Alien Enigma (18 page)

"The marines currently with us are rather put out at having been only observers so far, Captain. I'm sure they won't object," Whittaker said with a chuckle.

"Alright, consider it done. We'll begin making all these switches immediately after this conference but it will be the shuttles from
Doc Travis
that perform the work. Your ship, Captain Whittaker, is not to land on any planet at all. We can't take chances with it. You have a single shuttle you can use to pick up your people on Sleepy if it works out that way, but you are not to land your ship. One way or another we have to get all this intelligence back to Earth. We know now why ships disappeared in this cluster, but they don't yet. Furthermore, we know very little of the Worms and what drives them, how their society works, where their original home is and what they're up to out here, nor where their robots fit into the picture. It's still pretty much of an enigma. We'll get as much data as we can at the next stop and send it home with
Santa Cruz
. Is everyone clear on our intentions so far?"

Nods of assent greeted his question.

"Next item, and I need all the input possible here. According to the intelligence we've gathered so far, the next alien city, if there is one before we hit Xanadu, will be in a more complete state. Can we conquer it with the personnel and weapons we have on hand, and if so, how? Bear in mind a city of this size with a fulfilled population might number as high as a million."

"We can't do it without a substantial preliminary bombardment and continuing air cover from both the ship and assault shuttles, sir," Rambling stated flatly.

"I agree," Cindy said.

"As do I," Sergeant Watkins assented.

"Is it necessary to conquer them?" Sherry Aguilara, chief of the civilian scientific community on board, and thus Keane's science adviser, asked. "Destroying their mining operations is bad enough." The severe set of her features said very plainly that she didn't care for the idea at all.

"Ms. Aguilara, our ship was fired on without warning and very nearly destroyed by the defenses of a largely unfinished alien city. They have either destroyed or captured four other ships over the years. They have been keeping humans as slaves. Furthermore, none of its inhabitants showed the least sign of wanting to make friendly contact nor did they show any sign of a surrender reflex during the ground fighting. Unless you have a better idea, I see no recourse."

"We could just leave with what data we have and let a diplomatic team return to establish contact."

To give her credit, Keane knew that would be the safest course of action and would guarantee that at least some intelligence regarding the aliens got back to Earth. On the other hand, his mission was to discover the
reason
behind the ships lost in the Bolt Cluster. He could return and give the reason as "Alien hostility" if he desired, and that would satisfy the wording of his mission. In his opinion, it would be a cop out, though. The admiralty, not to mention the President, wanted to know what in hell was going on in this cluster of stars. And he was the one who had to make the decision. There was an incongruity about the sophistication of the alien construction and their behavior that didn't make sense. He thought he needed more data before returning.

"While that might satisfy the bare essentials of our mission, I don't believe it would meet the full intent of what my superiors intended, Ms. Aguilara," he said. "With that in mind, I intend to take us on to our next scheduled stop and continue on our planned course until we find another of the Worm cities or arrive at Xanadu."

"If you feel you must, but may I ask how on earth you came up with the terminology for the aliens? They certainly aren't Worms in a biological sense, regardless of their appearance. I consider it derogatory."

"Since they've so far shown no desire to learn English, I doubt if it makes a difference ... but I'm sure the scientific community will take your objections into consideration should it come to interaction between them and us. In the meantime, the crew has already adopted 'Worm' as the preferred name for them and I doubt anything short of a direct order will change that now. Probably even an order wouldn't work." He noticed Sergeant Watkins hiding a smile behind his hand and knew how the man must feel. Of course, Aguilara hadn't had to face the swarming aliens when they were intent on killing any human in sight. "We need to move on. Major Rambling?"

"I can get a bombardment and air support plan worked out, sir. Whether you'll be able to use the bombardment from space will depend on what the defenses of the next city are like. After that, I'll have a number of different scenarios we may face and plans for each of them. I'm not in favor of ground combat unless we can get them bunched up into killing fields, though."

Aguilara blanched, along with a couple of other officers. It wasn't often they heard the marines speak so bluntly of tactics.

"How about the former captives? Have they given you any indication of how the Worms will react when we appear? Or rather, will those from a completed city act any differently than what we've seen so far?"

"They just don't know, sir. Remember, they were slaves, menials ...oh shit! Sorry, sir, there's something I just now remembered. When we were debriefing Merrilyn Meadows, one of the transferees from Xanadu, she told us they have a working underground resistance movement there!"

Keane's expression brightened. "Great! Did she say whether they had weapons? And what their numbers are? How well organized? How much intelligence they've gathered?"

"Whatever she knows, we'll find out quickly, sir. I'm sorry, it was just a passing thing at the time and we were all still coming down from combat. I'll get the information back to you. In fact ..."

Sergeant Watkins rose from his chair without being asked. "If you'll excuse me, sir?"

"Certainly."

"That puts a different aspect on the situation, sir," Cindy said. "We may want to think about locating the city from as far out in space as possible then landing some distance from it and sending a shuttle closer with infiltrators."

"We'd probably need some volunteers from the former captives," Rambling said. "We also might want to hold up on sending so many of them back with
Santa Cruz
. If they will volunteer, they could be a great help."

"See to it after this conference if you would, Major."

"Yes, sir."

"Now to another question for the science section. Ms. Aguilara, I sent you our recording of the parameters of the shot the Worms took at
Doc Travis
and asked to have it worked over thoroughly. Have you gotten an analysis back from your people yet on exactly what it was and how powerful it could be? Whether it was indeed a plasma cannon, as we've been assuming?"

"I've been concentrating on communicating with the few natives you captured, Captain. I'm afraid it's still in my files."

Keane's mouth tightened with anger. Before he could speak, Commander Mundahan offered an opinion.

