And beyond them all, beyond all the human factions and the alien intelligent races locked in this interstellar war, were the Creators-descendants of the human race but evolved far beyond human form. Were there other far superior races involved, too? I wondered. Aten had spoken of the ultimate crisis as being something far more catastrophic than this “mere” war in which billions were being slaughtered and whole planets devastated.
I knew that the Old Ones existed, but they wished to play no part in the struggles that ensnared us. Might there be other races, far older, far superior to us? Was that the ultimate crisis Aten and the other Creators feared?
I had scant time to reflect on those matters. We were approaching Lunga again. Now I had to bargain for the lives of my troopers, which meant that the scientists who had just thanked me for saving them would soon be cursing me and trying to kill me.
Chapter 17
“Who are you, really?” Delos asked me.
We were alone in the cramped galley of the survey vessel, no more than an hour away from taking up orbit around Lunga. The commander of the cruiser squadron escorting us had suggested putting a Skorpis crew on board our vessel. I had refused, assuring her that we were returning peacefully to Lunga and did not need her help.
“I am Orion,” I answered as I poured myself a cup of a stimulant processed out of alkali crystals from the gleaming vat built into the bulkhead.
Delos shook his head and smiled at me. “Look, I could say that I am Delos. But that tells you nothing except what to call me.”
His eyes were inquisitive, not demanding. The smile on his bearded face was gentle.
“I see,” I replied. “You are Dr. Delos of the University of Farcall, chief of the scientific research team on the planet Lunga.”
He poured himself a mug of the steaming brew as he said, “I am also the son of Professor Leoh of Albion and the Lady Jessica, director of the Farcall Institute of Exopsychology, science laureate of the Golden Circle, and husband of Randa.”
That last piece of information surprised me. “You and Randa are married?”
“Didn’t you know?”
From the way they seemed to take the opposite position on every question, it had not occurred to me that they might be husband and wife. I was almost amused by the thought.
“Now that I’ve told you who and what I am,” Delos said, returning to his original question, “just who and what are you?”
I had to shrug. “I am Orion. A soldier.”
“There’s more to it than that.”
If I told him that I was created by a half-demented egomaniac from the far future, built to be sent on missions of murder and carnage through all the eras of space-time, he would undoubtedly think I was either insane or joking with him.
So I said, “No, there’s not much more to it than that.”
“Your parents?”
“I’m a soldier,” I repeated. “Do the soldiers of your Farcall have parents? Aren’t they cloned and raised on military preserves? Aren’t they kept apart from the rest of your society, frozen when they’re not needed, revived and given their orders and sent out to do battle for you?”
He scratched at his beard. “Well, yes, I suppose so. I really don’t know that much about the military. This field trip with the Skorpis is the closest to the war that any of us have come. Believe me,” he added fervently, “it’s been close enough for a lifetime!”
“You’ve been at war all your life, and for a couple of generations before you were born.”
“Yes, but that’s the military’s business. We’re scientists, we don’t get involved in fighting.”
“Yet you expect your military to protect you.”
“Of course. That’s what they’re for.”
I felt an unhappy sigh filling my chest. “Well then, think of me as one of those soldiers.”
He studied me a moment with those inquisitive soft brown eyes, then said, “No, Orion, that won’t wash. There’s more to you than that. I want to know what you’re hiding and why.”
“What makes you think I’m hiding anything?”
“Because the Old Ones spoke to you,” he hissed, and his eyes suddenly blazed, revealing his true feelings. “My team and I have been on Lunga for two months with no contact whatsoever, no matter how we tried to communicate with them. You come along and the Old Ones speak to you within hours of your reaching the ocean.”
I had to smile. He was jealous. “I could be lying,” I said.
“No, you’re not lying. And you’re not a simple soldier, either. Who are you, Orion? Why were you sent to Lunga?”
“I wish I knew,” I told him. I drained my mug, feeling the hot liquid burn its way down inside me, then turned and left the galley, leaving Delos standing there seething with curiosity and resentment.
Randa was still in the cockpit with one of the other scientists. I told them both to get out.
“I’ll take over the controls,” I said.
She shot me a skeptical glance. “Are you sure you can handle it? Inserting a ship into planetary orbit isn’t as easy as you may think, Orion.”
Her meaning was clear. Even the slightly tolerant smile on her lips betrayed her thoughts. I’m a scientist, she was saying, and I can understand how to pilot a survey vessel by studying its control panel and calling for instructions from the ship’s computer. You’re a soldier, you can’t be expected to know anything or to do anything you haven’t been specifically trained for.
I reached down and grasped her arm. Lifting her gently from the pilot’s seat, I said, “I can pilot a dreadnought if I have to. Go on back to the galley and ask your husband if he thinks I’m capable of running this little tub.”
She looked surprised, annoyed. But she came out of the chair without resistance and started back toward the galley, casting a resentful look at me over her shoulder.
“You too,” I told the scientist in the other seat. “I’ll handle this by myself.”
He huffed a little, but he left me alone in the cockpit. Scanning the control board, I saw that the vessel had an automated orbital-insertion program built into its computer’s memory. Sensors were already estimating Lunga’s mass and distance. All I had to do was touch a pressure pad on the board and the ship did the rest by itself.
I activated the communicator, instead, and asked for the Skorpis base commander. Several underlings tried to talk to me, but I refused to speak to anyone until the base commander’s grim, gray-furred face appeared on the display screen before me.
