-17-
I waited until Marvin arrived to attempt communicating with Tolerance. I wanted my star translator available for the job.
When he did finally come aboard, I had to smile. He’d trimmed himself to the extreme. He had only one grav plate, which wasn’t enough to lift his full bulk and left him skidding over the deckplates. He barely had enough tentacles left to drag himself from one place to the next.
The moment I saw him, I knew what he was doing. He wanted to show me he’d fully complied with my requirements to return home in a flightless condition. In fact, he’d just about butchered himself.
“Marvin?”
“What is it, Colonel Riggs?”
“I think you need a second grav plate. If only to balance yourself.”
“I just wanted to—”
“I know what you wanted. But I’m already tired of hearing that metal-on-metal scraping sound.”
Marvin hesitated. “Possibly, I could visit Medical on my way to the workshop. I understand you have a new specimen there that requires close examination.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but that will wait. If you do a little translation job for me now, I’ll let you go straight to Medical afterward.”
I had about seven cameras on me now, panning wide for profile shots. I knew he was trying to get as much info on my mood and reactions as he could. In a way, it was flattering that he thought so much of my opinions. But I knew that like any teen, he would forget about me the instant he had the car keys in his possession.
“Open a channel to the Blues’ ship for me.”
“Channel request sent.”
We waited. I began to frown after about thirty seconds. “Nothing?”
“No. The enemy ship has not responded. The channel remains closed.”
“Maybe Tolerance has better things to do,” Jasmine said.
I glanced at her, then back at Marvin. “Send the request again.”
“Channel request sent.”
We waited again. I let it go for a full minute, and then I opened my mouth to curse when Marvin finally perked up.
“Channel open,” he said.
“Oh…uh,” I began, having forgotten exactly what I was going to say. Then I had it. I straightened myself and put on a formal tone of voice. “Tolerance, we request your status. Have you decided to surrender yet?”
This statement got the attention of my bridge crew, if not Tolerance himself. They all looked at me in surprise.
The reply came at last. “Your efforts, although determined, cannot succeed.”
“We’ve barely begun. Our primary forces are still ahead of you. Do you understand the pointless nature of your mission? You can’t succeed.”
Another pause ensued—a long one. I began to wonder if the alien had cut me off. I was about to ask Marvin about it when the response finally came in.
“Be that as it may, I will not surrender. Though the fabric of my body leaks away, I will fight on to the last.”
“Channel closed,” Marvin said in his usual vaguely cheery tone.
I frowned back at the screens and at the holotank.
“What the hell is going on out there? He wasn’t supposed to agree with me. He’s under some kind of attack, and he thinks it’s us making the attack.”
“Well sir,” Jasmine said, “you did indicate by your tone and statements that it was us behind the attack.”
“Yeah…” I said, rubbing my chin. “And it wouldn’t occur to him to doubt me. So, let’s see what we have… Tolerance is under some kind of serious attack. He believes we’re behind it, so he must not know the true source.”
“Either that, or the real source appears to be Star Force,” Marvin interjected. “May I go down to Medical now, Colonel Riggs?”
“No,” I said. I turned to Jasmine. “What do you make of this?”
“It’s just as you said. It must be the cyborgs…probably.”
I released a grunt of annoyance. “Tolerance said something about the fabric of his body and leaking. What do you think that’s all about?”
“I think that reference is fairly obvious,” Marvin said.
We both looked at him expectantly. His tentacles squirmed on top of one another.
“The creature is gaseous, and with a low pressure zone outside the hull, even a small leak could be catastrophic.”
“By low-pressure zone, you mean space?” Jasmine asked.
“He’s right,” I said, “Tolerance is like the Hindenburg. Just waiting to explode.”
“I’m so glad you found my insight helpful,” Marvin said. “I’ll be leaving now that—”
“No,” I said, without even looking at him. “Man your post, robot. You’ll get to rip up the corpse soon enough.”
“I hardly think the characterization ‘ripping up’ is appropriate under these—”
I held my hand up in his direction, and he fell into a sulking silence.
