Marine Cadet (The Human Legion Book 1) (32 page)

Esther nodded mournfully.

“Did you try to help him?” she added.

“We sewed grain sacks together, which gave them some protection.”

“But you didn’t offer your suits,” added Springer.

“No.”

“Don’t expect forgiveness from us,” Madge snarled. “Is that what you thought? Come over and say sorry and then your sins would be absolved?”

Esther’s face pinched with fury. Arun thought she was going to rip Madge’s face off. Or try at any rate. Instead she sniffed. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” she pronounced, with the air of someone dealing with inferiors beneath her notice.

She started walking away.

“No, please don’t go,” Arun called after her.

She paused.

“What’re you doing, McEwan?” Madge didn’t sound pleased.

“It’s…” Arun couldn’t put it into words. He knew the strategy planning part of his brain was running hard because it was manifesting itself as a sense of prickly heat at the exact center of his head, and a vague sense that the Agri-Aux could prove to be invaluable allies one day.

The feeling might be vague, but he knew to trust any hunches accompanied by the prickly heat.

Springer butted in. “What he’s trying to say, is that you Agris will be important allies.”

Arun shot a glance at Springer. How did she know that? Behind the cute sprinkle of freckles, her eyes were focused on an ethereal sight not of this plane. They blazed with a violet intensity that made his heart race. He was in awe of Springer. He wanted to kiss her, to kneel down and worship at her feet. And at the same time, he wanted to run away from her, screaming in fear all the way back to Detroit.

What was this? Admiration or mind control?

“Horden’s Bones!” Madge sounded like she felt the same. “You’re a right pair of psyker mutants. Ol’ Violet who can see into the future, and lover boy with a battle planner AI in his head. Not that either of your superpowers have delivered anything of the slightest value. I still can’t decide whether all your mystic powers are one big load of utter drent, or whether you really are freaks. I do know that you two should never get it together in case Springer gives birth to a Night Hummer.”

“Haven’t they told you?” said Hortez. “Each squad has a few members whose DNA has been virally rewritten to add a few choice genes from alien species. Most of it makes no difference but every now and again something useful manifests, and they grab you for use in their eugenics program.”

The cadets looked at each other, speechless.

A wicked smile planted itself on Hortez’s face. “Relax,” he whispered. “It’s a joke.”

“This is no joke!” thundered Arun as he got to his feet. “This is important! It’s what Hortez said earlier – to give false hope to the hopeless is cruel. But what if we could do something for the Aux, something better than giving a gesture of hope and a finger flip at the Hardits? What if we could set an example of what humans can achieve though cooperation, an inspiration that outlasted our gesture. I want to see humans everywhere stronger and prouder. United. A force to be respected. To be granted privileges, Freedom. Isn’t that a cause worth fighting for?”

Arun’s speech ran out of momentum, leaving a shocked silence that Madge eventually broke. “So, all this inspirational stuff… you’re still talking about a clubhouse, right?”

Arun nodded.

“And you’re going to make all our lives better, and establish an interstellar human empire with you on the throne. All this by, what? Throwing a party?”

“It’s more than that. Imagine if we organize a day of defiance against the Hardits. We’ll light a beacon of hope that will shine for years to come into the breast of even the most wretched human slave.”

“Have you ever seen him do this before?” asked Hortez rolling his eyes. “I’ve never heard Arun make a speech. I think the sun’s gone to his head.”

“No, he’s right,” said Springer. “Trust him.”

“Trust!” Madge shot to her feet, her face reddening with fury. “I trusted him to support Moscow Express. He let us down over a frakking girl.
Twice
! We’re all going to be Culled because of him. Hortez is up to his neck in drent and Alistair is dead.
Because of him
. You don’t make up for that with a pretty speech, McEwan.” She nodded at Esther, who was listening to all of this. “And what about your new girlfriend? How does she fit in to your party plans? Do you need her to bring a frakking salad?”

Arun spoke to Esther: “If your people could stage a diversion – I’m still working on the details – something that forces the Hardits to send us all out to the depot to deal with the crisis. A fire. Explosion. Armed revolt. Make the Hardits think they’re sending their expendable Aux Team Beta into danger when actually they’re sending us to the shiny new Alabama Clubhouse.”

