Lost In Translation (5 page)

They ran down their own street, toward their own house, but now other things filled the sky, black, with wings, and one came right over their heads, high up, except suddenly it wasn't, it got really big really fast, and it had red glittering eyes and big white teeth and it smelled bad and it carried something long and thin in its claws, and now they were on their porch and Katy's father shoved her through the front door so hard she tumbled over and over and hit her head and started crying again, and she scrambled up to run back to her parents, only something flashed really bright just outside the door and her parents fell down funny and
she couldn't feel their love anymore . . .

And when the Earth marines came looking for survivors two days later, they found Katy sitting on the porch between her dead parents, staring blankly into the blank black glass eyes of a run-down synthibear, barely breathing, hardly blinking; and that never changed, not when the medic bundled her up in a blanket and took her to the makeshift hospital, not when the shuttle took her into orbit, not even when the warship
Frobisher Bay
took her to Earth.

They took the synthibear with them, but halfway to Earth Katy roused herself just long enough to stuff it down a disposal chute.

For half a year, as the S'sinn struck at human outposts from one side of the Spiral Arm to the other, Jarrikk rejoiced with the rest of the Flock. The humans seemed routed, unable to oppose the lightning-fast attacks of the S'sinn Hunters. The Supreme Flight Leader vowed to drive the naked, four-limbed monstrosities back to their homeworld and keep them penned there forever, freeing the Arm of their foul presence.

But something went wrong. The humans regrouped. They captured a S'sinn ship intact, and from its data banks drew their own list of targets. The return blows were every bit as deadly as the S'sinn strikes had been. Humans proved to be far more effective warriors than the S'sinn had guessed.

Half a year stretched to a year. Fleets on both sides grew larger and better armed. The massive presence on Kikks'sarr, which had been only a tiny, unimportant colony before, doubled, then redoubled. A city took shape, an ugly city designed for only one purpose: to service the ships of war and the Hunters that crewed them. The colony's own long-range plans for a quiet, graceful city, full of the soaring architecture of peace, were indefinitely shelved. Like it or not, they had become the staging and headquarters center for the S'sinn war effort, far in advance of the homeworld of S'sinndikk, whose location had to be kept secret from the humans at all costs. No ship carried
that
information in its data banks. The S'sinn
did
know the location of Earth, but no attack had yet been mounted against its powerful defenses.

Jarrikk regretted that bitterly. He didn't want humans merely pushed back to their homeworld: he wanted them exterminated. As much as he hated the ugly city that had swallowed the tree-houses where they had lived before the humans appeared, he applauded its purpose. But he didn't spend much time there. Mostly, he remained with Kitillikk; since the raid on the human camp, she had taken an interest in him, assigning Ukkarr himself as his tutor. He practiced flying and tracking and shooting and unarmed combat, ate at Kitillikk's side, grew stronger and harder and taller and heavier, until, he realized with a shock one day as he studied his reflection in a mirror, Kakkchiss wouldn't have recognized him. In fact, he looked almost like a full-grown Hunter, though his coming-of-age ceremony was still a quarter of a year away. He stood straight, fluffed his glossy black fur, spread his wings, folded his arms, and stared sternly at himself. “Death to humans!” he growled, trying to sound menacing.

A long, lingering wail from the Tower of Time drove him away from the mirror, through the arches of his room, and into the air above the city. Kitillikk had called him today for one of her periodic examinations of his progress. He wanted very much to please her; she had been hinting at something special she had planned for his coming-of-age, and from the way she'd been looking at him, he'd thought he might know what it was. Coming-of-age usually went hand in hand with First Mating. First Mating with the Flight Leader would be an incredible honor. It would secure his place in the upper echelon of the Flight, ensure that when he joined the fight against the humans, it would be as a wing leader, at least . . . and Kitillikk, he had heard it murmured among the male Hunters, was the kind of mate whole flocks had gone to war over in ancient times on S'sinndikk. His imagination recently had begun to focus less on what mating with her would do for his position in the flock and more on the pleasures of the mating flight itself. Certainly it had enlivened his dreams on several occasions . . .

