OM Chapter 6

Another fine selection from...
THE ADVENTURES OF GREGORY SAMSON, SPACE EXPLORER:

THE ORIGAMI MAN

Chapter 6

Jump to a sample from Chapter 1

I’d been staring out the window long enough for the colors to go weird, trying not to think and thinking about the future.
--We’re being hailed--
--Shall I open a channel?--
Hailed. That was a radio term, right? A naval phrase, or something. Someone wanted my attention.
“That means someone is trying to talk to us, right?” My voice rasped.
--To you--
--Range approximately five hundred thousand kilometers and closing--
I blinked. That was a lot closer than I would have expected, if I’d given it any thought. I did some quick and dirty math, and dredged up a few mostly-forgotten facts. Five hundred thousand kilometers was just outside the orbit of the Moon. And closing. I cleared my throat.
“Well, open a hailing channel back.”
--But he already hailed us--
Cab’s confusion rustled in my brain.
“Just let me talk to him,” I grumbled. “I’m new at this, remember?”
--How could I forget?--

There was a click between my brain cheeks.
“–You filthy animal!” I jumped and half fell, half in the ship. There was a third voice in my head, now, Cab’s, mine and this new one. The new guy sounded pissed.
“Don’t you move! You stay put until I, I get there, and if you put even a scratch on my shipkiller I’ll burn you alive!”
I got up off the floor and put the ship away on my back. “Is that a British accent?” I mumbled. Apparently I was transmitting.
“Ah!” I heard. “It speaks! Listen here, you little thief, you give me any trouble and I’ll vaporize your very planet. You understand? Don’t you move a damned inch.”
I opened my mouth and caught myself. I didn’t want to be heard. How did I turn off the comm? My brain clicked, and the blank hiss of the open channel disappeared. My eyebrow popped up.
“Cab,” I said. “Can he really do that? Vaporize the whole planet?”
--Nah--
--You’d need something really big to burn up a whole planet--
--His ship is a nice piece of work, but it’s nothing dangerous--
--Looks like a…freighter full of houseplants, I’m not sure what to make of these readings--
Houseplants? I shrugged internally. Just another question to throw on the pile. “Fair enough,” I said. “What about his accent?”
--The British thing?--
--Coincidence--
--Vabling mouths mute the R sounds and round out the O--
--Does sound a lot like the Queen’s English--
--Never noticed the similarity before--
--But then, I’m only a half-hour old…now--
“Congratulations,” I said absently. I wasn’t sure how to proceed. Did I negotiate? Strike up a conversation? Try to explain the situation logically? “How come he’s speaking English?”
--Translation machine--
Another question for the pile.
--Range one hundred thousand kilometers--
Perhaps, I thought, I should go outside.
The house was quiet as I hurried through the dim halls. I saw everything and heard everything quite clearly, but there wasn’t much to be heard, or seen. Life is like that. Empty at critical moments.
“Cab, let me talk to him again.” The crickets didn’t stop chirping when I hopped off the porch. The lawn needed to be mowed.
--You don’t have to speak out loud--
--Subvocalize, man--
“Dammit Uhura, just do it!”
--I should have aimed for the moon--
There was another click in my head.
“I said don’t move, you acrophobic beast! Don’t make me exterminate your species!”
“Wait a minute.” I laughed without meaning to. “Acrophobic? Isn’t that fear of heights?”
“Yeah, and what are you gonna do about it, you bald freak? Die at me?” The Vabling’s voice was high, almost screechy, but it rumbled, too, as if it emanated from a big chest. I realized, somewhat belatedly, that I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
--Fifty thousand kilometers--
--He’s slowing--
I swallowed. “Cab? What should I do?”
--Well, on his planet you’d be kicking his ass for that ‘acrophobic’ remark--
--I guess ‘bald freak’ is pretty accurate--
--He’s warming up his guns--
Fear grabbed at me like a hungry animal. Fear is crouching at your door, I thought. It desires to have you, but you must rule over it.
I didn’t know what to do. I looked for a place to hide, thinking dumbly that the grass probably wouldn’t need mowing, after all. Where could I run? The shed? The lawn mower might blow up. The house? Dylan and Iris would kill me.
“What kind of guns does he have? Are they big?”
--Just a pair of thermal blasters--
“I don’t know what to do,” I whimpered. “I don’t know what to do!”
Cab’s disgust twisted in my gut.
--It’s a pair of thermal blasters--
“I don’t know what that means!” I yelled. At least the hedges were high; in those days I was still worried about being seen by the neighbors. “I hate getting burned!”
--You’re so goddam backward--
--First: Ship--
The shell reared up and engulfed me as the same dozen pairs of swiftly changing wings. This time I yelped.
--Don’t piss yourself--
--You’ve got freem drives built into your back and body, with boosters on your hands and feet--
--Those are cutting beams on your forearms--
--Start with the drive on your back--
The plates over my shoulders shook themselves and began to crackle with barely-seen golden energy. The rings on my palms began to hum. I could feel them as strength I wasn’t using, pressure I could exert as if I were using my own muscles.
“How do I do it?” I said. The rings in my palms weren’t moving, but if I stared at them it seemed they started to spin.
--Just think at ‘em and you’ll go--
Think at them. Think what, please? I waved my hand and thought, Go!
The ring pulsed and erupted with golden energy. It felt as if something were pouring out of me, power without source or limit.
If I’d been using both hands, and had them pointed at the ground, with my shoulders set, I would have lifted majestically into the air. As it was, I was holding my right hand out as if to shake, so when the engine lit up I spun in place seventeen times and fell over.
“I’m going to throw up,” I said. “Oh god. I’m going to throw up in you.”
--If you puke in me I will fly us into the sun--
--No foolin’--
“I hate my life.” I stood. The tops of my knees were weak. “I hate it!”
Think at them. Hell.
I thought something profane at the engines on my back and hurtled into the sky trailing the screamingest scream I have ever screamed. This wasn’t flying, this was being hauled into space by a missile. At least puking wouldn’t be a problem. I’d left my stomach somewhere behind us.
--That’s a thousand miles--
--Level off--
My wings cut out and I started to fall. I screamed and pushed on my feet and bounced back towards the edge of the atmosphere. Cut the feet, pushed with my hands, and bounced higher, screaming all the while. But calmly. It was a calm scream.
I lay off my hand engines and put minimal pressure on my feet and stopped bouncing. The clouds were beneath me and it was hard to tell from the distant curve of the horizon, but I thought I was slowing down. I tried to hover, and found it was fairly easy. I didn’t need my hands, or, as the smaller engines around my core took over, my feet. I took a deep breath and hung there. My scalp itched, so I told the helmet to take a hike.
--Nope--
--I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re in space--
I turned myself around. Now that I was getting used to it, flight was pretty intuitive. Like swimming. I saw the edge of the atmosphere beneath me, a scant haze that distinguished where I was from where I’d been. This was space. I was in space.
I was in space, wearing an alien spaceship that fit like a tuxedo, about to do battle with an alien. In space. My eyes lost their focus. An alien. I was in space to meet an alien.
--The channel cut out--
--I think our friend has given up on diplomacy--
--Oops, here we go--
--Heads up--
A stream of bars of shimmering energy shot past me, into the atmosphere, where they caught fire and then exploded. They all exploded at the same altitude, so as the stream moves closer to me there was for one brief moment a long line of midair destruction, like a giant flaming caterpillar. Then the world around me shattered into waves of shimmering blue light, and I went back to screaming.
--Shields, those are your shields, good lord, shut up--
--Just stop screaming--
“I have shields?” I stammered. The space around me continued to flicker and boil.
