Earth Vs. Aliens (Aliens Series 1) (26 page)

“My good ally, will you take the yellow one for the family of Sabino Ibaiguren? They should have some remembrance of his valiant efforts out here in the deep darkness.”

The Basque man’s eyes became brighter, as if moisture flowed. He swallowed hard, then pulled off his black
boina
, laying it in his lap. Reaching forward, he gripped Jack’s hands.

“My captain, may I adopt you into the family of Euskaldunak?”

Jack choked, then nodded, trying to smile. “Yes, please do. Uh, how is it done?”

The swarthy man grinned, then offered his beret to Jack. “You must wear your own
boina
in order to be a true Euskaldunak. Wear mine until my cousin can sew you one of your own.”

Accepting the black
boina
beret, Jack felt the weight of his duty lift a little. “Damn sure I’ll wear this thing! Uh, how do you place it on the head. Which side? Tipped or—”

The laughter of his allies filled many of the minutes remaining until they must confront Menoma the Manager.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

They made it to the green portal without being attacked, though Jack wondered at the intention of an Alien group whose members resembled a giant eagle crossed with a four-legged lion. Ancient academic memories said the word ‘griffin’. He reached up and tapped the contact panel once. That seemed to be the code for interior door access. With a hiss the green metal slid upward into the top of the portal. Inside was a large circular room. A triangular table half-filled the room. At the apex of the table loomed the standing shape of a cheetah-leopard. It resembled Howler in the black spots atop a tan fur, with two golden yellow eyes. A few grey streaks showed atop its domed head, suggesting it was older than Howler. Jack walked forward slowly, his sword going into his back sheath. A finger-talk gesture told his fellow captains to do the same with their blade weapons.

“Are you Menoma?”

“Yes.” The Alien scanned him from head to toe, then spent a few moments looking over his seven allies, including Maureen, Júlia, Minna and Akemi who stood to one side of Jack. The HikHikSot alien blinked. “You humans are indeed strange, to bring females into a contested Hunt territory.”

The Alien’s voice was a throaty-cough like what they had heard in orbit from Howler. Jack noticed that low benches ran along the base of the triangle table, and along both sides. A total of ten seats. No one would have to sit close to this manipulator Alien. “Yes, we are indeed strange. Our females are as Meat hungry as our males. Some exceed male Meat hunger. Like these three ship captains who stand beside me.”

Menoma the Alien reached up with one forearm to tug at the leather straps which ran from a waist belt to each shoulder, as if they supported something on his back. A white-tufted tail lifted into view. The Alien CEO peered closely at the women. “You three must be Captain Akemi Hagiwara of the
Orca
and Captain Júlia Araujo of the
Caiman
, while the one with hair like my fur must be Captain Minna Kalevic Kekkonen of the
Wolverine
. Yes?”

“They are,” Jack said, appreciating how quiet all his captains remained even as the green portal slid shut behind them and they were alone with the Alien who ran this Watering Hole. “The other woman is Maureen O’Dowd, a veteran of our Belter Rebellion. As for the other human captains here, I am sure you know their names and ships, in view of the gravitomagnetic blips we have registered at several battles.”

Menoma moved closer to the table edge, but did not sit on the low bench that Jack now saw lay at the apex end of the table. “You are perceptive, to link those single blip pulses to me.”

Jack smiled widely, showing his white teeth. “How else could you gain the battle results which you later sold to other Hunt competitors? Like the Gyklang?”

“Correct.” The cheetah-leopard stretched wide his forearms, curled his tail, then squatted his muscular bottom on his bench. “You and yours may be seated, or stand as you wish.”

“Captain Akemi, please sit at my left. Combat Commander Maureen, please sit at my right. Minna and everyone else, find a bench seat that pleases you.” Jack gestured toward the Alien. “And Ignacio, put the cold locker at the end of this table, near Manager Menoma.”

