In Her Name: The Last War (10 page)

Yao Ming’s parents were among the victims, caught in the local marketplace as they did their daily shopping. Both of them were masters of
t’ai chi
, a skill they had been passing on to their only son, but even that couldn’t save them from the mob. As Yao himself had told the midshipmen to run when he turned to face the aliens who had boarded
Aurora
, his parents had said the same to him that day before plunging into the seething mob, fists and feet flying. His escape had been a harrowing flight through blood-filled streets that still haunted his dreams. He never saw his parents again, for they were among the hundreds who died that day.

Now, walking through this alien ship, he had the honor of having not just two, but four warriors as escort. Unlike those escorting the others, these had their swords drawn and were exceptionally alert. Having killed three of them in close combat earlier, the first with his hands and the other two with the sword from the first one, Yao took some measure of grim satisfaction that they felt he was more of a threat than the others. But he had no illusions about what probably awaited them. Just like McClaren, he had taken a last longing look at
Aurora
before stepping aboard the alien warship, because he knew in his heart that he would never see her again.

After moving through what Yao estimated to be nearly half a kilometer of twisting and turning passageways, they came to a huge door. Like most of the other doors they had passed, this one was deep black in color, polished to a reflective shine, with runes similar to those carved in the stone-like material of the passageway walls. However, these runes were much larger, and inlaid with a material similar in appearance to lapis lazuli. 

The door stood partway open, and Yao’s guards ushered him in, following the remaining human survivors. Inside, there were more aliens of what he assumed was another caste. Like the ones who had applied the healing gel earlier, these wore robes, black, this time, and also lacked the lethal claws of the warriors.

This group, numbering perhaps fifty individuals, wasted no time carrying out their task. Two quickly approached each human and began to take measurements with what Yao realized was nothing more ominous than a tailor’s cloth measuring tape. While these had no numbers or other markings that he could discern, the way the two aliens stretched it along various parts of his body left no doubt. After his parents had been killed, he had gone to live with his uncle, his father’s only brother, who worked as a tailor and taught young Yao Ming his craft, along with continuing his education in
t’ai chi
. 

“Mister Yao...” he heard young Sato call to him quietly from off to one side. 

“
Kazh!
” one of the boy’s escorting warriors hissed. The aliens hadn’t harassed the humans coming here, but they had refused to allow them to speak to one another.

Yao met the young midshipman’s gaze and nodded, adding a wry smile as a small gesture of reassurance. Whatever was to come, at least they would not have to die naked.

* * *

The armorers worked quickly, as was their custom. While their caste was known for its great skill in handling the living steel from which their weapons were forged, they also created the other clothing and accessories in which their race was attired. Ignoring the strange coloring and pungent scent of the strangers, but welcoming the fact that they were amazingly similar to Her Children in form, they measured their bodies in the time-honored fashion. Like their sisters throughout the Empire, in all the castes, perfection was the goal toward which they strived from birth until beyond death, and they allowed themselves no room for error. Measuring several times, they left the main hall for a series of anterooms where their materials waited. The strangers would not receive any armor, for the priestess had determined that they did not wear such things, and thus would not be accustomed to it. 

Instead, the aliens were given only the undergarments worn by all the castes, be it beneath armor or robes. Like virtually all things made by the hands of their race, it was the essence of perfection and would last indefinitely if given a small amount of care. The armorers fashioned close-fitting long sleeve shirts and long pants of a black gauzy material that was perfectly smooth against the skin. It would keep the wearer cool in the heat, and warm when it was cold, and this batch of the material had been specially prepared to accommodate the strangers’ unique thermal requirements. Each piece would fit the individual wearer perfectly, tailored only for them. It would stretch effortlessly, but would never bind or lose its shape. Since it had been created to be worn under armor, it never interfered with a warrior’s movements when in combat.

Once the armorers finished covering the aliens’ pale bodies, they shod their feet in traditional black sandals, open-toed with wraps that secured them above the wearer’s ankles.

* * *

Amundsen wasn’t sure what bothered him more, the overt advanced technology such as the ship, or the almost supernatural craftsmanship of everything the aliens made. The clothing in which he now found himself, as the humans were once again herded down the labyrinthine passageways, fit, literally, like a custom-made glove. He had owned tailored clothes, but they were nothing like this. The material itself would be worth a fortune for its clearly advanced properties, and the fit was astonishing. The footwear, in particular, felt like part of his body. This was no small achievement, for Amundsen had a slight deformity in his left foot that required custom-made shoes. But, like his tailored clothes, they were nothing compared to this.

The reason it bothered him was that these aliens seemed to do what they did, be it healing or making clothes, almost by instinct. They did it perfectly, every time, apparently without the assistance of anything he could recognize as technology as he understood it: there were no machines, no computers; only simple tools like the cloth measuring tape. From the looks he had exchanged with the other members of the crew, particularly the captain, it was clear that everyone else was equally awed by the clothes they now wore. Most of them even wore smiles at the incredibly pleasant feel of the garments, at least until they remembered how they had come to be here.

The warriors, certainly, had more advanced technology available to them, such as whatever device they used to stun a number of
Aurora’s
crew. Yet their preferred weapons would have been at home on any battlefield on Earth before the widespread use of gunpowder weapons. 

That and the lack of claws among the robed castes, which appeared to be natural, and not a surgical modification, as best he could tell, made him think that this species was likely far older than humanity. Yet how much older, and how much more advanced, he couldn’t hazard a guess.