--I would have been better off inside a turkey vulture--
“Give me a break, Cab.” I tried to touch the edge of the shield, but it was just out of reach. “It’s not like you came with an instruction manual.”
--I’m sick of getting shot--
--Point your arm where I tell you and pull the trigger--
A red crosshairs appeared in my vision, and a green one started to follow my right hand. I pointed carefully, and when the crosshairs overlapped, they turned yellow. Cab gave me the go-ahead.
There was a trail connecting the tip of the weapon to a point on the back of my mind. Like a nubbin built into my thinking. I could press it. I wanted to press it. It wanted to be pressed.
“Hey,” I said. “This isn’t going to kill him, is it? I don’t want to kill him.”
--God forbid I do what I’m made to do--
--No, it won’t kill him--
--Not unless he’s standing right over his ship’s power plant--
--And…no, he’s not--
--We’re good--
--We’re just gonna disable him--
--You fucking bleeding heart--
--I’ve never been shot before--
--I don’t like it--
--I hate getting shot!--
--Shoot him!--
--Shoot him!--
--Heh--
--Shoot her!--
--Shoooooot heeeeeeeer!--
“This has been the strangest day,” I muttered. The yellow crosshairs flashed at me through the wavering shields. I concentrated, and then with all my might though, FIRE!

A violet beam of something more solid than light lanced out of the end of the weapon, and there was a sound in my bones like air being blown through teeth, a mean sibilant sound. I felt the expenditure of energy as a release. A minute trickle from an unending reservoir.
After three seconds something a long way off in the middle of the crosshairs flared orange, and the beam disappeared.
--Good shot--
“That wasn’t a laser,” I said. “I wouldn’t have been able to see a laser.” There was another flash, a smaller one. Red, this time.
--I built you something like a Merkhan cutting beam--
--Similar to a laser--
--But also similar to a squirt gun--
--Conceptually, at least--
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said.
--Sure it does--
--You just don’t understand physics--
--It’s all very simple--
A third flash, almost invisible against the darkness. I looked back at Earth. Now what?
“Is he ok?” I asked. “The Vabling?”
I was over the Atlantic. Not too high. Close to home.
--He’s fine--
--A little shook up--
--Heart’s going a mile a minute, but he’ll live--
“You can hear his heart?” I looked back at the red crosshairs.
--I’m an alien superweapon--
I stared at the empty point. “You think he knows anything?”
--Yes--
“Anything useful, I mean?” I kicked my feet in the null gravity. “He was looking for you.”
--If he was looking for me, he must know something useful--
--Assuming our definition of ‘useful’ is ‘anything about what the hell is going on’--
I grinned and breathed deep. “I agree. Let’s go meet an alien.”
--I’m alien--
“Yes, you are,” I said. The engines responded to my urging and wrenched me away from Earth. According to the numbers printed over everything I saw, the Vabling had been forty thousand kilometers away. Now that number was diminishing very quickly. Too quickly. There was pressure on my chest when I tried to breath, enough that I had to force the air into my lungs. Each breath exploded out of me only to be immediately replaced by another frantic gulp.
--You’re fine--
--It’s all in your head--
--The inertial dampeners are working fine--
--If they weren’t you would be way dead--
That was a cold comfort. I took a forcibly calm breath and was almost irritated to find that Cab was right, I was fine. Earth shrank beneath me.
“Cab, how fast are we going?” I asked, and Earth froze. I could imagine I felt the sudden stop, but I don’t think I did.
--Not too fast--
--.0224 lightspeed--
--A little over fifteen million miles an hour--
Forty thousand kilometers in maybe six seconds. From that distance Earth was pretty small. Small enough I thought it might be just as easy to miss the thing, or fall off, as it would be to land on it and go home. The moon, off to my left, was as big as I’d ever seen it and a long way off still. It had a depth I’d never seen before.
I turned in place, stared out at the stars, and suddenly I was five years old again, in the ocean for the first time. Standing, so I couldn’t have been in more than two or three feet of water and the surf was gentle and the sun was shining and my parents were right behind me and everything was fine, but when I looked out over the horizon while I was being pushed and pulled by this giant dark thing that was so much bigger and stronger than I could ever hope to be, I understood for the first time that I was tiny. And I was terrified.
“Cab,” I said. My voice was cacophonous inside my head. “Cab, where’s Vab? Where did this thing come from?”
--Vabl--
--There--
A yellow point appeared to my right. Next to it, in the same color, was printed Vabl, 6567.418.
“What about where you’re from?”
--Cabernicia--
--There--
A smaller point, still in yellow, underneath me. Cabernicia, 19,732.895.
“What are those numbers, distances?”
--Yes, in parsecs--
They were far apart. A parsec was longer than a light year. I didn’t know by how much, but I knew the distances were incredible.
“Are there others?” I asked. “Other inhabited worlds?”
--Buddy, you have no idea--
--Here--
The stars disappeared, replaced by millions of pairs of names and numbers in all the colors of the rainbow, except for blue. All of space lit up like the Vegas strip, the entirety of galactic civilization laid bare before me as names on a map. There were millions. Billions. The closer the planet, the bigger the name, and some of the names were quite large. Earth stood in the middle, giant, blue. Blue for home. We’d never known what we were missing, we humans. The galaxy was filled with life, saturated. We weren’t alone. We’d never been alone, we couldn’t have been.
My heart began to pound and my limbs went leaden. It was too much. So many worlds, and so much time. So much new information, and so many changes. Too much to keep track of. Too much pressure. Too much to think about. I was sweating bullets, drenched before I noticed. I couldn’t get enough air. I didn’t even know where the air came from. I didn’t know anything.
For a second I allowed the wish that I had died in Dryden, and a second was all it took. Panic tore through me, clawed at my soul and filled my mind with static. I had to run. I couldn’t run. I couldn’t move.
I drifted for a while, keening like the terrified animal I was. There was pressure on my body from all sides, as if I was deep under water. Each breath in was a victory. Each breath out was a loss.
In an instant I had been transformed from a knowledgeable man in the most advanced era of history to an ignoramus, an ass. There was life, intelligent life, right there next to us, and we had never known. We just went blithely along, convinced of our supremacy, all while well within sight of actual alien life! It was beyond shocking. It was embarrassing. It was humiliating. No wonder Cab thought I was an idiot. And even with a long life, how could I hope to see even a fraction of these worlds? Earth had been a big enough challenge; this was too much.
“Stop,” I said, waving my hand. “Get rid of them.” The names disappeared and the stars came back but even the stellar panorama was too much. Dark, I thought, and darkness reigned. The screens and information disappeared from my vision as if I had been thrust into a cave.
I listened to my heart and breathed rhythmically, in through my nose and out through my mouth. I became conscious of my body in free fall. For the first time in my life, my organs hung where they chose, not where gravity decreed. It was rather comfortable. I smiled in the dark and rolled my shoulders, kicked my feet. I was utterly unfettered. The sensation of weightlessness was an alien relief, but a relief nonetheless.
The problems I have, I thought, I will face as they come. I took a deep breath, let it out. Whatever I cannot solve today will wait for tomorrow. I will start with whatever is in front of me.
Sight, I thought, and was at once blessed. The stars pressed down on me, and I pressed back, and after a second there was balance. I was here, and they were there, and here was what mattered.
My heart slowed down.
--Feel better--
“Yes.” My voice creaked, and I cleared my throat. “It’s a lot to take in.”
--So you’ve said--
What was in front of me? The Vabling. I still needed answers. And so did Cab.
“Can you get me aboard his ship?”
--The Vabling?--
--Does the pope poop in the woods?--
--Do bears wear funny hats?--
I smiled. “Your jokes are getting better. Is that a yes?”
