn’t hold onto that view long after they started killing you,” said Bergman, lip quirked in a smile. Peri was silent, staring down at her lap. There was only so much information she could keep in her mind. It was interesting to me that she’d kept this part there. I didn’t know if it was the unvarnished truth, but I couldn’t think of many reasons for her to lie. We’d already spared her life.
“And what do you believe now?” asked Harper.
“Harmony can be found only in the joining of many voices. Discord is when those voices clash. But that can be a music all its own. That was my heresy, that discord was no sin.” She raised her chin. “The Divine represented a third stance, that of silence. They would have choked this galaxy, strangled every voice but one, and then left none. They may still. I fought their poisoned legacy tooth and nail in the hopes that someday, in a far distant future, this galaxy could begin to hope again. And along you come, with a golden gift, promising freedom from that cruel legacy in just a few short years. A solution, far more elegant, far grander, than everything I could ever manage. That is why I don’t want you to share my history. Because I failed, every time I faced the Kalisaxians. If the peoples of the galaxy knew that, their hope in me would die.”
“Good god,” said Bergman, chuckling. “You’re insecure? You are an interesting one, aren’t you?”
And Peri didn’t deny it. She just stared, quietly, at her lap.
“My station,” said Harper. He cleared his throat. “Uh, my station was big on AI research. We had a grant and everything from the planetary government. It was secret. We weren’t supposed to be doing AI research because of, well, you know. The whole Kalisaxian thing. My mom and dad, they were the heads of research. We kept it secret. And we got hit.” He coughed. “Sorry. But you shared your whole life story... I thought I should share the favor. Can I have one of those hot dogs, Lars? I haven’t eaten since we left the Discourse.”
“Of course, young friend,” said Lars. He tossed one of the hotdogs through the air, and Harper caught it, nibbling.
“So,” he said, mouth full, wiping his lips and swallowing. “Uh. There was a trading ship. One of the Heten clans. Solar sail ship, you know? We needed some more... exotic supplies. This was right after the Fermi. Well, they must not have done a very thorough job cleaning up their databases, because when they docked with us, a Kalisaxian wyrm infected the computers. It tore through our early AI like they were nothing. Ripped them apart. Shut off the atmosphere, bathed parts of the station in lethal radiation.”
“By Thor’s locks,” said Lars, brows knitted. “I thought Kalisaxian technology didn’t assault humans?”
“Maybe it was damaged. Maybe it just attacked the AI because they didn’t scan as ‘human’, and wound up going nuts. I didn’t really get the chance to find an answer. Ariel was one of the newest AI we’d made. I’d been helping to design and socialize her. She was just a kid, then, in AI terms, but she was about the most advanced we had. I hid in the cold room where we kept her. I linked her into the station, and she kept the air on, kept me safe, killed the wyrm stone dead. That’s why I named her. Shakespeare, you know? Spirit of air, lion of god. But she got hurt.”
“Curious, I thought you only read dreadful science fiction,” said Bergman, a sharp smile on his face. “Is that why it does that whole dreadful rhyming thing?”
“I do not choose to sing in these couplets
If I had my choice, I would cool my jets!”
“Whatever,” grumbled Harper. “A few days later, a Concord ship arrives. They find me. They tell me that my parents committed treason. I’m a minor, so I can’t be held responsible for what happened. But they’re taking Ariel, and dissecting her to see what they can learn. Shut her down, tease out her neural structures. It would’ve killed her. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“You volunteered your services in exchange for an artificial intelligence?” said Peri, an eyebrow raised.
“He hacked into the ship and stole it, leaving two Concord agents stranded,” I clarified. “Tried to go on the run and disappear into the underworld on Kapteyn. It was a major manhunt to catch him. Cost the Concord billions.”
“I was protecting Ariel,” he said, sharply.
“You were,” I agreed, nodding. “That‘s why I offered him the choice. Amnesty for Ariel in exchange for joining this group. We checked her out noninvasively for the last three months to make sure she wasn’t herself a carrier for the Kalisaxian wyrm, but aside from the whole rhyming couplets thing, she’s clean.” I sighed. “Everyone does stupid things when they’re young and don’t know any better. It’s after they’ve done stupid things and should know better that I get intolerant. Consider that a warning, Harper.”