But as he glided down towards Kitillikk's fortress, something blotted out the sun.

 

“Excuses waste breath and energy, old one,” Kitillikk growled at the factory manager who stood submissively in her audience room, dry, papery wings unfurled and drooping. “You have not met the quota. Those firelances are vital to the war effort.”

“Flight Leader—” the gray-furred S'sinn began.

“Silence!” Ukkarr banged the butt of his lance against the stone floor, and the old one subsided, trembling.

“You are relieved of your position,” Kitillikk said. “I have already informed your deputy that he is now in charge of the factory. Ukkarr, take his collar.”

Ukkarr stepped forward and removed the steel supervisor's collar from the old one's thin neck. Beneath it, his fur had rubbed away in spots, revealing brown-spotted gray flesh. Kitillikk's lip curled in disgust. “Your usefulness is at an end, old one. Remove yourself. The priests await.”

The old one looked up at her a moment with rheumy eyes, then bowed his head and trudged from the room, wingtips dragging on the floor. “Will he go?” Ukkarr asked.

Kitillikk had already turned away. “If he does not go to the priests, the priests will come to him.” She glanced at the computer by her shikk. “Jarrikk is late.”

“Unlike him. Perhaps these rumors you have had me spread of First Mating have frightened him away.”

“If they have, he is not the S'sinn I want.” Kitillikk smiled at Ukkarr. “Am I really so frightening, Ukkarr?”

“Terrifying,” he said with absolute seriousness. “But it is a terror I crave.”

“Perhaps you will experience it again sooner than you think,” she said. Ukkarr had been a faithful follower, and she believed in rewarding loyalty. Or, in Jarrikk's case, building it. Let him ride her in the air on the night of his coming-of-age, and he would be hers forever. She wondered if Supreme Flight Leader Akkanndikk had sealed a pact with her famed Left and Right Wing in the same way. She doubted it: she doubted the Supreme had that kind of fire in her.

But Ukkarr was right; Jarrikk was never late. “Uk karr,” she began, intending to have him go search for the youngling, but her computer suddenly squawked at her, announcing a message, and she turned to it instead. “Proceed.”

The image of Wing Leader Lakkassikk, commander of the military forces on the planet, appeared. “You must come to the spaceport, Flight Leader,” he said.

“Must?” Kitillikk bristled at his tone. “Why
must
I, Wing Leader?” She put just a slight emphasis on his lesser rank.

Lakkassikk answered by clearing his image from the screen and replacing it with a view of the spaceport—and the impossibly huge thundercloud of bright metal hovering above it.

 

Jarrikk gaped at the thing that had appeared in his sky. Hunterships of various sizes had come and gone daily at the port since the war began, but he'd never seen anything like this. It seemed as large as the entire city.
Human attack!
he thought wildly, but the humans had no ships like these, or the war would have long since been over—and lost.

He'd landed outside Kitillikk's fortress without being aware of it; now he saw the Flight Leader leap into the air from her balcony, Ukkarr at her side, and he threw himself after them. “Flight Leader, what is it?” he asked Kitillikk.

“The Commonwealth,” she snarled. “Come with me, but keep silent.”

Jarrikk swallowed the thousand questions still on his tongue and fell in mutely beside her as, with almost every other S'sinn in the city, they beat toward the port. From the belly of the ship now dropped three small golden flyers—or small Jarrikk thought them until he, Kitillikk, and Ukkarr swept down over the blackened native stone of the landing field. Then he stared up at the descending vehicles in awe: each was almost as large as a Huntership.

At the same moment Kitillikk, Ukkarr, and Jarrikk alighted, the egg-shaped ships touched down with a thunderclap apiece, the sound echoing around the city and back from the high rock cliffs of the mountain above it.
Gravity displacement drives!
Jarrikk thought, awed all over again. He looked around the perimeter of the port. Every one of the heavy weapons that ringed it had swung toward the golden flyers, but no one was foolish enough to fire: not with that impossibly huge ship hanging overhead.