But the biggest puzzle was that they had seen no males. He didn’t want to make any assumptions about why that might be. They knew almost nothing about this species, except for their predilection for violence, but he found it extremely curious. Since he and his shipmates hadn’t exactly had a chance to do a full physiological examination of the aliens, perhaps they were hermaphrodites. But something in his gut told him otherwise: even though their paths of evolution had followed somewhat different courses, his own race and the aliens shared far more similarities than differences. He was convinced that all of the aliens they had seen so far were biologically female.

His internal analysis was interrupted when the humans were herded through yet another massive door, far larger than the others they had passed. Inside was a gigantic compartment hundreds of meters across that reminded him of an amphitheater, with concentric rows of steps for spectators to stand on so all could clearly see what transpired on the “stage” below.

The humans were positioned in the last row, behind two other rows of perhaps three dozen aliens. Spaced wide apart in a semicircle around the stage, these aliens also wore robes, but of a dark blue color. The aliens stood erect, staring at the stage, holding their hands out in front of them as if they were pushing something away. While he couldn’t read their body language, it was clear that they were concentrating intently on the stage below.

As he looked down at the dark surface, he discovered that it was more akin to a huge liquid pool whose surface had been completely still when they first walked in, with whatever it contained merely mimicking a solid surface. 

Suddenly the material in the pool below began to morph, and he watched with growing horror as it took shape.

* * *

“That’s impossible,” McClaren breathed as he watched the apparition begin to rise and take shape in the alien cauldron that lay below. He tore his gaze from the thing and looked first at Amundsen, then Yao. Both of them were staring back at him, eyes wide with shocked disbelief.

McClaren, in what was a major act of will, turned back to look at what was taking form, somehow being created, cloned, using the black material in the pool: the
Aurora’s
central computer core. Next to it the navigation core began to take shape. Just like with the healing goo, the black material in the pool was being used as a matrix to create whatever the blue-robed controllers willed. The components were still taking shape, with the various assemblies supported by tendrils of the shimmering black material. McClaren had no idea how the aliens did it, but they must have made an incredibly detailed scan of his ship, probably as part of whatever happened to the electrical system. And now, as humans could model a three-dimensional object in a computer and have a machine produce an exact physical replica, the aliens were recreating the computer systems here. He realized with a sinking feeling that it wouldn’t have mattered if they had blown the computer hardware to bits. The aliens already had what they needed. And he no longer entertained any hopes that they would have difficulty interpreting the computer data. They would get whatever they wanted, and there wasn’t a bloody thing he could do to stop them. 

Before his eyes, the computer systems continued to take shape. While he only saw the exterior of the components, he knew with cold certainty that the memory crystals, which were custom grown in a zero gee environment, were forming inside, and that the data held in their matrices would be completely intact. Threads of the black substance connected to the extruded human technology where optical links and power conduits entered the system, providing power and input/output streams that the human design could interact with. 

He chanced another glance at Yao. The brilliant petty officer’s face was ashen. Yao would know better than anyone, even Amundsen, the implications of what they were seeing. None of them were good.

In a few minutes, the entire array of hardware and necessary peripheral systems had been created. McClaren heard a series of soft clicks, and then the telltale lights on the core casings flashed on: the system was booting up.

* * *

The priestess watched silently from the shadows, invisible to the aliens, as the builders performed their work recreating the alien ship’s control system. While primitive, she nonetheless granted them respect for the achievement of creating systems that took them to the stars, and courage for relying on such simple machinery to take them there. 

The matrix in the formation pool below was an analog of the symbiont used by the healers. Advanced as it no doubt appeared to the aliens before her, it was a feat achieved in what were now very ancient times, and was one of the many examples where the lines between technology and biology had become blurred. The builders, those who created that which the Empress required, from tiny things invisible to the naked eye, to entire worlds, no longer used the interfaces that were once required to control the matrix material. Their evolution was shaped by the Empress over the ages, and the power to control the creation of inanimate objects was now an effort of will, guided by the mental vision of what was desired. Like the healers, the minds of the builders could grasp the totality of a thing, see its construction on a subatomic level. Her race did not use computational devices, computers, as the aliens might understand them, for her people had no need. The use of such things had long ago faded into the Books of Time.

But that did not prevent the builders from understanding and creating what was needed. The alien machines quickly took form, and the matrix was guided into providing the necessary electrical input and other connectivity. The major challenge the builders faced was to recreate it exactly as they had memorized it when the alien vessel had been scanned, and not to improve upon it. Otherwise they would have finished much more quickly.

The system activated, and they monitored its initiation sequence. In their perception, time was variable: they could slow down events relative to the actual timescale. In this way they analyzed each function undertaken by the machine. They did not learn the language the machine used, exactly, but they understood on a fundamental level how it worked, much as the healers understood the aliens’ bodies after they had been treated with the healing gel. Following the machine’s primitive processing routines was a laborious, excruciatingly painstaking experience, but the builders excelled at such things. And with the priestess looking on, her Bloodsong echoing strongly in their veins, the builders’ usual obsession with perfection was taken ever higher.

At last they understood what they needed to know about the machine and the data it contained. Others would be required to interpret most of it, but one thing they could show the priestess now...

* * *

“Oh,
fuck
.” 

McClaren heard the words, but didn’t know or care who said them. He wasn’t a man who used foul language, but in this case the words exactly fit his feelings.

Above the pool, where the clones of the ship’s computer systems hummed with unnatural life, a stellar chart began to form. It was hologram, incredibly realistic, that spread across the entire breadth of the huge theater. It displayed the series of waypoints tracing
Aurora’s
path to reach this system, and after a moment additional data began to appear for each waypoint. Much of it was visual, with realistic representations of the system stars and planets, but some of it was also being translated from Standard into the aliens’ language, judging by the runes that began to appear next to a number of the systems and waypoints.