The Alien CEO tolerated Ignacio’s close approach, his Alien eyes never leaving Jack’s face. “Your trade goods have drawn some interest, my hall monitor reports.”

“The locker contains what we described to your Greeter, one Howler. What is the price of our admission to your presence here?”

“Perceptive again.” Menoma gave him an imitation human grin. White canines filled a carnivore narrow mouth, even though the teeth were stubby like those of a cheetah. “Five kilograms of elk meat, ten kilograms of cow meat, one disk of whale songs, and five rubies. As you can see from my clothing, we HikHikSot have an affection for red gems.”

Jack had noticed that the chest straps which ran up and over Menoma’s shoulders were studded with inlaid faceted rubies. They were large, each a carat or bigger. “Acceptable. Ignacio, please remove meat from the cold locker until the amounts demanded are left inside the locker. It will stay here. Commander Maureen, please take five rubies from your backpack and place them on the table beside the cold locker. Along with the whale song disk.”

Maureen stood up from her bench, her movements lithe and deadly. She pulled her pack around to her front as she faced Menoma, opened it, looked down, pulled out the rubies and disk, then walked slowly past Ignacio who sat on the right side of the triangle table, on the bench closest to Menoma. Their Irish veteran laid the rubies and disk on the table in view of Menoma, then walked backwards to where she had been seated next to him. She sat, her gaze still fixed on the Alien CEO.

Menoma glanced briefly at the trade items paid for their admission to see him, then looked back to him. “Captain Jack Munroe of the ship
Uhuru
, ask your questions.”

Would he get truthful answers? Then again, what point was there in the Alien lying to him when it thought
it
was in control of this encounter. Putting on his poker face, he spoke.

“When was this base created? And why?”

Menoma blinked once, yellow eyelashes moving quickly. “In your year 2076, when this large ice ball was at perihelion closeness to your Sol star. My ship and my people were the first to discover your system. We knew other Hunters of the Great Dark would arrive to claim your system for their Hunt territory. So we established this base.”

Jack nodded slowly. “Is your colony ship among the twelve now parked in distant orbit?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Menoma lifted his forearms and griped his chest straps. Like Howler the hands had four clawed fingers, one of which was a thumb. The claws were black as space. “Because I sent our colony ship back home.”

“Where is home?”

The Alien CEO tilted its head, golden yellow eyes scanning all of Jack that could be seen. “It matters not that you know, since you humans lack what you call FTL stardrive. The home star system of the HikHikSot is the place you call Delta Boötis B, a G0V yellow star of the main sequence. It lies about 121 of your light years from Sol. Your . . . pilot Elaine Munroe can provide you with further astronomical data on it.”

Shit
. The Alien knew every detail of his crew. And likely every detail of other ship crews that had been broadcast on AV and radio. Which raised a point. “What method do you use to communicate among predator ships, and with your base here? We have not detected any laser, maser or radio transmissions emanating from any of the competitor ships we have encountered.”

“That is because your science, while advancing quickly, is still primitive,” Menoma said huskily. “We HikHikSot and every other predator who travels the Great Dark talk among ourselves using modulated neutrino emissions. As your Drive Engineer Max Piakowski has perhaps told you, neutrinos pass through anything. And their shifting from one neutrino state to another can be artificially manipulated. Which is what we do.”

Jack nodded slowly. Perhaps the flat-topped cylinder they had recovered from the Hackmot ship could be made to work as a neutrino communicator for his fleet. “Tell me about this interstellar society where only predators travel among the stars. When did it begin and how far is it spread within this galaxy?”

“You realize your questions are the obvious ones, and have not the value already paid to me in trade goods?” Jack kept silent, but did not move his gaze from Menoma. “As you wish. Perhaps the Rizen told you this when first they encountered your other
Uhuru
ship. Only predators travel star to star, never the herbivores. Who are the subject peoples we claim as part of our Hunt territories.”

“And?” he prompted.