The outer two flyers split open, spilling out phalanxes of soldiers, one group shaped something like wingless S'sinn—or like the despised humans—but much thicker around the middle. Full space armor encased their massive legs and arms, and closed and silvered helmet visors gave no clues to their identities. They carried powerful-looking beamer rifles, pointed down, but ready for use at a moment's notice.

The second group, fanged, clawed, and scaled, moved with a deceptive slow grace that nevertheless brought them lined up, their own beamer rifles ready, just as the last of the other soldiers took his (her?) place. Together the two groups formed a guard of honor for the third flyer, which now opened to reveal three figures: two more reptilians, and—Jarrikk drew in a surprised breath—a S'sinn male, red-furred, with a star-shaped white blaze on his chest and a large silver collar around his neck.

With a rustle of wings, a dozen Hunters landed behind Jarrikk, who hurriedly stepped aside as burly, black-furred Wing Leader Lakkassikk strode forward to join Kitillikk. Jarrikk knew the two of them had had more than one falling out, that Kitillikk resented the Wing Leader's authority over the Hunter fleet based on the planet
she
governed, but they closed ranks now, walking toward the aliens together. Ukkarr started forward, too, and Jarrikk, not wanting to be left standing alone in the middle of the landing field, fell in behind him, feeling terribly conspicuous under the cold gaze of the aliens and the distant stares of the S'sinn encircling the field. Lakkassikk's Hunters remained where they were, forming a single line facing the golden ships.

Kitillikk and Lakkassikk reached the newcomers. One of the reptilians and the S'sinn stretched a thin silvery cord between them, and each touched it to a spot behind one of their ears. Then the S'sinn turned to face Flight Leader and Wing Leader, and the reptilian faced the other reptilian, who said something in a hissing, growling, throat-hurting voice, echoed almost immediately by the S'sinn:

“By decree of the Commonwealth of the Six Races,” he shouted, his voice echoing across the landing field, “the war between the S'sinn and the humans is ended.”

A shocked silence met that incredible statement. Jarrikk gaped, mouth hanging open, for a full ten beats—and then from somewhere inside him rage reared up and he heard himself scream, “Never!”

Kitillikk whipped around to face him. “Silence!” she hissed, but as though his voice had been a catalyst, the entire assembled city now roared its defiance. The two squads of Commonwealth soldiers fingered their beamers uneasily, glancing around the field. Lakkassikk's Hunters gripped their weapons in a way that wasn't quite threatening, but could easily become so. But the military commander made a sharp gesture in their direction, and Kitillikk turned and raked the crowd with her red gaze, and the shouting died away.

The reptilian spoke again. “This matter is not open for discussion,” the S'sinn translated, his voice cold and haughty. “Trade has been disrupted. Innocent ships have been destroyed. Commonwealth Central forecasts serious economic consequences to at least three homeworlds within the next Central year. This places the Human-S'sinn War within the guidelines for military intervention. Commonwealth Central is so intervening. At this moment, the same decree is being issued on the S'sinn homeworld—” more shouts, which went ignored “—at the human forward command center, and at the human homeworld. Terms of the cease-fire are as follows: all hostilities are to cease immediately. Violations of the truce will be met with complete destruction of the attacking force. Continued violations will result in a blockade of the offending race's homeworld.

“Recognizing that the original dispute arose over this planet, the Commonwealth decrees that this military base be immediately downsized to comply with specific limits contained in more detail in the formal Truce documents. Noting that this planet has only one major continent, divided by mountains, the Commonwealth decrees that the S'sinn shall restrict their activities to the southernmost portion of this continent—and that the humans will be granted the right to colonize the northernmost portion, site of their original landing.”

The roar of anger from the crowd this time didn't need Jarrikk to start it. He stared at Lakkassikk and Kitillikk. When would they put a stop to this charade? These demands were ridiculous. The Commonwealth couldn't be serious . . .

But there was nothing frivolous about the huge ship hanging in the air above them, or the soldiers on the landing field.

The reptilian wasn't finished yet. “Finally,” the S'sinn translated, “the humans are to be granted full membership in the Commonwealth as soon as Translators can be found and trained from among them. In the interim, they are considered associate members, with full trading rights but no seats in the Commonwealth Assembly of Peers.