I thought about the conversation and the situation with growing alarm. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Phobos was supposed to barrel into the face of the Imperials, slamming into Earth’s defenses and punching a hole through them for us. Then we would glide in riding in her wake. Instead, it was beginning to look like Tolerance was falling apart before he even reached the Solar System.
“Damned Blues,” I muttered. “Gaines isn’t going to like this. Not at all.”
“What are you talking about, sir?” Captain Sarin asked me.
Marvin panned and examined both our faces, trying to figure out what we were thinking.
“First, I’m going to see if I can even pull this off,” I said, baffling them both further. “Jasmine, send Gaines to my office. Kwon too. I’ll do the tactical planning from there.”
“Sir?”
“What now, Captain?”
She didn’t respond. Instead, she turned back to her station and relayed the requests. I knew both Kwon and Gaines were somewhere aboard the carrier, and they would come running when the heard the words ‘tactical planning’. I headed toward my office immediately.
Behind me, I heard a scratching sound.
“What do you want, Marvin?”
“I haven’t yet been given leave to—”
“I still need you to do more translating. Come into my office please.”
“If I may offer some advice, sir?”
I glanced back over my shoulder at him as I touched the hatch and it dissolved, letting me into the chamber. A large ovoid table filled the room. It lit up and displayed local space as I stepped inside.
“Four chairs,” I said. The room’s brainbox dutifully made them and placed them equidistantly around the table. Chairs clustered around the table, flowering out of the deck like something growing on a potter’s wheel.
“Uh, make that three chairs,” I said, “leave the fourth open.”
One of the four chairs dissolved again. Marvin, recognizing that the open spot was for him, scooted into position.
“I really don’t think I’m needed here, Colonel,” he began complaining. “In fact, I don’t think the entire mission is worthwhile. You should just let the Worms finish their work.”
I looked at him with real interest for the first time.
“So, you think it’s the Worms that are letting the steam out of Tolerance?”
“Your analogy is vague at best, but the message they sent was unmistakable. The Worms are on Phobos.”
Now he had me staring. The stare slowly turned into a beetling frown. “What? What message?”
“The one the Worms sent. Concerning their commandos being in place on Phobos. It was unmistakable—wasn’t it?”
“When did you see that?”
“I was tapped into the ship-to-ship network when the Worms transmitted it.”
My mouth sagged open. I hated when it did that. Quite probably in my entire lifespan most of these moments belonged solely to Marvin. He never failed to impress me with his odd mix of subterfuge and insight.
I wanted to scream at him, but I held back. I wanted to demand why he hadn’t contacted me with this vital information. I already knew the answer, of course. He’d been too busy messing around with the wreck of Gatre to be bothered translating for me. Yelling at him now wouldn’t do any good, but I almost did it anyway, just to make myself feel better.
Instead, I took a deep breath and tapped at the screen, pulling up the four symbols the Worms had sent to us before we left the Helios system. The translation brainboxes hadn’t really known what to make of them, and neither had we.
There was a pair of warriors riding chariots side by side, followed by a picture of a moon or a planet, then two pictures of what appeared to be little squiggles.
“Okay,” I said, “guide me through this. Two warriors riding chariots?”
“Comradery and solidarity in battle.”
“Good, I’m with you so far. Then a picture of a moon or planet?”
“Right the first time. It is a satellite. In this case, it means Phobos.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding. “Now, the two sets of squiggles?”
“Worm young. Eggs hatched into frisking larva. They indicate hope and future happy times. Since the symbols are used together, they indicate all of these things.”
“Uh…”
“The entire set must be taken together, of course, with known Worm idioms applied.”
“Naturally…just tell me what the hell it means.”
“The meaning seems indisputable. The Worms are telling you they attacked Phobos with you, and they left a gift of hope behind.”
I frowned. “From that, you’re sure they left Worm warriors on that rock?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“Why?” I growled.
“Because the only happy, fruitful outcome possible after an attack upon any enemy is the guaranteed death of that same enemy—in the Worm culture, that is.”