"Sir, Commander Levy and I have analyzed it pretty thoroughly. To the extent of our knowledge, I should say. We weren't able to define the limits of its capabilities."

"Which is why I wanted a physicist to look into it," Keane said. "Suppose you two get with Professor Juenne right after we conclude here and see what you come up with? You might want to bring Lieutenant Jergens into the circle as well."

"Yes, sir. You'll have a report just as soon as possible." Keane laughed inside at the way Mundahan ignored the glare Aguilara gave her. It certainly wasn't her fault if the chief science officer had neglected her duty and the Captain was now bypassing her. It eased his anger at Aguilara somewhat.

"Captain Keane, may I make a suggestion?"

The officers all shifted their attention toward Senior Master Chief Thomas Berry, the Chief of Boat and senior enlisted man aboard
Doc Travis
. Ordinarily he was quiet and unobtrusive until asked a question, but was highly respected. He'd been serving in space aboard interstellar ships ever since Wannstead began manufacturing them. All the enlisted element and most of the junior officers regarded him as, if not God, then His designated naval prophet.

"Certainly you can make a suggestion, Senior Master Chief," Keane said immediately. He wasn't about to ignore anything the COB had to say.

"Sir, given that we now know that the Worms are keeping human prisoners, or slaves if what I heard is right, I believe we should stick to our schedule and stop at every place there might be a Worm colony." He paused for a moment, seeming to be lost in thought, then continued more slowly. "I don't know how I would be able to face the folks back home if it got out that we bypassed any place where space explorers, military or not, were being held against their will by aliens. Hell, sir, I don't know if I could face myself.

"I suspect most everyone in the ship would tell you exactly the same thing if asked, sir. Just the fact that we now know Xanadu has an underground tells us how bad conditions must be for them." He paused again for a moment then continued before anyone else had a chance to speak. "There have been times in our history when we in the military learned later that persons in high places made deliberate decisions to abandon captives in order to not upset applecarts. I think they were dead wrong then and I feel like we'd be wrong if we did that now, sir."

Keane ran the idea through his mind several times before answering. "Boats, you've presented a very cogent point. I can't say that I disagree with you at all." He scanned the faces at the table. "Comments, ladies and gentlemen?" Keane said quietly even though he had already come near to making up his mind to go along with the COB's suggestion. Now that the point had been brought up it shamed him not to have thought of it first. Even if it didn't go directly to the heart of the enigma, there would very possibly be additional intelligence to be gained before tackling Xanadu. Further, if any more captives could be rescued before arriving at Xanadu they, like the ones here, could probably offer much needed intelligence. And given the existence of an underground, they might be a big help in subduing the city of Xanadu as well. There were several more earth-like planets in the general direction of the Xanadu system. Checking them out wouldn't take all that much extra time.

Every one of his own thoughts, and a number he hadn't had, came out in the succeeding discussion, but in the end it was his decision to make. It was surprisingly easy.

"Gentlemen, ladies, Senior Master Chief Berry brought up a very cogent point. We'll do our best to rescue any captives before reaching Xanadu. I'd like you all to remember something, though. Just because we did well here doesn't mean we have to get too jaunty. If we find a Worm city, I believe we can assume it is more or less the same as the one we just finished with. If we discover the remains of either of the other two Wannstead ships, we'll go in. Failing that, on to Xanadu."

The response to the Chief of Boat's idealistic thought was overwhelmingly favorable, even if it did mean changing the proposed personnel arrangements once again. All but the marines. The platoon from the
Santa Cruz
would still be moved to
Doc Travis
to augment their forces. An hour later, Keane adjourned the conference and the movement of personnel back and forth between the two ships began.

Chapter Thirteen: Million of the Bastards

The only thing that scares me more than space aliens is the idea that there aren't any space aliens. We can't be the best that creation has to offer. I pray we're not all there is. If so, we're in big trouble.

-
Ellen DeGeneres

"Do you really think there's any hope of rescue or even escaping the city, Doug?" Clemmie asked. They were sitting together outside on one of the hard benches. It was early morning and mists kept the sunlight from being too bright. Morning was always the best time outdoors. It was strangely quiet for them to be in an open area so near the edge of the city. One would think that the numerous flying creatures inhabiting the area would be flitting around and that calls of ground dwellers could be heard. The opposite was true. The local fauna avoided the completed city. Doug suspected some sort of radiation or force field aggravated them enough to make them keep their distance but it was only a thought. He didn't really know.

Later on it would grow almost too hot to stand. On occasions when he was assigned an errand that took him outside during the afternoon he was always glad that he wasn't forced to work the crops. That was brutal labor. He thought the Sinchik robots could be taught the duties the humans were performing outside, and in fact some robots already did a lot of the field work. He had observed that there were several types of robots. Construction or agricultural robots appeared to be little more than AIs similar to ones used on Earth, although more advanced. There was also what he thought of as a general purpose robot, a thing that looked like a cart with tentacles ending in implements that were used to supervise humans or direct other robots and also do general work. And last were two similar types. One was half the height of a full grown Sinchik, very fast and had a number of manipulative arms. The other was larger, one and a half times the size of the smaller. Both were capable of conversation and had varied duties, including supervision of humans. The big difference was that the smaller gave the larger its orders, at least if his observations were correct. What it all meant he didn't know, although he had suspicions.

"Sure, I think we've got a chance, Clemmie, or I wouldn't be part of the underground. If we can gather a few more weapons we'd have enough to defend ourselves in the jungles. It's the damn power packs that stymie us. Once the power's depleted from the packs, we'd be helpless against the predators."

She leaned her head on his shoulder. Her lips parted as if about to say something but closed without speaking. He turned his head and kissed her briefly. In just a few short days he had grown very fond of her. Too much so, he knew, because they would soon be parted, with a chance they'd never see each other again.