The neuter’s eyes snapped into focus. “All done. I’ve instructed my swarm to facilitate your carbon acquisition to speed your morphing along, by the way.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, suspicious of why the cadet was being so friendly, but its next question made the reason plain enough.
“So who are you? I’ve never see the Captain surprised by anything, and you must have done something interesting for Adam to hate you so much.”
Ahh, gossip.
“I was your Captain’s second-in-command, once upon a time,” I said, being honest for once. “You’ve really never heard of me?” I wasn’t sure whether I was pleased or hurt by nis ignorance.
“I only joined the crew of the Jolly Happy Fun Time a couple of relative months ago. This is my first assimilation mission.”
“Yeah, about that. Why are you in the Corps, being a neuter and all? No offense, but there aren’t a lot of you sort interested in this line of work.”
It was the neuter’s turn to shrug. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” And that was all ne said. Fair enough, and it gave me an opening.
“At the time, huh? Not so happy with the state of things now?”
Ne paused. “I am a little surprised at the lack of respect for non-assimilateds in the delivery of welcome kits.” By which Cadet Kav meant the exploding capsules of doom raining down on the Humpty planet as we conversed.
“You’ll get over it,” I muttered.
“You didn’t,” Kav pointed out. “I don’t know who you were, but I know what you are now. A deserter. An expat.”
“The least of my crimes,” I said, preening not just a little bit.
The neuter tried to stifle a grin and failed. “I’ve only heard stories about people like you. What’s it like out there?”
“Where?”
Ne waved nis long, thin hands. “Out there. Outside of the U.P.”
“Oh. You wouldn’t like it. You can’t buy anything on credit. The food is too rich. The languages are too complicated. The sentients are barbaric and they practice the most obscene customs. Horrible, truly. Every day is a struggle to survive.”
“You’re making fun of me,” the neuter said.
“He’s very good at that,” Captain Lewyana said from the bay door. She was wearing her hair down, long and golden, just the way I had liked and Adam hated. Interesting.
“Go join the others, Kav. There are plenty of goods left to distribute. These poor sentients barely know how to use a stick, if you can believe that.”
Kav paused, about to speak again, but departed, apparently thinking better of it. I wondered what the neuter’s last question had been, and how long it would be before Kav was back to ask me more. I turned my attention to the Captain.
“You know, their lack of tool use has allowed them to develop a sophisticated rhetoric that’s quite fascinating,” I said.
“You mean that they’re so bored for lack of toys that all they do is sit around and bullshit?”
I nodded—another odd gesture after having no neck for so long. “That would be the U.P. way of seeing things.”
“The only way worth seeing things,” she said. “Bertie, you’re uglier than ever.”
“Thanks for noticing.”
“You’re not going to take this seriously at all, are you?” she asked.
I continued my practice of not answering questions to which she already knew the answer.
“What are you doing out here?”
“Studying,” I said.
Lewyana sighed. I liked the way it made her breasts heave. My human biology was definitely dominant once again; the motion would have been repulsive to a Humpty. “Adam thought that you were playing ‘Little Emperor.’”
“If that was the case, you would not have caught me running through the muck. I would have been sitting atop a golden throne, surrounded by my adoring people.” I looked past her, into the passageway. Two Redshirts loitered nearby, blocking any possible escape attempt. So she had learned something since I’d left.
“Besides, I would have to be a much smoother talker to convince the Humpties that I’m a god.”
“You don’t give yourself nearly enough credit. You almost convinced me of something equally ridiculous once,” she said.
“Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”
“What?”
“Forget it. An expression I picked up from a friend of mine.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“What, the expression, or that I have friends?”
She laughed at that finally. I felt a previously unnoticed tension in my new muscles relax. “Both, I guess,” she said.
“Look, let’s stop tiptoeing around this. What happens next?”
She put on her professional face, stern, commanding. Sexy. “The natives have two planetary rotations to affirm their citizenship in the U.P. At which point we’ll direct the celebrations, seed the atmosphere with swarms, and depart for our next mission. Dropping you off at a U.P. Central Court along the way. Or.”
“Or?”
“Or, we ‘lose’ Adam’s mind-store, copy you in his place, and you ride around in his old looks until people forget about him. And you come back to me.”
I smiled and ignored the second option for now. “What if they don’t affirm?”
Scowling, she barked, “You know exactly what.”
“But I want to hear you say it,” I said before I could stop myself. She slapped me hard across my 85% human face, her swarm giving the blow just a little extra pain juice. The temperature in the room dropped a couple degrees Kelvin.
She pressed her hands against her upper thighs and pushed down, smoothing her unitard. It was a nervous habit I had seen thousands of times, a lifetime ago.
“By rejecting citizenship, they identify themselves as a threat to peace among all sentients, and they will be treated as such.” Standard operating line. It sounded the same as the first time I heard it.
“Better get the bombs ready,” I said. “The Humpties aren’t going to go for it.”
“Bertie, I can count the number of sentient species that have not affirmed on one hand.”
“You’ll need two hands after tomorrow,” I said with a sigh. “You’ll be damned lucky if they can even come to a consensus by then. They debate the names of their children for two years after hatching.”
“We’re persuasive,” she said, sounding almost defeatist in tone. I had won most of the arguments and that hadn’t changed. She had won the fistfights.
“Oh, I know that. Now you’re telling me things I already know.”
“Think about my offer,” she said. Her eyes pleaded in a way her voice could not. She slipped away leaving me to think about those eyes more than I wanted to at the moment.
I settled into my crate as the Redshirts marched back in to take up the guard. My energy reserves were running dangerously low thanks to the cellular restructuring, so I did what comes naturally in such situations. I took a nap.
I was awakened by a brutal kick to my now fully human ribs. I felt one of them break, and then the tingling as my swarm jumped into action, knitting bone back together. I had been tipped out of the crate onto the bay floor. Adam was standing over me.
“So are you the Ghost of Christmas Future?” I asked, groaning.