--That’s a yes--
--I’m sentient, his ship is not--
--Thinkers trump non-thinkers--
“Glad to hear it,” I grunted. “Can we still talk to him?”
--Yeah--
--He’s got comms and survival systems, life support, that sort of thing--
--Here we go--
--You’re on the air, live, with Greg Samson the hairless freak!--
“Hello?” My voice broke. Really ought to do vocal warm-ups before screaming my way into space and having a panic attack outside of satellite orbit. So much for being majestic. Oh well. Even Neil Armstrong flubbed a line or two in his career.
I heard atmospheric sounds, gentle wind and heavy breathing. Someone was listening.
“This is,” I said, “this is Captain Samson of the…” I stalled out. Things were getting off to a rough start.
--Oh I would so love to be called the Buttercup--
“Shut up,” I growled.
--Live mic, cap’n--
“Don’t tell me to shut up you rotten, disease-ridden idiot animal!”
I jumped again. The tenor threw me off, but there was a definite mass behind the voice.
“All right, that’s it.” I kept the growl in my voice. “Who shot whom first, asshole? I’m coming aboard. You do anything stupid, I’ll cut your ship in half.”
Off, I thought. “Cab, we can do that, right?”
--Lookit YOU getting all tough--
“Cab?”
--Yeah, sure, halves, quarters, you name it--
--Eighths even--
--Don’t ask about sixteenths--
I looked back at Earth.
“Who was that supposed to be, Robin Williams?”
--Guido Sarducci--
--I’ll work on it--
I nodded and reopened the comms .
“Ahoy busted ship,” I called. “Once more, I am coming aboard. Please don’t do anything stupid.” I felt the tattered edge of my sanity flapping in the void of whatever was beyond, and grinned maniacally.
“I come in peace.”

I took off towards the Vabling ship, a few miles away, and was on top of it immediately. In fact I nearly overshot it. I had a lot of pep in my engines. And it’s hard to judge distances in space, the place is mostly empty.
The ship was as big as a luxury liner, with two sets of wings that came together at the tips. The hull was maybe five hundred meters long and three hundred meters wide in the middle, but the wings were enormous, eight hundred meters from end to end, at least.
It hung in space, still and dark, except for a molten hole towards the rear that spat rainbow sparks at odd intervals. The whole thing looked a little like an almond, maybe, or a flattened football enclosed in a bent loop.
There was a second hole through the far side, I noticed. We’d gone right through. Cab didn’t tiptoe around.
In spite of the wound, it was a pretty ship. Sleek, aerodynamic, well constructed, but I could see from the beginning that unlike Cab this ship had been built, not grown. There were rivets, seams, here and there the evidence of a skillful repair, and across one side a name in an unrecognizable alien language that resolved itself as I watched into the word ‘Solace.’
Cab zoomed in on everything I looked at, if I concentrated, and I didn’t have to work very hard to be understood. If I tried to focus on a thing, I saw it in perfect detail, as if it were right in front of me. It was a neat trick. I looked back at Earth, big and close but smaller than usual, and wondered fleetingly how far I could see if I tried.
My feet stuck to the Vabling’s hull like magnets. Big ones, neodymium, the kind you can throw past an old refrigerator and they’ll curve in midair to latch on. I could walk, but I wasn’t graceful. Still, it was nice to have something under my feet again, even if my floating organs insisted I was still in free fall.
My back felt great.
Cab led me to a circular airlock that was built so cleanly into the hull I wouldn’t have noticed it without his help. It was about five meters across, studded with regularly spaced bubbles that reminded me of ripe pimples.
“What are those things?” I asked, pointing.
--Safety measure--
--They’re filled with pressurized construction foam--
--Fast drying, very strong--
--If the airlock is punctured, they explode to seal the leak--
--Some ships are just covered in them--
“Do you have anything like that?”
--Yeah, I heal--
--Here we go--
I heard a beep somewhere inside me, and the airlock cracked into eight triangular slices. My stomach growled. Breakfast seemed like a long time ago, and my brain, starved for a familiar sight, suddenly decided that the airlock looked more like pepperoni pizza than pimply skin. I shook my head. I wasn’t thinking right. Or maybe I was. I couldn’t tell, which was the root of the problem.
“You ever had pizza?” I asked.
--I have eaten what you have eaten, today--
--So, no--
“We’ll have to fix that,” I muttered quickly. I blinked, and swallowed, and told myself that it’s good to concentrate on the mundane in a stressful situation.
The airlock was a small room that opened into much larger room. I landed where I thought the floor should be and waited for the inner door, and then stepped lightly inside.
The room was empty, and enormous. It looked like it ran the length of the ship. The whole thing was lit by soft red lights that muted detail and turned distance into red fog. There were lines painted across the floor that broke the room into sections, and a system of cranes dangled from the ceiling. Cargo hold? Docking bay?
I rolled my shoulders and thought about taking off the helmet. Dust swirled across the floor in little eddies, propelled by the small sourceless winds of empty spaces, and I remembered a small fact, long forgotten, that household dust is mostly human skin. What was this dust made of?
“Cab, is it safe to take off my helmet? Can I breathe in here?”
--Yeah, he’ll be fine--
I frowned. “Who’ll be fine?”
--The Vabling--
“Bully for him,” I snorted. “What about me?”
--What about you--
--You’ll be fine--
--You’ve got me--
The list of things I didn’t understand would have been a much longer story than this one.
Headless, I thought. The helmet cracked away and I rubbed my scalp. Small blessings. My hair was greasy. I thought about shaving my head. If I was going to make a habit of space travel, it might make sense. Then again, I have pretty angular features, and I couldn’t go traipsing about looking like a space-faring neo-nazi.
The Vabling ship smelled like a zoo. Not like shit, or grass, but like animals, big furry ones. The ceiling was high. The only door I could see was tall and wide. The instrument panel to the side was six feet off the ground. I thought of the voice I’d heard over the radio, the way it seemed to rumble out of a big chest, and my helmet slowly rebuilt itself as Cab picked up on my apprehension. Part of me wanted to turn tail and burn rubber back to Earth. Forget it, the mysteries of the cosmos could wait.
On the other hand, I’d come this far. Might as well open the door and see what was on the other side. I bent at the knees and tried to creep, but my feet were made out of alien alloys that clanged on the deck like iron bars on bronze pillars. I took two cautious steps, then gave up and stomped over to the door. Stealth be damned.
“Cab, do I have any smaller weapons? I don’t want to blow another hole in the hull.”
--Come on, I like blowing holes in the hull--
--Try this--
The weapon on my right arm expanded like a Hoberman sphere, so that each component was briefly visible. Then each piece began to change at once. Casings unwound themselves and exposed tubes in the process of becoming circuit boards, crystals in the process of reinventing themselves as small tanks of compressed gas, the whole thing governed by some sort of odd clockwork grace. Everything moved with a purpose along its own individual path, until a new machine emerged out of the confusion, something like a shotgun supported in a ceramic latticework that ran from the base of my elbow to the end of my wrist. It looked more like an abstract sculpture than a weapon.
“And what, pray, is this?” I asked.
--Kinetic burster--
--Shoots a massless projectile made out of bundled kinetic and thermal energy--
“A massless projectile?” I said. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
--Is this gonna be a thing with you?--
--We’ve been over this--
--You’re a backward animal from a backward planet with a laughable understanding of basic physics--
--So, yes, it does make sense--
--Just not to you--
My left arm rearranged itself to hold a duplicate of the gun on my right.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “Long as it works. Open the damn door.”
The door slid into the wall with a click and a hiss. It was everything an inveterate nerd could hope for. So was the big guy on the other side.
I took a step back and raised my hand guns, then took another step for good measure.
“You’re kidding me,” I said.