“Our culture began three thousand of your Earth years ago, in a distant part of what you call Orion Arm,” Menoma said. “It covers most of Orion Arm. While a few predator ships have visited the nearby Carina-Sagittarius Arm, none have claimed territory in that arm. We have plenty of populated stars in this arm.”

Jack felt both encouraged and depressed. “You mention subject peoples. Where are the closest stars with such peoples?”

Menoma bared his teeth again. “You cannot hope to join with our subject peoples, the way your Earth nations pretend to join together in this United Nations creation.”

“I ask out of curiosity. Where are the closest subject peoples? We have long debated which stars held life-bearing planets.”

“They are  not far away,” Menoma throat-coughed. “One subject people is located in the system you have labeled Epsilon Eridani, a bit more than ten light years from Sol. The next closest people live in Omicron2 Eridani system, about sixteen light years distant.”

Jack nodded slowly. “Do the HikHikSot lead this predator culture?”

“No one leads!” Menoma said in a tone that sounded angry-hungry. “We are each predators. We compete for territory. We claim territory. We defend our territory with violence, whenever a new predator species is foolish enough to force entry into one of our systems.” It paused, licked its teeth with a pink tongue, then gave a growl. “But we all obey the Rules by which a new territory is competed for.”

Jack grinned, wondering if his stubby white teeth had any effect on the Alien. “Why did you set up this Watering Hole base? Rather than take over Sol system since you were first to arrive?”

Menoma coughed, then wheezed. “You heard the reason when the Rizen challenged you. My devices recorded every detail of that first Challenge battle. But in your time 2076 you Humans had not yet traveled beyond the world you call Pluto, which is your outermost planet that has cleared its orbital pathway of all debris and minor bodies.”

Jack recalled that Pluto had been downgraded to a dwarf planet status at the start of the current century. Why he had no idea. But this Alien clearly saw Pluto as meeting the Rules followed by these interstellar predators. “So you waited until we sent exploration vessels into the Kuiper Belt. But why did you HikHikSot not Challenge us first? And why did you send your colony ship back home?”

Menoma let go of his chest straps, placed his clawed hands on the table top and leaned forward as if ready to spring across ten meters and sink teeth into Jack. “Because we arrived just after your Belter Rebellion ended. This Unity society that rules your Earth had many armed combat ships patrolling your system. I realized that mounting a Challenge to you humans, even a simple one-to-one personal combat Challenge, would not be as easy as at other star systems. So I created this base. Let the other predators here waste ships and lives in Challenge to you and your seven ships. Eventually your Unity authority will contact us and beg for peace. We HikHikSot will agree to peace. In return for adding Sol system to
our
Hunt territory!”

Jack had never encountered a human more sleazy, sneaky and manipulative than this Menoma. The cheetah-leopard Alien would let other social predators fight for its eventual benefit, then it would claim Sol ownership from a frightened Unity government. Which might even now have sent a ship out to investigate the thermonuke explosion that had happened during their battle with the lizardy Hackmot at comet 1999 DG8. Below the table he felt Maureen reach out and touch his right leg. As if to let him know she was ready for battle. The slight sound of Akemi pulling a few centimeters of her
katana
from its sheath told him she too was ready to confront Menoma. But he was not ready. Instead, it was time to reduce the odds against humanity.

“Manager Menoma, what you do with other Aliens is your business. I care not,” Jack said calmly. He lifted his arms and folded his hands together on the cold metal table. Leaning forward, he ground his teeth. “But we
humans
are the apex predator of Sol system. No lifeform on our planet has survived our arrival at the peak of the planet’s foodchain. As you perhaps know from AV programs on the extinction of giant animals just after the arrival of humans in what we call North America.” He paused, his peripheral vision telling him that Kasun, Aashman, Júlia, Ignacio, Minna, Akemi and Maureen all now watched him. Rather than Menoma. “There are twelve predator species now present on the outer edge of our system, each hoping to gain Sol as part of their Hunt territory. Thirteen when I include you HikHikSot. Well,
none
of you will win any Challenge against us!”