Twenty-Two
Twenty-Two
I don’t care,” Ghati said, but there was a petulance in the words that made Campar’s heart sing a little. After the days of desolation, annoyance was a blessing.
“Fine,” Campar said. “Stay in bed and miss the party if you want to, but I’m telling you everyone is very excited. I’m still trying to make sense of it all, or I’d just sneak here in the dark and tell you.”
Ghati shifted on his bed. Campar hummed to himself, partly because Ghati had mentioned once that he hated when people did that. It only took a few seconds for him to turn back and shoot Campar an angry scowl.
“What?” Campar said, feigning innocence badly.
“I’m not going out there.”
“You said that. You’re staying in here. Because you don’t want to know what’s happened or what it means or how it might change anything. I understand. Sometimes it’s better to pout quietly in the dark while your lover brings you food and weeps over you.”
“You aren’t my lover,” Ghati said.
“Boyfriend.”
“Occasional sex partner at best.”
Campar spread his arm wide and smiled beatifically. “That’s the first time you’ve called me your partner! I knew you cared.”
Ghati’s pillow hit him in the face and throat. Campar grabbed it, stood up and held it over his head.
“You’re not fucking funny,” Ghati said.
“I’m hilarious. And you’re stinky. You haven’t showered in God knows how long. Come on. We’ll pretty you up and I’ll take you out for dinner. Our usual table and everything.”
“You’re an ass,” Ghati said as Campar pulled him up from the bed. Ghati’s hair was greasy and there were pale patches on his face where old tears had dried and left their salt. There were new tears too, just on the edge of appearing. But they weren’t there yet.
“Come on,” Campar said. “Let’s be alive for a little bit. If we hate it, we can always die later.”
Ghati sighed, but he took his shirt off and let Campar guide him to the shower.
The common room was buzzing when they reached it.
A dozen Budon of Luus waddled and muttered to each other, their long necks craning up and to the side like they were trying to see over something.
It was as many of the alien things as Campar had ever seen out at once.
Six aliens that reminded Campar of rhinoceros beetles with mossy brown fur had come too.
Campar hadn’t seen them at all since the journey had begun, but the news of the battle was enough, it seemed, to pull them out of torpor or hibernation or whatever isolation they’d been in.
Humanity was out in force too. Not just Rickar Daumatin and the defense security trio, but the radiologist from Abbasat and the two members of the arts commission from Lanasq Republic.
Vaudai was still at its display, its body shimmering like oil in a puddle, and the three Soft Lothark at its side didn’t seem to be guarding it so much as listening to it lecture.
“You’re right,” Ghati said. “Whatever this is, someone kicked the hornet’s nest.”
They made their way through the press of bodies to Vaudai. The translation half-mind didn’t recognize their interest until Campar reached out and touched the couch-sized slug thing on its side.
“Why are you touching me?” Vaudai said.
“My friend is just catching up on things,” Campar said. “He’s been ill. And I was hoping you could share your insight?”
“I’ve been sharing my insight with these”—the half-mind stuttered—“noble servants of the Carryx for half my waking cycle.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Interrupt me!” Vaudai said. “Speaking to these is like trying to teach grammar to fossilized excrement . Anything else is better. Which one is your ignorant friend?”
Campar pulled Ghati close.
“The enemy command ships refuse to be captured,” Vaudai said.
“This is the first time that a ship of this configuration has been disabled without ending itself to deny the Carryx the chance to examine it. This is a moment of tremendous importance, but these”—the half-mind hiccuped again—“noble servants are just seeing the tactical advantages. With this, we have a chance to understand the new mind of the enemy. How its tactics have adapted. What alliances it has made. This is what we came to do.”
“You sound frustrated,” Ghati said.
“I’m in a stillborn’s milk room talking to badly made furniture instead of going to the command ship,” Vaudai said. “I am painful birthing frustrated.”
Before Campar could answer, Rickar emerged from the press of bodies and took his elbow. “It might be better to leave him be for a moment. He uses more idioms when he’s worked up, and it gets hard to follow. Good to see you, Ghati.”
“Same,” Ghati said.