The boy flushed. “It was the right thing to do, anyway. Humans have a lot to offer, you know. We deserve to exist. Just because some ancient assholes happened to make a mistake about us doesn’t mean we should be killed.” He looked over at Bergman, and I could see the question in his eyes.
“Oh, well,” said Bergman. “If we’re spilling our guts. My sister, you see. She has leukemia. Well, had. It’s a shame, but the Concord threatened me- You see, I’d discovered this cancer-cure, not a simple tumor-inhibtor, something that would permanently repair the genetic code, and they wanted to keep it secret because of payoffs from-”
“Bergman,” I said, softly. “Don’t fuck around.”
Bergman went quiet at that. His face hardened. “The universe is fifteen billion years old. We’ve got another few trillion years to go before it stops having anything worth seeing. The Concord government suspects that the Kalisaxians had an immortality serum. They feared death like anyone. It would only have made sense. If I work with the Concord, they guarantee me a dose.”
“You’re doing all of this,” said Lars, an eyebrow raised. “Risking your life, because you were promised that if a totally hypothetical immortality serum exists, you’ll get some. That doesn’t seem a tad self-defeating to you?”
“The life of a human is a candle-flame. Brief, and easily snuffed out. The only thing worth risking death for is immortality. Besides, I’m not going on pure faith. I have... suspicions.” Bergman leaned back. “And how about you, Lars?”
“Well. I was born in Minnesota, in the Great Lakes Confederation. My mother and father were devout members of the Reformed Church of Thor. I joined a mercenary company, as my father did before me. We wound up working for the Vot-hot-pot, during the Atagian raids, back a couple of years ago. This, mind you, was long before the Fermi, perhaps twenty years after the first contact. We were quartered in the capital city of one of their colonies. There, I became quite fascinated with their culture, and began to spend my days exploring the city’s historic districts. What caught my imagination most was their museum, where they kept a legendary suit of cursed armor.”
Bergman opened his mouth, and Lars held up a finger.
“Shush, Aaron. My story time. No smart comments. This armor had been with the Vot-hot-pot since their antiquity. It had fallen to the home-world of the Vot-hot-pot long ago. It was said that a great king had worn it, and fought many battles in it, only to die on the verge of uniting one of their continents. It was said that only a reincarnation of that king could wear it. Anyone else who touched it with their bare hands would die. Of course, once they reached space, they learned of the Blade-Fiends, and the mystery was quite handily solved. No one had attempted to wear it in several hundred years. It was, after all, a quite literal death trap, blasting any non-blade fiend with a substantial dose of high-energy radiation. A very unpleasant death.”
Peri and the others had moved closer. Bergman had moved to the door. I lifted the tablet, and studied it for a moment. No changes. I frowned at a slight power fluctuation that didn’t seem to coincide with the guns firing, but it didn’t develop into a major instability.
“The Atagian Pirate Clan, The Black-Sun Eaters, decided to launch a major raid.” Lars frowned. “It was a bad one. Thousands killed, butchered. The rest of my unit fell gloriously, and I was forced to fall back. I was surrounded by Atagian patrols, and dying stupidly was no more acceptable than hiding or fleeing. I was losing blood, and was on the verge of passing out. And then, I heard the voice of Thor. He told me, in a booming voice, that the Jotun were at the gate, and that I could choose to die gloriously, or pitifully. I begged him for a glorious death, and he told me to touch the armor. I trusted him.”
“So, you had a delusional hallucination, and got lucky,” said Bergman, from the doorway, tapping his fingers on the barrel of his rifle.
“I believe I told you to shush, Aaron. Perhaps it was a mere delusion. Perhaps it was Thor’s doing. What matters is that I took the armor. It flowed onto my body in a flash of lightning-”
“Tachyons-” began Bergman, but he went quiet as Lars grabbed the hilt of the blue sword, and drew it forward.
“And I smote the Atagians! Single-handedly, I drove them back, though it took several days. Then I slept, and drank, for approximately thirty-six hours each. I was the toast of the Vot-hot-pot court, famed in song and story!”
“Wait,” said Harper, frowning. “I mean... ownership of a Kalisaxian artifact isn’t illegal, if it doesn’t have an AI. The worst the government could’ve done is purchase it off you with eminent domain. You were willing to die to keep that thing?”
