Somehow, he managed to pull his gaze away from the alien eyes and inspect the rest of their bodies. There was something oddly snake-like about their bodies, ululating slightly as if they couldn't stay completely still, despite the weapons pointed at them. They wore no clothes, as far as he could tell; their skins seemed faintly watery, as if they were used to swimming through the sea. Perhaps they were, he guessed, as he saw one of the aliens turn to look at the shore. Chances were they could swim far better than the Marines, no matter how intensely the Marines had trained.
“One of the shuttles has been diverted,” a Marine called. “They’ll take the aliens up into space.”
“Good,” Parnell said. He switched his suit’s speakers on, then addressed the aliens. “Can you understand me?”
The aliens seemed to flinch backwards, but said nothing. It was impossible to tell if they were playing dumb or if they genuinely didn't understand. Their bodies were still quivering faintly; fear, Marcus wondered, or was he trying to interpret their actions in light of human body language? There was no way to understand the meaning of their motions.
“Maybe the POWs know how to speak to them,” he said, out loud.
“I doubt it,” Parnell replied. “The aliens would be fools to let the POWs learn their language.”
Markus smiled. “I had a friend who had no gift for languages at all, but married a Malay girl,” he said. “He insisted she talked to him in English. Maybe the aliens think the same way.”
He felt his smile widen as the shuttle swept down from high overhead, eventually coming to rest on the sandy beach. Despite over three hundred years of effort, the human race had yet to develop a viable AI… and without one, automated language translators were fundamentally unreliable. And that was when human languages were taken into account. Who knew just how complex an alien language would be? And the POWs would have ample motives to learn how to speak to their captors. How else could they tell the aliens they were in pain?
But if they had been drugged, he asked himself silently, how would they know they were in pain?
The aliens started to produce hissing noises as soon as the Marines started to prod them towards the shuttle. Markus wondered if they were trying to talk to their captors, but no matter how hard he listened he couldn't make out any understandable words. He quickly checked to make sure that it was all being recorded — later, perhaps, he could get a translation — and then followed the protesting aliens as they marched towards the shuttle. One of them broke free and ran, with a curious waddling motion, towards the water. A Marine shouted after him, then shot the alien in the leg. The alien toppled over and lay still.
Markus swallowed hard as the alien was recovered by two Marines, then carried bodily into the shuttle. The remaining aliens didn't show any further reluctance to move; they inched into the shuttle, then sat on the deck. Markus watched the Marines secure them as best as they could, then sit back and wait for liftoff. Moments later, the shuttle shuddered and lurched into the air.
He heard one of the aliens let out a keening sound and winced, feeling an odd twinge of sympathy. The aliens had been living with the POWs, performing odd experiments on the POWs… and yet he couldn't help feeling a little sorry for the nine aliens. They were going to be delivered to a secure facility in the Sol System… or, perhaps, wind up killed by their own people if the aliens caught up with Ark Royal. It was easy to believe that they would never see their home again.
“He ran towards the water,” Parnell mused. “There could be an entire alien settlement under the waves.”
Markus stared at him. The orbital sensors hadn't detected any settlements… but they hadn't looked under the water. How could they?
“You think they stay in the water?”
“They’re certainly built for it,” Parnell said. “They remind me of that character from the TV show… the guy who was a merman or something. But thousands of them could be under the waves, hiding from us.”
Markus shuddered. He hoped the Marine was wrong.
Chapter Thirty-One
“There will be a review, of course.”
Ted nodded, glumly. There were strict rules for handling POWs, rules that would logically be applied to their alien captives too. Humanity’s treatment of POWs tended to range widely, but the war wasn’t old enough for common decency to be forgotten — and besides, the aliens would be a source of intelligence in their own right. There was no need to mistreat them even if there wasn't a political lobby that would rise up in arms at the merest hint the aliens weren't being treated gently.
“Under the circumstances, I think we can agree that no action is required,” he said. It was legal to use all necessary force to prevent prisoners from escaping — and while he was sure the Marines would face a great deal of second-guessing, the Admiralty would probably take their side. “And the other aliens? Are they healthy?”
The doctor sighed. She’d been irked at being called away from the rescued POWs in order to tend to the aliens, even though they were valuable prisoners. “I am no expert in the care and feeding of alien life forms,” she said, “and nor is anyone else in the navy. We have no baseline for what is normal for their race and what isn’t. There are steps we can take to ensure that their quarters are suitable for them, and we think we can provide them with proper foodstuffs, but there are too many unanswered questions for us to be completely sure.”
She gazed down at her terminal. “I’ve used medical nanites to start building up a profile of a living alien,” she added. “I’m reluctant to risk more invasive procedures until we have an excellent idea of how their bodies will respond. The injured alien has been placed in a stasis capsule until we can work out how best to proceed with treatment. For the moment, sir, there isn't much more we can do.”
Fitzwilliam smiled. “Should we place them all in stasis?”
“If we had the capsules to spare, I’d recommend it,” the doctor said. “As it is, I'm worried about the condition of several of the former POWs. I’d prefer to put them in stasis if their condition worsens.”
Ted sighed. “What is their condition?”
“Drugged, mainly,” the doctor said. “Varying levels of dosage. My subordinates and I have had a chance to inspect a handful of the POWs; there's very little actual damage, but there are signs that the aliens took blood and skin samples. I don’t think they did anything more invasive themselves, at least to the surviving prisoners.”
“Anyone they killed might have been forgotten,” Ted commented. Drugged as they were, the prisoners might not have noticed if they’d lost friends or family to the aliens. “Or simply held at another compound.”
“We will ask them when they recover enough to talk to us,” the doctor assured him. “For the moment, however, we can only treat their withdrawal symptoms and pray none of them die.”
“I have a question,” Fitzwilliam said. “Couldn’t we drug them ourselves?”
“Keep them on the drugs, you mean?” The doctor shook her head. “Quite apart from the violation of medical ethics, Commander, the human body isn't designed for long-term addiction to anything. Nor do we have the supplies to start easing them off the drugs. All we can do is let them slowly clear their own systems and clean up the mess.”
“Understood,” Ted said. “Dismissed, doctor.”
He watched the doctor leave the compartment, then turned to Fitzwilliam. “Is there an alien city, after all?”