The Vabling was a ten-foot tall skinny green gorilla with big, bulbous eyes. It had long legs and longer arms. Its feet were long. It stood on its toes, like a cat, and its toes were huge, wide, flat. There was a certain feline cast to its features, but the overwhelming impression I got was that of a stretched ape. Its face was a cross between that of a tiger and that of a gorilla, thick features and a huge muzzle, with bigger eyes than either animal, eyes as big as baseballs. Its fur was the color of north-facing tree moss, a rich Earth tone green shot through with brighter shades.
It was pointing a pistol the size of a shotgun at my sternum, held at the hip with a loose but steady grip. The tip didn’t waver. I looked.
In an amazing display of diplomatic self-control, we didn’t kill each other.
“Oh, no,” The Vabling said. “You made it aboard.” It stared at me for a moment, and sighed. “Shit.”
Its voice was high pitched, but it rumbled out of the creature’s thick chest like thunder. There was a low note that hadn’t made it over the radio that made it sound as if the Vabling had two voices, and thanks to the translation machinery, its words didn’t match up with its mouth. I heard English but saw motions that looked like they should have produced barking, grunting, something like that. All in all, communication was jarring.
“So the seed bonded to an Earthling,” It said. “After all this. What a waste.”
I let that pass. Its hair was thick, and flatter along one axis than it was on the other. Like grass, almost. It was longer in some places, and thicker, like feathers without down. Not one follicle was out of place. The regulated density reminded me of reeds. If I had fur like that, I probably wouldn’t wear a shirt either.
Its eyes were gigantic. They slanted slightly down, and I could see the edge of a thick third eyelid at each tear duct. The pupils were huge, inky black circles an inch in diameter, with a brilliant golden iris housing eight smaller pupils. They were iridescent, positioned at forty-five degree angles. As I watched the two closest to the Vabling’s nose on either side contracted sharply.
I couldn’t stop grinning. Thank god for the helmet, I must have looked like an idiot.
It was obvious from the size of the Vabling’s muzzle that its teeth were huge. Sharp or dull, I wondered. I bet on sharp. This looked like that kind of animal. Its ears were oddly human, except for a slight point at the top. They were surrounded by fans composed of stiff, flat hairs, a foot long at least, so that each ear appeared to be bigger than it was. The ear hairs were brightly colored, yellow and blue, mostly, with some vibrant reds that stood out among the cooler colors like neon tubing. They grew flush to the skull, but rippled unconsciously according to some unknown internal directive.
The Vabling had two pair of elbows on each arm. A large, load-bearing joint in the normal place and a smaller, more dexterous second lower down. The second joint was omnidirectional, like a wrist.
I was so rapt with attention that when the alien holstered its weapon I almost opened fire. It was very fast, for such a large creature.
“Damn,” It said, turning. “Should have stayed away.”
It went off down a corridor, out of sight, and I clanked after. Couldn’t have met an alien with a carpeted ship, I grumbled to myself.
We went into a room divided into color-coded sections. The Vabling went into the red section, which if I was seeing things correctly controlled engines and power systems. There were a lot of pictures, which I found very helpful.
A detailed three-dimensional image of the ship spun slowly in the middle of the room. It had a red line running at an angle through its rear quarter; probably my doing. I moved in front of my host and held out my hand.
“Hi,” I said. “Gregory Samson.” I made the weaponized gauntlet skitter back up my forearm.
“Captain Samson, I presume, of the anonymous shipkiller.” The Vabling bared its teeth at my hand. “Cover yourself.”
I dropped my hand and the gauntlet grew back sheepishly. The alien didn’t seem very impressed with me. Was first contact de rigueur to these people? Maybe my mother was wrong. Maybe I wasn’t special.
“You know what this is?” I said, touching my chest. “This ship?”
“Yes,” the Vabling grunted.
“How?”
The Vabling sneered.
“Putting aside the fact that you’re wearing one of the most famous weapons in the galaxy,” he looked me over; “albeit casually, the only reason I’m anywhere near this backwater is because I’ve been trying to get my hands on that weapon in particular for quite some time.”
“Great,” I said. “Well, keep your hands off. You got a name, in case I have to shoot you?”
I could tell I scared it by the way it rolled its eyes at me.
“No, I have no name,” It said, turning back to the screen. “My species have advanced far beyond the need for such primitive affectations.”
“Really?” I couldn’t keep the grin out of my voice. “That’s so cool!”
The Vabling looked at me for several seconds. “That was a joke,” it said. “Do they have jokes where you come from?” It turned away. “My name is Rell.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said. I thought about it. “Are you male or female?”
Rell gave me a look. “You’re not going to ask to check, are you?”
“No,” I stammered. “Just thinkin’ about pronouns.”
“I’m male,” Rell said. He went back to his screen. After a second he muttered something sharp and moved to another part of the room, where he typed something.
“You were trying to steal Cab,” I said.
“Cab?” Rell asked absently.
“The ship,” I said.
“You’ve named the thing. Wonderful. Yes, I was going to steal ‘Cab.’ ‘Cab’ is worth a lot of money, enough for me to retire on. Due, however, to circumstances beyond my control, I will be forced to repair my ship.” He grimaced. “At great personal cost, I might add.”
He gestured at the image floating in the middle of the room.
“You’ve punctured the korp relay in my freem drive. I can’t safely contain the plunk effect.
I gave him a blank look, but then, with the helmet on, all my looks were blank.
“So…it was a good shot?”
Rell leaned on the wall and stared at me. He crossed his arms, although thanks to the doubled elbows his hands stayed free.
“Yes,” he said finally. “It was a good shot.”
“I had help,” I said.
“I’m sure you did.” Rell reached out and grabbed the hologram, and it enlarged along the section with the line through it. “See there? You hit the relay dead on, but only holed three rooms. Maximum efficacy and minimum impact. I’m crippled, no power beyond life support and communications, but the ship at large is undamaged.”
“My ship helped me,” I said. “Cab. He helps me a lot.”
--Aw, shucks--
“Well, he’d make a dandy pirate,” Rell said. He frowned. “I could warp, but I can’t maneuver a warp path. How the hell am I going to get out of here?”
--Your line is, ‘I’ll help you, in exchange for information’--
Rell couldn’t hear Cab. He was mine, and mine alone. Great.
“The warp isn’t powered by the korp drive?” I asked.
--Korp relay--
--Freem drive--
“No,” Rell said. He gave me a funny look. “Warp drives aren’t on the korp relay. You people really are cut off out here, aren’t you?”
“I guess so,” I said. “So you could warp out of here? Get your ship fixed?
Rell nodded. “If I could get myself pointed in the right direction.” He wouldn’t look at me.
“I’ll help you,” I said. “In exchange for information.”
--Good job--
--You’re a quick study--
“I can give you a push,” I said. “Right?”
--It’s a little undignified--
“And in return?” Rell said. “Just information?”
“No more shooting at me,” I said.
“Fair,” Rell said.
“No more trying to steal Cab.”
Rell shrugged. “No point, anymore. You know you’re stuck with him.”
“So I’ve heard.” I looked at him, leaning against the wall, utterly alien and yet maddeningly familiar. Just a guy. We were negotiating a mundane service, nothing more. Concentrate on the eyes and the fur, I thought. Try to ignore the fact that he basically needs your help pushing his car to the garage.
The gauntlet slid up my arm and my helmet cracked away.
“You have to shake my hand,” I said.
Rell looked at my face for about ten seconds. He took a deep breath, held it, and bled it out in a horrible laugh that made me want to leave.
“Sure,” he said. “What’s the harm, anymore?” He laughed again, and swore. I put another question on the pile.