I thought about what I knew of Worms, and about what was happening on Phobos. Tolerance had indicated he was having trouble, that we were beating him. A terrible struggle must be occurring aboard the enemy ship.
I felt a wave of concern rush over me. Whether it was the Worms or the cyborgs or someone else entirely, Tolerance was in trouble.
As these realizations swept through my mind in rapid sequence, Gaines arrived with Kwon in tow.
I looked up at them but didn’t speak to them for a moment. I waved them to their seats. Then I cleared the Worm symbols from the screen with a swipe of my hand.
I brought up a shimmering live image of Phobos. It looked quiet enough, but I knew better.
“What’s up, Colonel?” Major Gaines asked me.
I looked at him, but it took a moment for my eyes to focus.
“We’ve gotten messages from the Worms, Major,” I said. “When their ships attacked, they apparently landed Worm commandoes. Even more amazing, they’re apparently still alive.”
Gaines seemed unhappy.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing sir,” he said, “but I do have the feeling you’re about to send some of my men down there on some kind of crazy rescue mission.”
“To rescue the Worms?”
“Right.”
“Wrong on both counts,” I said. “First off, it won’t be a rescue mission. It will be an attack. Secondly, I’m not sending your men. All three of us are going to go personally.”
“Me too?” asked Kwon, speaking up for the first time.
“Are you all healed up?”
“Fully reconditioned, sir.”
“All right then.”
Kwon spun in his chair, making the smart metal unhappy. Then he high-fived himself. It would have been an odd display for anyone other than Kwon, and the rest of us ignored it.
“Uh…” Gaines said, looking at all of us like we were madmen. “What about that super-weapon? The thing that nukes everything and everyone who gets in close?
“The Worms are still alive,” I pointed out. “At least, we think they are.”
He looked at me unhappily.
“Well, if that’s not good enough for you, don’t worry. I’m going to use Marvin here to help me talk to Tolerance. Together we’ll talk him into holding his fire.”
Gaines sat back with his arms crossed. He still didn’t look happy.
Kwon, however, was all smiles. He hadn’t had a good ground-pounding fight in months.
“I’m so sick of prying crawling things off the hulls of ships and stuff like that,” he said. “Phobos is really, really big. It will be like fighting on a moon. Are we going to get to go inside, sir?”
I nodded. “That is a distinct possibility, First Sergeant.”
Within an hour, I was in contact with Tolerance again via Marvin. My robot wasn’t happy with this arrangement, as he still wanted to escape and get down to Medical. We both knew I had him on the string this time, however, so he was doing his job properly—if bitterly.
The first part of any rescue mission is to secure the LZ for the safety of everyone involved. In this case, that was a tall order. Tolerance, despite his name, was not in a tolerant mood.
“Tolerance, let’s go over this one more time,” I said, gesturing for Marvin to make sure he gave me his best possible translation of meaning. His tentacles were dead still, and his cameras were drooping, but he did the job anyway. “We’re not a threat to you. The forces that are currently attempting to depressurize your ship are not under our control. Strangely, we’re willing to help you in this instance.”
“I find it very hard to believe anything you say, Colonel Riggs. If you will now excuse me, there is a new breach in the aft zones. I have to attend to damage control.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “All we’re asking is that you don’t fire when we come down to land on Phobos. Let us help you.”
“Absurd. Your underestimation of my intellectual capacity is insulting. I’ve already got a dozen of your machines crawling inside my vehicle, and you expect me to allow another large landing? I repeat, creature, you speak in absurdities.”
I muted the channel and looked at Gaines, who was standing nearby with a tense look on his face.
“Just my luck,” I said, “he finally gets smart and refuses to buy my bullshit when I’m telling the truth.”
“He doesn’t know that, Colonel. Sounds like the landing is scrubbed. We’ll just have to sit this battle out and hope for the best.”
“Not going to happen. We’re going down there, let me assure you. I don’t want Phobos knocked out before it even reaches the Solar System.”
I tapped at my screen and unmuted the channel again.