They made their way to a corner opposite the archway out of the animal quarters. Campar hadn’t realized the room was so loud with the white noise of conversations until he tried to talk and found himself almost shouting.
“What’s the latest?”
“We’re making our way to the part of the solar system with the command ship in it,” Rickar said.
“There’s been some debate about whether the enemy left this behind as a trap, and if they did if it’s the kind that goes off when we just approach it or if we have to go onto the thing before we get vaporized. ”
“Is there a third option?” Ghati asked acidly. Campar fought back his grin.
“That it is what it looks like,” Rickar said with an eloquent shrug. “And after that, there’s the question of whether we can get to it and strip it for intelligence before the enemy regroup and come back to kill us or destroy the ship.”
“You don’t think they might just chalk it up to experience?” Ghati asked.
“I don’t have any way to judge,” Rickar said. “I can tell you Vaudai’s as worked up as I’ve ever seen it, and it’s supposed to be the expert on these things. So that might be—”
In the same moment, three things happened: Campar saw Ghati’s eyes go wide, the gabble and shriek of voices in the air fell to silence, and a Carryx lumbered through the archway and into the room.
Rickar turned at Campar’s gasp. The Carryx soldier was larger than the librarians Rickar had seen before.
It leaned on fighting arms as wide as a man’s body, and it was covered in a pale yellow shell that might have been armor or something that the soldier caste grew or both.
The four abdominal legs were thick and muscular, and they didn’t shift or dance the way some other Carryx did.
It had only four eyes—as few as Rickar had ever seen on a Carryx face—and its feeding arms were scarred and misshapen.
Evidence of a life of violence. Rickar’s heart began to race, but he didn’t move.
There was a deep funk that came along with the great beast almost like melting plastic.
It smelled like a threat. Four Sinen came in behind it wearing clothing that Rickar had never seen. Uniforms.
The Carryx spoke, its real voice an unnerving trill like birdsong tuned down until it was more a shaking in Rickar’s gut than a sound. The voice that came from the half-mind seemed harder than it usually did. Richer with the promise of violence.
“You will group now by kind.”
All of them stood silent and still for a moment, prey animals who know by instinct that the first one to move will be the first one to die.
And then, slowly, the Budon of Luus began to congregate.
The furred beetles stood together. Rickar glanced at Campar, then the three of them went over beside the food and water dispensers where the others from the human moiety stood.
Danna, who had been a high-level defense consultant on Anjiin, leaned in close to him and whispered, “What’s going on? ”
“Your guess beats mine,” Rickar said.
The four Sinen split off, trundling toward the halls of individual cells.
Four more Budon emerged, their wide, confused eyes blinking in the light.
And two more people—the red-haired man from Abbasat who kept to himself and Emmin—with six more of the beetle-like aliens behind them and a smaller version of Vaudai that Rickar had never seen before. They all clumped together by species.
“Hey, giant slug,” Rickar called. “Any idea what’s going on here?” If Vaudai heard him, it didn’t reply.
One of the Sinen approached the huge yellow-armored Carryx and lay on the deck before it, arms and tentacles splayed.
The Carryx said something that wasn’t translated for the human moiety, then shifted its attention to the Budon.
The feeding limbs reached out, taking the nearest pair it could reach and guiding each toward a different side of the common room.
Within a minute, the Budon of Luus were in two clumps instead of one.
The Carryx moved on to the human moiety.
Closer, the smell of its body was stronger.
When its hand touched Rickar’s shoulder the long fingers that looked thin in the context of the Carryx body were thicker than his thumb and as long as his forearm.
It moved him to one side with a controlled power that he couldn’t have resisted if he’d tried.
A moment later, Danna joined him. Then Campar.
Then Emmin. The room felt unstable, like the ship was shifting under them, but no one else seemed to be swaying the way he was.
Two of the Budon started to walk back toward their rooms, and one of the Soft Lothark herded them back into their place.
Rickar’s hands were tingling. His heart was going too fast. He wondered distantly what would happen if he had a heart attack and died.
Would they just shift the remaining prisoners around until the numbers were even?
“They aren’t going to kill us,” Emmin said. “They don’t have any reason to kill us. We’re going to be fine.” She didn’t sound like she believed it.