He held out his hand and I shook with as firm a grip as I could muster against such sheer size. His hands dwarfed mine. The hair around his head flattened when he touched my skin.
“Greg Samson,” I said again.
“Rell,” the alien said. “Rell Quizops.”
Rell Quizops the alien space gorilla. This was reality; it was too intangible to be anything else. Still, I had to admit my life was looking an awful lot like a Saturday morning cartoon. Something violent and PG rated that was geared towards prepubescent suburban children and had a merchandizing tie-in. The Adventures of Greg Samson, Space Explorer. What horror. No man’s life should resemble the idiot power fantasy of an adolescent, but there I was, wearing a transforming alien spaceship, shaking hands with an alien.
It wasn’t even noon.

Rell’s face was tight. He looked at his hand blankly, then wiped his palm on his chest and walked out of the room. He found me revolting. What was the deal with that? I went after him.
“If you’ve got questions, ask,” Rell said over his shoulder. His stride was long, seven or eight feet, and I had to jog to keep up. The muscles rolled under his skin, graceful and dense. But lithe. There was reedy strength to his movements, like an insect, or a snake. His shoulders bulged like stones under moss.
We moved into a different part of the ship, where the aesthetic was more alien. Wood paneling and curved corners that gave the impression of walking through a hollowed out log, or a tunnel bored through a giant tree.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“I’m hungry, I’m going to eat.” Rell said. “Your questions are easy.” He wouldn’t look at me.
We took a left out of the log hallway into a huge room plated in brilliant white ceramic and chrome. A paradise of ninety-degree angles and sleek sophistication, an alien kitchen that would have been the most fascinating thing in the room if it weren’t for the enormous window stretching the length of the far wall. I don’t know if it was real, or a projection. It looked real.
Earth. I’d seen it already, but I’d been distracted by circumstances and by the fact that my brain had been swimming in a sea of cortisol. I was calmer, now, and I had something under my feet. I could stop and stare.
Remember, it was only my second hour in space. The universe was wide open to me, but Earth was still the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. My home, the biggest space I’d ever known laid bare in its entirety. All of creation made small. A universe I could wrap my arms around.
It doesn’t matter that I knew even then the inaccuracy of my thinking. This was home seen with virgin eyes. Everybody does it the first time.
Australia was rising, and I could just make out the eastern tip of Japan. There was a hurricane brewing over the open water, four, five thousand miles wide, barely visible from my vantage point as something separate from the planet itself. An aberration of an atmosphere that was itself apparent against the emptiness of space the way an air bubble is apparent underwater. Earth wasn’t made small from this distance; it was clarified. Its reality was as tangible as that of the alien rummaging in the fridge for lunch makings.
“Gotta eat these steaks,” he muttered to himself. His voice sounded funny. “When did I thaw these, Monday?”
The contrast between the incredible and the mundane was going to snap my mind like a rubber band.
There was a table, appropriately sized for Rell but oddly nostalgic for me. The last time I was this size relative to a kitchen, I was five.
There was fruit, in a bowl. I hoisted myself up on a very tall chair to take a closer look. It was grapes, except each grape was a tiny neon blue banana. I picked one, delicately. Was I supposed to peel it?
“Don’t touch that,” Rell said suddenly. “You already did. Dammit, Samson, miggles are expensive. I have to throw those away, now, I–” He paused, and then came to a full stop. After a moment, he sighed. “Fuck it. Eat the miggle, who cares. Just get back in your ship, I’m sick of looking at you.”
“Hey.” I dropped onto the floor and the helmet snapped into place. “Who the hell do you think you are, talking to me like that?”
Rell stepped forward and glared at me. We were what would normally be called chest to chest, although it would be more appropriate in this case to say we were chest to crotch. Rell was really quite tall.
“You, you scummy, disease-ridden freak,” Rell hissed. “You fuck. You animal. It’s bad enough you’ve…you’re here, you’re here and that’s that but stop rubbing it in. Stop touching my goddam food!”
I raised my hand to make a point and Cab’s sudden understanding whapped me in the side of the brain.
--Oh, hey, hang on, he’s clean, I’m sorry, I didn’t think to tell you, sir, I’m sorry--
Rell shrank back with his hand on his gun. His eyes raced around, and then settled back on me.
--He’s clean, he’s fine, everything’s fine, everybody calm down--
--By the way, Greg, I can talk out loud--
--Rell, he’s disease free--
--I cleaned him out--
--You don’t have to throw away your…miggles--
--And you’re not going to die--
“Wait, what?” I said. “Die? Who’s dying? Not dying?”
After a moment Rell took his hand off his gun and stood up straight. I hadn’t seen him drop into the crouch. He was quick, and used to violence. I’d met a lot of other people like him, although none of them had been quite as hairy. Humans, technically, although they’d all had the same quietude in their eyes and expressions. And they’d all been very quick, for better or worse.
He put his hand on the counter, the same one I’d shaken. His fur was very flat, except for the crests around his ears, which wavered like drumming fingers.
“Clean,” he said. “Disease free. You’re sure about this?”
--Yeah--
--Part of the acclimation process--
--Cleaned him right out--
--Installed a new air freshener, too--
--New Car Smell flavor--
Rell smiled and the hair around his head calmed down. “So I’m not dying.”
“What is this about dying?” I said. “Cab, what do you mean you cleaned me out?” I dismantled the ship. Rell swallowed hard, but rallied.
--Earth is a quarantine planet, and nothing is supposed to go in or out of your atmosphere--
--Ever--
--Actually, Rell, you’re breaking the rules just being in the system--
I popped a miggle in my mouth, peel and all. It tasted of vanilla and cinnamon, and crunched like a nut, and then got very spicy. I coughed. “What do you mean, quarantine planet? Why?”
“Because you’re a disgusting race that lives in your own filth, and you swap diseases for fun,” Rell said in a rush. He wiped his hand on his face and laughed. “God, I thought I was done for. I was going to have the warp shoot me into your star.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why, because we shook hands?”
“No,” Rell said. “Because you made it aboard in the first place.” He dug in the fridge again, and came out with a pair of gargantuan steaks. “You hungry?”
The meat was bright orange.
“I can eat that,” I ventured. “Right Cab?”
--Yep--
--You could eat a light bulb, now, not that you’d want to--
--I’d find something nutritious in there--
“So it won’t make me sick?”
--Nope--
--You can’t get sick anymore--
--Which is why it’s ok for you to be up here--
--Unfortunately the same can’t be said for the rest of Earth--
“But why are we quarantined?” I asked. “We can’t even get off the planet.”
“Other people could come here,” Rell said simply. “There’s money to be made. You think you people would be left all alone if you weren’t so dangerous?”
--Terrestrial viruses are some of the deadliest organisms in the galaxy--
Rell put a huge cast iron pan on an unmarked part of the counter and pressed a button on the edge.
“You thought I’d killed you,” I said. Rell nodded. The pan began to smoke.
“I’m sorry,” I said. Rell shrugged and tossed the steaks on the hot surface. They spat.
“Sure,” he said. He touched another button and the smoke from the steaks began to wind itself around an empty point in midair, like yarn. “Not the first time I’ve escaped death. But, thanks.” He took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “Damn, what a day. You want a beer?”
I nodded, and Rell handed me a long-necked beer bottle the size of a fire extinguisher. His fit his hand easily.
“You guys can’t, like, drop us off some medicine or something?”
“Medicine,” Rell snorted. “For human disease.” He shook his head. “Disease of any kind is an uncommon occurrence, in the galaxy. Most species develop immune systems early in their evolution that do away with the body’s ability to retain viruses and bacteria even asymptomatically. Humans, on the other hand, did not. And the diseases you have…”
“We need bacteria to survive,” I said.
