The next scene was arresting. The Arat Kur was writhing in the far corner, chittering in a puddle of its own filth. Its shell was peeling, its eye covers seemed dry and unable to close, and the soft tissue around its mouth had become a faint, crusty mauve.
Oh First Mother of us all, no—!
The last scene confirmed Darzhee Kut’s fear. The Arat Kur—now barely recognizable as such—spasmed, shuddered so hard that one of his back-plates sprang free, exposing his endodermis to air, fluid spraying. He shrilled, antennae jerking in and out of their sleeves asynchronously. Then a blast of circulatory and digestive fluids erupted from both his mouth and his alimentary endpoint and he was still. The image froze. According to the timecode on the bottom, eight hours and thirteen minutes had elapsed since he had been exposed to the mist.
By all Mothers— He looked directly into Riordan’s eyes. “No. You would not do this.”
“I would not do any of this. But my people would.”
Judging from the disease-ravaged Arat Kur corpse frozen on the palmtop’s screen, evidently they would. “You recreated the plague.”
“Yes. Using cyst samples, we reverse-engineered it to its original state. Here’s how I believe the military will deliver it: our fleet would take up station-keeping for sustained bombardment of your homeworld. Ultimately, we will overwhelm your defensive systems. Fairly easy, now that we understand their particular vulnerabilities.
“In the midst of this barrage, we will seed in some plague rockets with penetrator warheads. Most will explode and deliver the pathogen via aerosol dispersion upon attaining subterranean chambers. Follow-up missiles will probably burrow right in behind them, carrying a payload of microbots which, once released, will carry packets of the disease at least fifty kilometers from the impact site and start disseminating it based on sensor contacts with primary vectors for infection: water supplies, foodstuffs, breeding crèches.”
Breeding crèches: Darzhee Kut’s second stomach partially refluxed into his primary stomach. He looked at the disease-ravaged corpse frozen like death itself on the palmtop’s screen. “And was it necessary to use innocents as test subjects?”
The human shrugged. “I wonder if the word ‘innocent’ applies to anyone involved in this war. However, the three prisoners who were subjected to the test were among those who had capitulated on false pretenses, in order to ambush and kill our boarding teams when we overwhelmed your forces at V1581 Cygni2. At any rate, beyond the question of innocence, a live test was deemed necessary by our generals.”
“And you agree with them?”
Caine looked away. “I’ve stopped agreeing with any of this—what my people do, and what your people do—a long time ago. However, there is a certain grim logic behind their decision.”
“Which was to make sure that it worked in a ‘field trial’?”
Caine nodded. “And there was concern that if your leaders did not receive irrefutable evidence of the disease and its course—precisely how it works, right down to the smallest details of the changes in Arat Kur biochemistry—then they might question whether we had really reengineered it. They could have conjectured that we were bluffing: that we found the cysts, realized what they implied genetically, but were unable to actually produce the pathogen.”
Darzhee Kut’s claws sagged. The human was probably right. “But with precise clinical observations of the stages of the disease, a genetic map of the virus in all its various stages, and this—demonstration—of its weaponization, then they would know that you had created the organism and observed it through a full course of its life cycle in a host.”
“Yes.”
“As you say, I revile the decision, but I fear that your generals may have been right in their apprehension: just as they were ruthless enough to develop and test the virus, the leaders of the Wholenest might well have been willing to gamble the billions of Arat Kur on the homeworld by ‘calling your bluff,’ as you say. And they will discover that you shall do to us what we, in your system, repeatedly refused to do to you—despite the incessant urging of the Hkh’Rkh.”
“A just remonstration. But here’s a just question for you to consider in return. If your leaders regained an advantage, would they not return to Earth and now do exactly what the Hkh’Rkh urged them to do?”
“Yes, probably—but Caine Riordan, you must know that I would never agree to such an atrocity.”
“Unfortunately, you do not speak for the Wholenest, any more than I speak for the World Confederation. We must guess what those above us will do, based on the events and fears which have now accumulated. And I know this. If your fleet returns before you surrender control of your defenses and communities to us, then it is we who might well be destroyed. We cannot expect to gain the upper hand against your race a second time. So our victory must be won now, or become a disastrous defeat, ending in the reinvasion of Earth.”
Riordan leaned forward urgently. “Even the most moderate of my people are willing to take any steps necessary to ensure that you do not invade us again. Most will simply accept your surrender and sufficient concessions. But some—and their voices are growing louder and more convincing with every passing hour—counsel that there is only one way to be sure.” The human looked meaningfully at the image on the screen of his palmtop.
The dirt-cursed Hur and their caste-stubbornness! Do they really think that the humans would hover over Homenest with no better weapon than a bluff? “After what happened to the fleet they sent to invade Earth, the Wholenest leaders still will not listen?”
Riordan shook his head. “They refuse to believe our story of what transpired on Earth. Their answer to the first communiqué—the only response we have ever received from them—was that it was ‘impossible’ that we had repulsed your invasion, and therefore, they suspected that our arrival in your home system was part of an elaborate ruse to get them to surrender when they did not actually need to. They told us they would not respond again unless it were to speak to Hu’urs Khraam.”
“I am not he.”
“No, but you are the one he designated Delegate Pro Tem at the minute of his death. You are senior among the Arat Kur who have survived; who but you may speak?”
“My caste is insufficient. I am but an Ee’ar. They will not listen to me. It was why the Shipmasters did not listen to me when I rescinded the—when I called for them to desist scuttling their vessels. It will be no different here.”
“You cannot know that if you do not try.”
“I am weary of trying and failing. But I will try… try…” Darzhee Kut felt his claws, and then his legs, begin to grow numb. It was the onset of fugue-torpor, induced by the emotional shock of what he had seen, had heard. How to explain that to a human? “Depression and mental shock” explained the sensation, but wholly missed the physical inescapability of the phenomenon, once its onset had commenced. “But later. I… am weary. For now. Find someone else. To speak to the leaders. Of the. Wholenest.”
He turned to the wall, and allowed the cycles of sound to build within his inner ears, taking comfort and refuge in the waves of smoothly repetitive tones he heard/felt/tasted there—since he was now capable of little else.
Through those sine-waves of solace, he thought he heard Caine Riordan speak again. “Darzhee Kut, if you do not speak, your planet—your race—may die. Please, consider again: speak to your world, to your people.”
Darzhee Kut tried to listen more closely to Caine, but fell into the rhythm of the soothing cycles, wandered lost among the rolling peaks and valleys of the gentle tones manufactured by self-created changes in the air pressure between his own multiple ear-drums.