“What? Nonsense! I volunteered for this group!” said Lars, chuckling merrily.
“Well, don’t forget about the Empress, Larson,” I said, smiling to myself as I did another check of the sensors.
“Empress?” said Harper, curious.
“Empress?“ said Bergman, grinning.
“Ah. Yes. Well, the Empress of the Vot-hot-pot was quite fond of me. Extremely fond. I didn’t intend to encourage it, but, well, it was widely suggested I might be a reincarnation of one of their greatest mythological rulers...”
“You had sex with an alien?” said Harper, shocked.
“I thought you read science fiction, kid,” said Bergman. “That’s not the shocking part. See, Lars… I was under the impression that the Vot-hot-pot were silicon-based lifeforms.”
“The Church of Thor does always say that being strange and alien does not mean that they would not make a good wife,” said Lars, reproachfully. “Alloys and all that. Besides, they have both skin hunger and sexual reproduction. It was a delicate affair, but quite tender.”
“Talk about getting your rocks off,” said Bergman. Peri was simply staring. I wasn’t able to read Choir facial expressions that closely, but she might have been blushing.
“Wait. That‘s not illegal either,” said Harper, brow furrowed.
“Yeeees, not under Concord law, certainly. Unfortunately, the Vot-hot-pot emperor took it... very much personally. The Concord pulled quite a few strings to get me extradited, and offered me a choice.”
“Of course, to his credit, he leapt at it,” I said, and smiled. “But I feel Larson should always be reminded of his failures.”
“Rare though they may be,” Lars grumbled, though with a smile as he cooked another hot-dog on a bayonet. “You know, though, Bayheart, I never quite figured why you were in on this whole suicide mission kick. What did you do to wind up risking your life like this? It’s hard to imagine a war hero being forced into this line of work.”
I let out a slow sigh. “That was decades ago. I was thirty back then.” I nibbled the hot dog slowly. “Can’t believe someone your age knows about that.”
“Well, it was very impressive. All of that carnage, those pirates regretted their actions thoroughly.” A slight smile quirked his lips. “So what happened? A fall from grace?”
“I’m getting old.” I shrugged. “Bergman said the only thing worth dying for is immortality. But we all die, sooner or later. Most people die for something stupid or trite, like money, or an extra burger, or one last round of wild, hot sex, or because their great grandfather built the family house by the river, not knowing that a war would ravage the land a hundred years later. Given the choice of how to die, I’d rather it be for something that’ll save a lot of people.”
“You’re doing it because it’s the right thing?” asked Bergman, amused. “Not for fame, or money, or blackmail? Weirdo.” His eyes were as cold as ever, but there was something just a little bit envious there. Or maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see in him. Bergman was good at making people see that.
“You have a very heavy moral center, don’t you? All of that ‘be better than the aliens.’ I must look truly bloodthirsty to you,” said Peri, her head tilted, her expression unreadable in that way only an alien could manage. “Do you really believe that, if our positions were reversed, humanity would be better? That you would advocate for our survival, in spite of the threat we might pose?”
“I don’t know about humanity. I’m pretty sure I, personally, did exactly that not so long ago, when someone had a gun pressed against your head. Hell, for that matter, when it came right down to it, Harper didn’t have the heart to pull the trigger.”
“Some could call that bigoted,” said Peri, but a slight smile showed on her face. “What do you say to that?”
“Probably true.” I sighed. “I remember when I was all full of vim and vigor about bionic rights, then we’re out in the galaxy, bionics are considered table stakes, and all the kids are fucking aliens or seeking immortality or making googoo eyes at artificial intelligences…” I tsked softly. “I don’t get it, but dying so that old people can be crotchety and young people can be rebellious, that’s not a bad death either. I had a good life, barring a few rough days. Makes sense to lose the last few years of crapping bad and walking worse so someone else can have a good life, too.” I smiled. “Never had kids, never found the time. Never really made anything. And all of this, well…” I sighed. “Anyway. How’s that nexus looking, Harper?”
“Uh?” Harper shook his head, and looked down at the tablet. Then his expression fell. “Ah, shit.”
Submitted January 31, 2019 at 02:06PM by HellsKitchenSink http://bit.ly/2CWN4Et
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