--Well, you don’t, not anymore--
Rell nodded. “I’ve heard that. For digestion, right?”
I nodded.
“I imagine its one of the major obstacles we’d have to overcome to help you,” Rell said. “Not that there’re many people clamoring to help a primitive race of plague bearers do anything but stay put.
I frowned. “So you just cut us off?” I swigged my huge beer, and spilled some down my front.
--The thing about terrestrial diseases is that they’re incredibly prone to mutation--
--Very hard to control--
“Plagues aren’t fun, Samson,” Rell said. He flipped the meat with one hand and drank his beer with the other. “Better to avoid them in the first place.”
“Hard to argue with that logic,” I grumbled. “So is this quarantine going to be lifted anytime soon?”
Rell shrugged. A lot of him was very human.
--When you evolve--
--So, for all intents and purposes, no, not for a long time--
“How long?”
--Let me think about it for a bit--
--Ok, based on current human physiology coupled with the contemporary rate of technological expansion and development, factoring in world events and cultural barriers--
--I’d say between seven and fifteen thousand years--
--Ballpark--
“And until then, no one in or out,” I said. “No contact. This was entirely an accident.”
“What was an accident, us meeting like this?” Rell poked the meat and sprinkled some spices. Salt and pepper, or sulfur and nightshade? Did it matter, anymore?
“Yeah,” I said, “and Cab’s…seed…being on Earth.”
Rell laughed. The translator ignored the sound, and I realized it was the first noise I’d heard him make on his own. His laugh was guttural, a series of quick grunts, like a gorilla. It was an unbelievably happy, jovial noise, and I couldn’t help but like him a little more, all of a sudden.
“This is all very, very illegal,” he said. “I could be thrown in quarantine for the rest of my life, first of all, even though if I were infected at all I’d be dead in hours. If they didn’t quarantine me, they’d still throw me in jail forever, just for getting this close to Earth. And that’s not even considering…everything else.” He looked at me askance. “I don’t know what they would do with you.”
“You’re taking a big risk, coming here,” I said. Rell chuckled.
“The hell I am, you forced your way aboard. I’m going to claim you were mugging me.” He smiled very wide. His teeth were very sharp. I knew it.
“You figure they’ll give you a break if I’m the bad guy?”
“Hell no, if they catch me here they’ll lock me up and throw away the key. But screw the Core.” He flipped the steaks again. They were thick, he had to be careful or they would char.
“Cab,” I said, “What’d you mean, I won’t get sick again?”
--I fixed your immune system--
--You won’t get sick again--
--I’m…not sure how else to put it--
--But, you’re welcome--
I grimaced. I’d never get sick again. That was a remarkable thing to hear, but the feeling of it was lost in the shuffle between meeting an alien, leaving the planet, flying a transforming alien spaceship and discovering I was immortal. Taken within my current context, an omnipotent immune system wasn’t that impressive. I could feel the walls inside myself rushing away from me.
With a little maneuvering, I managed to drink a healthy gulp of my beer. It wasn’t easy. My face felt heavy.
“I would think an evolved immune system would be cause for celebration,” Rell said quietly. He flipped the steaks one more time, and then plated them with a handful of greens sprinkled with miggles. He had flair, I’ll give him that. He gave me a knife and fork I could have used to butcher pigs and set to his lunch.
“This is a lot to get used to,” I said. Rell ate some greens and nodded.
“I can’t imagine, actually,” he said. He looked out the window. “You people really have no idea we’re out here?”
“Nope,” I said, popping my p. “I’m really the first human to make contact with you guys?” I poked my steak. Cooking had turned the meat a fragrant white pink.
“Not quite.” Rell tried his steak, and nodded to himself. “There’s a research facility in the Ghaneb system with a sizeable human population. And there’s a pan-species zoo system somewhere in the Core, too. I hear they have humans.
--Lifeworld--
“Yeah, Lifeworld.” Rell nodded. “Dumb name, but I hear it’s a wonderful place. Eighty planets in synchronous orbit, something like four hundred billion square miles of preserves.”
“That’s it?” I asked.
--I mean, that’s a lot of preserves--
“As far as I know,” Rell said. “Am I missing anything, ship?”
--There are no other official human intervention projects on record--
--And call me Cab--
I cut into my steak. It was a lot to get through. “So we’re cut off completely. There’s some massive galactic…”
--Federation--
--Republic--
--Collective--
“…Government,” I continued, “and we’re cut off? No love for Homo Sapiens?” I cut a strip of meat in half, then in half again, and then sawed off the corner of that piece. It was a big bite. “Rell, what am I about to eat?”
“Idip,” Rell said through a glistening mouthful of idip. The air reeked of cooked idip. I suppose chicken is a weird word too, when you think about it. Idip.
“What’s an idip?” I asked. “Or was that a proper noun? Are we eating dear departed Idip?”
“It’s a, a bird,” Rell gestured with one hand and a forkful of greens. “Lives in trees. Good for meat.”
--Idip are large flightless arboreal birds that bear live young--
The animal that came to mind looked like a tough ostrich. I grinned and took a bite. It tasted good, more like goose or duck than chicken, with a beefy juiciness and a scant calamari texture. I tried the greens. They tasted like greens, slightly bitter, then sweet. I ate them because I figured they were good for me, not that it mattered much anymore. The miggles were a nice touch, though.
“Thanks for lunch,” I said.
“Thanks for not killing me,” Rell said.
“Sorry about your ship,” I said.
Rell shrugged. “I shot at you.” He grinned. “You scared the hell out of me.”
I chewed the greens for a long time, and then swallowed. Rell was nearly finished with his meal, and I’d barely made a dent in mine. This had to have been a ten-pound steak.
“I scared you?” I said when my jaw got sore from chewing.
“Yep,” Rell said. He pulled a cigar case out of his pocket and lit a cigar on the stove behind him. The case was the size of a dictionary and the cigar was a Freudian nightmare that reeked of strange spices from beyond the stars, and in order to get a light, Rell had to bend over backwards with his chair on two legs. He stayed that way for a moment, for all intents and purposes upside down, using his right foot under the table for balance, turning his cigar to get an even coal on the end. Then he tipped himself back upright with an odd, stiff grace.
“Do you mind,” he asked through a cloud of smoke. I shook my head.
“I didn’t think the seed would bind to a human,” he said. “In fact, I wasn’t aware that it was possible. As far as I know they’ve only ever bound them to those Cabernician whales.”
--Hoon whales--
--The Cabernicians knew it was theoretically possible, but it’s never been attempted--
--Gee, I’ve got a lot of files buried in here--
“Seems to have worked out all right.” Rell looked me up and down. “You showed up on my sensors as a fully functional shipkiller. Quite a force to reckoned with.”
“Yeah, great,” I said. “Can’t wait to tell the folks. How did Cab end up on Earth?”
Rell took a drag on his stogy and held it. He looked at me for a long time, then shrugged and blew twin plumes of thick white smoke out of his nostrils. “I was trying to steal him, and things went wrong.” He grimaced. “I was going to camp out in orbit until I figured out a way to retrieve him. If you hadn’t found him, maybe…” He ground to a stop. What was in the cigar, I wondered.
“I didn’t find him,” I said. “He fell on me.”
--Hey, come on, man, you make me sound like a piano--
--I fixed you, we’re cool--
Rell stared at me. After a second he started to grin, and chuckle. The expression and accompanying sound grew until he was smiling ear to ear and roaring laughter, that same guttural huffing amplified to an extremity of mirth. His teeth were terrifying.
“What’s so funny,” I asked when I got tired of the noise.
“He fell on you,” Rell grunted. Tears streamed out of his eyes and were lost in the fur on his face. “He fell on you. You didn’t find him?”