“Oh, great!” spat Madge. “I feel so much better knowing that our plan hinges on the brave Agri-Aux. Have you forgotten that they murdered Alistair LaSalle?”

“I know what I did,” said Esther. “It wasn’t just your friend. We’re all of us alive because we forced someone else to die.”

“Why tell us that?” asked Madge. “Do you want us to forgive you?”

“I’m not stupid enough to ask for that, and if I did beg forgiveness, it would be from the dead, not you.”

“Let me guess how your next line goes,” Madge said. “
The terrible knowledge of our betrayal eats at us every day, like a cancer.
Is that it?”

Esther shook her head and turned away. “I knew this was a mistake,” she sneered.

“Wait!” called Arun. “I haven’t finished with you yet. You can’t ask to be forgiven because you know you don’t deserve forgiveness. Not yet. What you should be seeking instead is atonement.”

Esther paused. “What do you have in mind?”

“I don’t know myself yet. Not exactly. But I’m working on it, and a diversion would be a good start. Think you can manage that?”

“My people will do as I say. Yes, I could arrange a diversion, if I thought the payoff worth the risk.”

Arun laughed. “My people, eh? Yeah, that figures. Here,” he gestured to a nearby sack, “take a seat.”

Esther sat down and waited with the rest of them in an uncomfortable silence while ideas crystallized in Arun’s mind.

When enough made sense to him, he explained to each of the others what he required them to do. When he later thought back to that time, it seemed to Arun that he was listening to someone else speak. Another part of him was in control. Afterward he was left behind to carry the thumping great headache that he knew was coming.

He heard himself ask Esther whether her people would help. And he remembered her agreeing that they would. “If you need to get in contact,” she said, “leave a note in the cab of the dung truck. I wish you good fortune but now I must return to my duties.”

As they watched Esther disappear out of the loading bay, something closer to normality returned.

“What the Aux need is hope,” said Arun, feeling in control once more. A charge of excitement built within him, and why not? This could be
big
. “The Hardits expect us humans to fight each other, not cooperate. And the Agri-Aux are bent over double with guilt. Those are our two routes in. So long as we don’t threaten the Agri-Aux’s right to their protective suits, and don’t rub their noses in their guilt, they’ll do anything for a chance of atonement.”

Madge groaned. “Of all your imbecile ideas, McEwan, this is the dumbest yet. I can’t believe you two are humoring him.”

That hurt. Just for a moment there, when Arun had been in his planning daze, Madge had listened. Now he was back to himself, she wouldn’t give him the time of day.

“Leave him be,” said Hortez. “He’s onto something. If it sounds insane right now, that’s only because the details haven’t slotted into place. Just one thing, man.” He slapped a hand on Arun’s shoulder. “Co-opting the Agri-Aux is a good idea, but don’t forget you have other allies too.”

“Who?”

But even as the word came to Arun’s lips, his mind had already filled with the answer: Trogs. He’d already considered the possibility of sounding out Pedro’s thoughts on his plan when they met tomorrow. But what if he could persuade the Trogs to do far more than give advice?

After all, the colonel
had
ordered him to liaise with the Trogs.

Enlisting their help would only be obeying orders.

Instead of Tawfiq, roll call the following morning was conducted by Hen Beddes-Stolarz.

She paraded Springer, Madge and Arun in front of the line, scratching their faces, drawing blood from skin already red from the furious sun’s exposure.

“Your skin is raw and peeling. Look–” she gouged a chunk out of Springer’s cheek, making her wince but not cry out. “This one bleeds! This is good. Proof that you humans are useful. You take damage from the cruel sun to preserve the health of your mistresses.”

Hen shifted position to growl in Arun’s face, her breath hot, fetid and alien.

“This one is useful for other superiors than his Hardit mistresses. 106 is the most disgusting of your entire species. Today he goes to the insect nest where the hive drones keep him as a sex pet.”

Hen brought her hand back as if to strike Arun.

He braced for the blow but it did not come.