“Tolerance. Listen to me: analyze the enemy structures. You said yourself they were machines. We do not fight with unmanned machines. These constructs are not from Star Force. It is our mission to destroy all unmanned machines.”
There was a pause after this that stretched for about twenty seconds. I was about to key open the channel again when a response finally came in.
“You have won. They have damaged my atmospherics. It is only a matter of time, now. I don’t know why you persist in your lies at this point. Possibly, you derive some kind of sadistic satisfaction from the process.”
“We might be able to save you. You’ve got nothing to lose. Tell me: are they machines?”
“My sensors have classified them as primarily inanimate. However, they have flesh components as well. I haven’t analyzed these yet, but I’ve no doubt there is a human inside, operating these tiny dense-thing monsters.”
My mind kicked into overdrive. There had to be a way to salvage this situation. If Tolerance died, I didn’t want him to leave his ship with every automatic defense system operational.
What could I do? I wanted to beat my fist against my head until I came up with something. I thought back to my visits with these strange people. Perhaps there was a way.
“Tolerance? Are you still there?”
The voice was fainter than before, but it was still audible. “Yes, my tormentor.”
“We’re not without compassion. Will you allow me, just me, to come down to your ship? I will commune with you. I will taste you, and you will taste me. That way, you will not have passed on completely alone.”
There was a brief, gut-wrenching silence.
“I do not wish to die alone. You may come. But if I detect more of your kind, I will annihilate you all as my final act.”
“I will come then. Do not dishonor yourself in the name of revenge.”
“How little you understand our species.”
The channel closed and I gave a whoop of victory.
The rest of my crewmen looked confused.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way!” I shouted.
“What are you going to do, Colonel?” Kwon asked, confused.
“What about my men, sir?” Gaines asked, frowning deeply. “Are we going down, or not?”
“No,” I said firmly. “That wasn’t the deal I made with Tolerance.”
“What about just an escort of one, sir?” Kwon asked hopefully. “One man can’t piss off that airhead too much.”
I shook my head, denying his request. Everyone began a chorus of similar questions, but I calmed them all with upraised hands.
“I’m going down there—alone. I’m going aboard Phobos to have a little interpersonal meeting with a gas cloud. As some of you might know they’re by nature a social species. On their homeworld they interact by exchanging some portion of their mass with one another. This translates as ‘tasting’ but really it’s more like exchanging gases and gels. Anyway, if Tolerance lets me down there, he must switch off any automatic defensive systems to allow it. That will let me land.”
I adjourned the meeting and left my office. Marvin scuttled away in the opposite direction, dragging his bulk toward Medical. He hadn’t asked if it was time yet, he’d wised up about that. But I didn’t mind. I’d tortured him long enough.
I headed up to the bridge to make preparations and to alert my key personnel.
“But…” Captain Sarin said, her eyes full of concern. “How will you get back? What will you do with all the cyborgs running around the place?”
I shrugged. “It’s a big ship. I probably won’t even see one. As far as getting back goes, I’m going to have to play that one by ear.”
She released an exasperated sound. “You always say something like that.”
“Indeed he does,” said Gaines. He had just joined us on the bridge. Of all of them, he was the only one who was smiling. I think he was happy he wasn’t the one doing a hot landing on Phobos.
I was already walking for the exit by this time.
“Come on, Gaines,” I said over my shoulder.
He trotted after me. “I thought I wasn’t going down?”
“Not with me. But as soon as I secure the situation down there I’m going to need support. I’ll call for it, and I expect you to deliver a battalion to my coordinates within minutes.”
“Uh, yes sir.”
As I reached the launch tubes, Gaines took a ninety degree turn and headed for a pinnace. He was going to have to do a lot of organization to get the assault underway in a timely manner.
“Good luck, Colonel!” he called over his shoulder, throwing me a salute.
I saluted him back and climbed into a fighter. There wasn’t time to get into a drop pod, and we were too far from the enemy ship to allow such a delivery system in any case.
A few minutes later, I was rocketing down the tube, howling with the thrill of acceleration. Damn, these birds made fine rides.