I shook my head.
“Of course you didn’t, how would you know what he was, anyway?” Rell wiped his eyes. “You’re scientific history in the making, the first seed implanted in anything but a whale, the first clean human, the first human to make contact, and it was all an accident.” He chortled again and shook his head.
“You might be, pound for pound, one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy, and it’s all thanks to coincidence.” He snorted. “What a weird place.”
“What, Earth?”
Rell shook his head and waved his hand. “Life. Life is a weird place. Life is funny.” His eyes were big and bright. Overbright.
“Big joke,” I said, thinking of untold, unimaginable depths of time and space laid bare and aching for acceptance and exploration. “Hilarious. What went wrong, trying to steal Cab?”
The laughter drained out of Rell. Good, I thought. Good. His body went still, like he’d run a long distance and could finally rest.
“There was a firefight.” He drained the rest of his beer and got another from under the counter.
“Where was this?” I asked.
--They grow the seeds in Cabernicia--
--Rell, how did you manage to get in-system?--
--You should have been vacuum grease the second you crossed the border--
“Charming ship you’ve made, there, Samson,” Rell said. He drank some of his new beer. I managed some of mine.
“You wouldn’t have a straw handy, would you?” I asked. Rell shook his head. “I’ll make do. How did you get into Cabernicia?”
“Like a dog after a bone,” Rell muttered. Did they have dogs on his planet, or had the translator fudged a line to help me understand? “I never said I was in Cabernicia.”
Cab’s confusion fluttered around my head.
“Cabernicia is almost as hard to get into as the Core systems,” Rell went on. “Remember, shipkillers are meant to be big. They’re capital ships, just one of them could turn the tide in a minor war. The Core navy has billions of the damn things, maybe trillions. They make up the bulk of the Core’s military strength. So breaking into a shipkiller factory, where there are billions of shipkillers waiting in reserve, fresh off the factory floor, would be like trying to fight your way out of a black hole. I’d be better off staying home and wishing for a shipkiller seed to magically appear in my sock drawer.”
I checked the floor. Rell wasn’t wearing socks. His feet were a lot like his hands, big, articulate and beastly. I’d have to check to be sure, but I would have bet the closest sock drawer was back on Earth.
“And to get as far as the Gardens?” Rell said. “You’d have to be invincible, invisible, or packing one hell of a big ship. I’m oh for three.”
“So where was the seed?” I asked.
Rell drank about a quarter of his beer. “About a thousand parsecs from the front.”
“The front of what?” I asked.
--That’s impossible--
--Seeds don’t leave Cabernician space without a host--
“You did,” Rell shrugged. “I caught a seedsmith trying to sell you to a bunch of Krr--
Cab’s shock vibrated in the back of my mind and made me jump. Devoid of context, the experience of someone else’s emotions was unnerving. I took a big bite of steak and chewed hard, washed it down with some beer. Cab was chittering to himself, mulling over what Rell had told us at some ridiculous speed. I could hear him on the top of my brain. Probably meant whatever Rell had just told us was important, but damned if I knew why, or even what his words meant. The Krr? The Front? Seedsmith? The gap between what I knew and what I needed to know was maddening.
I felt like a dachshund trying to fly a jumbo jet.

The air in the kitchen was heavy with steam and smoke. Pleasant. Rell puffed his cigar and I sat still while Cab worked out a response to Rell’s story.
--That’s bullshit--
They can’t all be winners.
“Afraid not, Cab,” Rell said.
--But it doesn’t make any sense--
--Why would a Cabernician sell to the Krr?--
“Money comes to mind.” Rell finished off his beer and got a third. He waved the bottle at me and I shook my head. I still hadn’t made much progress with the first one.
“I would have thought any spacefaring race would have done away with the cultural hindrance of money,” I said.
“Don’t be stupid,” Rell said.
--The Cabernicians would never help the Krr--
--It would be suicide--
“What are Krr?” I asked, loud. “Why is it suicide to help them? And from now on would the two of you for christ’s sake remember why we’re having this conversation in the first place? I want a little more definition with my exposition, ok? I don’t have a clue, here.”
“The Krr are fascists,” Rell said. I frowned.
“Cab, did that translate ok?”
--Yeah--
--The Krr are a fascistic insect race--
--Sort-of insect--
--Insect-like--
--Definitely fascists--
Fascists in space. I guess I could accept that. They had money in space, and beer. Might as well have fascism too.
Maybe I needed a CAT scan.
“They control most of one of the galactic arms,” Rell said. He leaned on his larger set of elbows and stared at his cigar. “Their planet is somewhere out near the end, supposedly. I mean their original planet.”
--They’re sentient, and individual, but they adhere to a doctrine that was drafted in their ancient history, when they were still a hive mind--
“It boils down to ‘Eat, Kill, Fuck,’” Rell said.
“Doesn’t sound so bad,” I quipped. I saw immediately that I had said the wrong thing. Rell hunched his shoulders and got intent on his cigar smoke, and Cab discovered he couldn’t hide his emotions from me. I drank my beer and felt somebody else think I was an idiot.
--They’re attempting genocide on a galactic scale--
--You know what genocide is, right?--
“Yeah,” I said, “We do that too.”
“Don’t get down on yourself.” Rell forced a smile. “You don’t know any better.”
--Most sentient species experiment with genocide--
--It’s classified in Gighlick’s Manual of Sentient Psycho-Cognitive Social Disorders as an aberrant social meme--
--Sentient races reach a point where the need to expand is improperly associated with the survival instinct, resulting in genocidal behavior--
--At that point the species either achieves balance or dies out--
--Except the Krr never resolved their evolutionary conflict--
--They just focused the genocidal instinct outward--
“Conquerors,” I said.
“Exterminators,” Rell said. “They go planet to planet, killing everything and using up all the resources. When they’re done, they tear the planet apart for raw materials.”
“What, the whole planet?” My voice was loud. A lot of my beer was gone. It was good, like India Pale Ale with a lot of grapefruit and spice. Normally I don’t like fruit beers, but this one had some bite to it. Strong, too.
“It’s not hard, it just takes time,” Rell said. He took a deep breath. “The Krr don’t want the supremacy of the Krr species, they want the singularity of the Krr species. Not just in terms of sentient life, but all life. Any competition is too much competition, as far as they’re concerned. The only thing that’s kept them back is the Core,” he belched carefully, “…and their magnificent military industrial complex.”
“So the galaxy is under constant threat by Nazi bugs,” I said. “Great.” I pushed my food away. There was too much of it, anyway. Rell took my plate without a word and started eating again, cigar in hand.
“You get used to it,” he said.
“Yeah?” I said.
“It is what it is.” He shrugged. “Anyway, the Krr want to kill everything, so helping them is like killing yourself. Is that what you were getting at, Cab?”
--Pretty much--
“How long has this been going on?” I said. I kept checking on Earth through the window, half-expecting to see…what, UFOs? Saucers?
Rell snorted. “Hundreds of millions of years. The front hasn’t been moved in millennia, although the Krr still make their raids. Things are actually relatively peaceful on this side of the galaxy.” He grinned. “That is, besides the normal level of violence one finds in society these days.” He took another drag on his cigar, which was noticeably shorter.
I put my hand on my face and breathed against my palm with my eyes closed. The Krr and the Core. “And the Core is just the government out here?” I said. “Why is it called the Core?”
--It’s run by races from the core of the galaxy--
“Makes sense.” I opened my eyes. “Ok. So it would be bad if the Krr got ahold of a, of a shipkiller seed? Is that what I should take away from all this?”
--It could tip the balance of power away from the Core--
--Turn the war--
“But it’s just a weapon they don’t have. Right?”