“Number 106 has been immersed in insect sex fluids. He is too disgusting to touch. Tomorrow, 106, you will go to the surface without your hat. You will burn for my amusement. Perhaps the sun will sear away the stink of your depravity.” The Hardit made retching noises. They sounded genuine. “I cannot bear the stink of you. Go now! Go away, human!”

Arun hid his grin as he hurried off to meet his Troggie ally.

“Yes, I can provide the equipment you have asked me for and more besides. We do not have the engineering capability to build spacecraft or nuclear weapons, but simple radio communications equipment will be an amusing diversion. We too know how to have fun, friend. And as for your abilities, human Arun, you have skills exceptional for your species. Your planning capability is similar to the way our minds work in the scribe phase of our lifecycle.”

“Steady on, pal,” said Arun, although he felt warm to hear his ally speak highly of him. “Nearly as clever as a scribe? I wouldn’t go that far.”

“No, of course not. I exaggerate.”

“Hey! What do you mean,
exaggerate
?”

“I mean your mind is still inferior to a scribe’s. For example, you are too fixated on your problem with the Aux. Consequently your mind can only think of solutions to that problem by ignoring your other four critical objectives. A scribe would consider all five simultaneously.”

“As usual, Pedro, you’re not making a shred of sense. I just want to get through the week alive.”

“Yes. That is what I just said. Being a member of the hive grants me the gift of specialization. I can leave such short-term considerations as how to survive this week to others in my nest. That leaves me space to ponder your four other strategic objectives, namely: your desire to graduate as a Marine, to regain the trust of your squad, to mate with the female Lee Xin–”

“Wait! I never said that about Xin.”

“Not in so many words. And the objective you have mentioned even more than this female is Scendence. Your match in 48 hours is crucial on many levels. You are the star Deception-Planning player. Yet you are banished to the Aux levels. You cannot play that game.”

“You don’t have to remind me. I can’t be there. Done deal. I won’t waste time worrying about something I can’t change.”

Pedro gave a slight outward tilt to both antennae, the equivalent of pointedly raising eyebrows.

“What’re you hinting at? What can I do?”

“You? Nothing.”

“Exactly. I need a substitute. But we’re only three more wins away from immunity. At this stage, you can’t just drag a player out of the spineway and expect them to perform at that standard.”

“Agreed. You need a player with excellent planning ability. Preternatural by human standards.”

“Right.”

“An ability to think in what human opponents would regard as radically new ways. To make plays of such originality that our competitors will not anticipate them.”

“I suppose.”

Pedro didn’t reply. He stood impassively and – to the human’s eyes – without expression (or had he moved his antennae out a notch further?). Arun recognized this sudden silence. According to Pedro, this was him allowing Arun’s slow human brain to catch up with the implications of their conversation. Which meant… What?

“Horden’s spiny growths!”

“Indeed,” said Pedro, spiraling his feelers.

“You!
You’re
offering to be my substitute. And… Xin. She’s already agreed to this, hasn’t she?”

“There is still some slight reluctance on her part, but her xenophobia is only natural for you humans. The logic of my offer is unassailable.”

Some slight reluctance. I’ll bet,
thought Arun, but then he remembered how to begin with he’d felt revolted by this strange alien friend. He went through all the reasons why the idea of Pedro taking his place in the Scendence match was madness. But every objection flaked away under closer inspection. He was only left with one question.

“Why? Why are you getting involved, Pedro?”

“Friends help each other in times of difficulty. And we are friends, aren’t we?”

“I … yes.” He thought for a moment. “Yes we are!” He knew he’d miss Pedro if he never saw the great lunk of an insect again. He also knew him well enough to suspect that Pedro wasn’t telling the whole truth. Pedro persisted with this crazy alien notion that Arun was important. In protecting Arun, Pedro believed he was guarding the interests of his nest.

“And that’s not all,” said the Trog.

Arun’s palm went to his forehead. Pedro’s artificial voice lacked emotion, as always, but its volume had increased. Which meant he was excited about something.
What now?

“I am extolling your virtues to this Lee Xin. I have learned much about you, Arun McEwan. Enough for me to embellish the truth so as to draw attention away from your many shortcomings. I am confident that on your return from your banishment to the auxiliary, this Lee Xin will be so filled with mating hormones that her skin will flush red with the need to–”