--Well, yeah, but they would reverse engineer the seed, make their own--
--They’ve done it with every other Core weapon they’ve captured--
--And they have history of upping the ante in unexpected ways--
--Like, they’d probably stick the seeds in something nasty--
--Core intelligence indicates they’ve retained a few indigenous species from worlds they’ve taken solely for this purpose--
“You have access to Core intelligence files?” Rell said.
--Apparently--
--I am a military vessel, after all--
--Damn, they held on to a lotta big animals--
“How big?” I said.
--Uh, Vrollian slugs are about six hundred miles long, maybe half as wide--
--And Ulan comet spiders, those are like a half a light-second from leg-tip to leg-tip--
I slammed my imagination shut before it showed me something rotten. “Cab,” I said. “Don’t ever say those words in that order again.”
Rell nodded and belched again. “Seconded. My older brother used to tell me comet spider stories to scare me.”
“Ok, so it would be really bad if they got a seed,” I said.
--Yes--
“Not just normal-bad.”
--No--
“You could have just said that.”
--It would have lacked gravitas--
I rolled my eyes. “Ok, I’ve got the cast. So one of the seedsmiths–” I paused. “You really call them that?”
--It sounds better in Cabernician--
“Sure it does,” I said. “So one of the seedsmiths was conducting an admittedly illogical illegal arms sale. And Rell, you just, what, happened upon it by accident?”
Rell didn’t move. “It was a job.”
“Who gave you the job?” I asked.
“What do you care?” Rell said.
“I’m researching my genealogy,” I said. “It’s important to know where you came from. Who gave you the job?”
“I’m not telling you,” Rell said. He spoke like he was slamming a door.
“Hell, Rell.” I paused to savor the rhyme. “What does it matter if I know? Who am I going to tell, my roommates?” I laughed. “They’ll think I lost it. What’s the harm?”
Rell shook his head. I grunted.
“Did you know it was going to be the Krr?” I shifted back on my seat and crossed my legs. It was hard to get comfortable in a chair this size. Damn size discrepancy.
“No,” Rell said. “I was expecting a paramilitary group. Ultra paranoid small-government weapon freaks. You know, morons.” He smirked. “I was staked out on the far side of an asteroid. I knew the seed would have to leave the ship for the transfer, since docking for an exchange is a great way to get yourself killed. My plan was to scoot in, drop a couple bombs, grab the seed and disappear.” The end of his cigar sparked, and he eyed it suspiciously.
“I almost lost my nerve when the Krr showed up.” He inhaled audibly. “But like I said, this was money to retire on. And besides, it was the Krr…” He got another beer. No slouch, he.
“I have a well cannon hidden aft,” he said grimly. “I took out two of them, but the beam hit the seed, too. Blew the damn thing off into the cosmos as three folds past light speed.”
I went over the sentence a few times in my head. Most of it was Greek to me. “Well cannon,” I said. “Bombs. Cab, you were holding out on me. You told me he just had the thermal guns.”
--I might have made some omissions--
--He can’t use a well cannon this close to a planetary mass, and you’re too quick for bombs--
“From now on I want full disclosure,” I said. “Got it? I deserve to know what I’m getting myself into.”
I looked at Rell, who was picking his teeth with his teeth. “I’m supposed to believe you shot Cab with a whatever it’s called, well cannon, and he just happened to hit me? I’m supposed to believe this is all a coincidence?”
“Of course it’s a coincidence, why would anyone intentionally arm one of you freaks,” Rell said. His words arrived in spite of the extreme movement of his jaw and tongue as he carefully groomed the meat out of his teeth. I could only wonder at his unadulterated voice. He didn’t seem to have any trouble getting his point across.
“Well cannons generate elongated immediate points of time,” Rell said. “I’ve also heard them called ‘singularity guns.’ The ships I hit were crushed into a one-dimensional space, and Cab’s seed got caught in the wake. He got pulled into a trans-light vector, it was like he disappeared.”
--Jesus Christ, you nearly killed me!--
--What the hell, man!--
“It was my first time using the thing,” Rell said. “Oops.”
--You’re a walking argument for stricter gun control laws, Rell--
Rell waved his hand. “All this happened two weeks ago, Samson. It took me three days just to work out the seed’s trajectory. This happened on the far side of the galaxy, it’s amazing Cab made it this far. Earth was just in the way. You, sir, were just in the way.”
I felt very still.
“Coincidences happen, Captain Samson.” Rell stood up and stretched gloriously. “I fucked up, and now you exist. Nobody planned this, nobody would ever have wanted this to happen.” He motioned to the door. “That’s enough for the day. I’ve kept up my side of things, point me where I need to go and get away from me.”
“What?” I said.
“Time for you to go, Captain,” Rell said. “Meeting you has been a novel experience, but you’re more trouble than you’re worth, and I want to get you a long way behind me. If you’ll point me in the right direction, I’ll be on my way.”
I thought about saying no, for the hell of it, but decided it would be childish. I stood up and clanked to the door.”
“You can’t make any money off of me,” I said, “so you’ve lost interest in me. Right? If you can’t make money from something, you’re not interested.”
Rell snorted and walked out of the kitchen. I followed him.
“You’re a thief, right? Or a smuggler? A space smuggler?” I grinned. “You’re a crook. You’re just here for the money. And you only tried to stop the Krr getting a seed because of the money.” This is ridiculous, I thought. A goddamn space fantasy. Science fiction. He’s a space pirate stealing from space Nazis.
We went into the hold, and I rebuilt the ship.
“You’re not gonna come at me with some kind of chosen one philosophy now, are you? Really drive the scenario home?” I chuckled and made a hammering motion.
“Captain,” Rell said exasperatedly. “I expected to drop in, grab the seed, and get the hell out of here. Instead I find you. Sure, I care about the money. But I care more about not getting myself thrown in jail or killed. Now I have held up my side of the bargain. Are you going to do the same?”
“Thrown in jail?” I said. Rell ushered me into the airlock.
“Yeah, or killed,” Rell said. He looked at me with his hand on the control. “I’m not the only one who could have figured out the seed’s trajectory, Captain. I just had a head start. It’s dangerous for me to be here, someone else might come looking.”
I worked my jaw and took in a last breath of Rell’s ship. Big animals. Made sense. I rebuilt the helmet and nodded. “I got you.”
Rell returned the nod. “Good. Watch your back, Samson. You’re an insufferable, terrifying little twerp, but you’re not all bad.”
“Nice of you to say so,” I said, but the door was already hissing shut and my words were lost. The outer door opened. As I left the ship I felt the point where my perception shifted and up into space became out into space, and down became wherever I wanted it to be.
For a few minutes I pushed and pulled Rell’s ship according to Cab’s instructions. It didn’t feel like much to push a ship the size of an oil tanker around, but then it was already hard enough to take most of this seriously, so I just shoved and grabbed and twisted and then retreated a few miles to watch Rell disappear into warp. That too was less than expected; the ship only accelerated very quickly and was gone. There was, of course, no sound.
I sighed. “So you think we’re going to have more company?”
--I think it’s likely--
I turned back to Earth and pressed with my feet. There was only a tiny sense of acceleration, even though my speedometer told me I was going very, very fast.
“You think we’re in any danger?”
--Probably--
--This is a dangerous place--
“What place?”
Earth got big in front of me while Cab thought about it.
--Everywhere, I guess--
“I thought that’s what you meant,” I grumbled.
The colors in front of me, the blues and greens and grays and the way they all seemed to blend together, all of this pushed at me as I burned through the atmosphere. North America, New York State, the Finger Lakes, Cayuga, Ithaca, home. It was all waiting for me.
I’d believe it when I could touch it.