“You are surrendering, Orion?” She made it sound more like a statement than a question.
“No,” I said. “I have returned to offer you an exchange.”
“What have you to offer that I would desire?”
“Your team of scientists.”
Her lips pulled back slightly to show her teeth. “You captured them and now you return them?”
“I saved them from the Tsihn and now I offer them back to you.”
Unconsciously she began grooming the fur of her face. “They must be of very little value to you if you offer them back to me.”
I almost smiled, remembering the wonderfully fierce bargaining that would go on in the bazaars of cities the Mongols had taken or even in the boardrooms of interplanetary corporations.
“Their value to me is not so important as their value to you,” I said.
“What value are they to me? They cannot fight. They cannot entertain. They cannot be used for food. They have not succeeded in their mission. Because of them I have lost nearly two whole battalions of warriors.”
I jumped on that point. “Your orders were to protect these scientists. You fought honorably and well to protect them. Unfortunately, you must tell your superiors that you failed. The scientists were captured, despite your spending nearly two whole battalions to protect them. It is very sad.”
If a cat could smile, she did it then. “I have not lost the scientists. They are on your ship.”
“But not on yours.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that I will blow up this ship, with the scientists in it, if you do not agree to my terms.”
“You will kill yourself, then?”
“Yes, and no Skorpis will ever eat my flesh. I will blast this ship and all of us into an ionized gas cloud.”
Her massive shoulders moved in a very human-looking shrug.
“Go ahead, then. It is no fur off my face.”
“But what will your superiors say when you report to them that you failed to protect the scientists? What will they say when you report that you refused to take them back after they had been captured and returned? You will be meat for their larders, I’m afraid.”
That brought out a snarl. “We can take your ship-”
“Not before I blow it to atoms.”
She just stared at me. Even though it was only an image on the display screen I could feel the fury of that yellow-eyed stare. At that moment she would like nothing better than to sink her fangs into my throat.
“But I will happily return the scientists to you,” I said, trying to sound carefree and cheerful.
“Under what terms?”
“That you return my troopers to me.”
“They are prisoners. They surrendered with hardly a fight.”
“So they are worth very little,” I taunted. “How much courage can you ingest from soldiers such as they?”
“Then why do you want them?”
I had to think fast. “I want to revive them and train them to be true soldiers, worthy of their calling. So that the next time you meet them they will offer you a better meal than their miserable carcasses offer now.”
Now it was her turn to do some thinking. She undoubtedly thought that I was lying, that there was something else going on. But actually, what I told her was as close to the truth as I could say. My troopers needed better training-and better leadership-if they were to survive their battles.
“I must consider this carefully,” said the base commander. “The prisoners have been frozen. They belong to the larders of those who captured them. I must determine what payment those warriors should receive if they give up their food.”
Nodding, I replied, “I’m inserting this vessel into a stationary orbit around the planet. In one hour I will set off the engines and blow up the ship.”
“I will give you my response in less than one hour, Orion.”
“Good.” I cut the connection, and saw that my finger trembled slightly.
“You can’t be serious.”
Turning in the pilot’s chair I saw that Randa was standing behind me. She had not gone back to the galley. She had heard my conversation with the base commander.
“I’m completely serious,” I told her.
“You’d kill us all for the sake of a handful of soldiers? Soldiers? Why, they’re little better than machines.”
“They’re quite human,” I said, holding on to my temper.
“And you think that we’ll just sit here quietly and allow you to murder us?”
There were no weapons among them, I knew. Even the tools that the ship carried were in cargo containers outside this crew habitat module.
I grinned up at her. “There are twenty-two of you and only one of me. But I doubt that more than three or four of you could squeeze into this cockpit area at one time. And I can handle three or four of you without raising much of a sweat.”
“You’re insane!” Randa snapped. “We’re scientists, you big oaf! Each one of us is worth a hundred of your miserable soldiers.”
I let that pass. I merely said, “If you keep your cool and don’t do anything foolish, you’ll be back at the Skorpis base within an hour or so. Or what’s left of the base, anyway. If you try to stop me I’ll blow this ship to hell right here and now.”
She stared at me, horrified. “Don’t you care about your own life?”
I found myself shaking my head. “No. I don’t give a damn. Death doesn’t frighten me in the slightest. In fact, it would be a relief.”
Randa shuddered, turned, and fairly ran toward the galley and her fellow scientists.
The Skorpis commander called me when there was less than five minutes remaining in the hour. I could imagine what she had been going through: trying to determine if there was some way they could take this survey vessel or incapacitate me before I blew up the ship; weighing the worth of the forty-nine frozen prisoners against the worth of the twenty-two Hegemony scientists; deciding how much recompense to give the warriors who had captured my troopers. Idly I wondered if they ate any of the reptilian Tsihn they captured in battle.
She agreed to the trade, reluctantly. The forty-nine cryo units were carried to my orbiting vessel by a trio of Skorpis landing shuttles. I would not have my troopers destroyed by a matter transceiver. Once I was satisfied that all of the bulky sleeper units were properly attached to my vessel, I allowed the scientists to board the last of the Skorpis shuttles.
Delos stood beside me and watched his team file through the air lock that connected to the shuttle.
“Where will you go now?” he asked me.
“To find someplace that has the facilities to revive my troopers.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“Continue the war?”
“I suppose.”
Randa was the last of the scientists in line. As she placed one hand on the rim of the air-lock hatch, she turned slightly to look at me.
“Would you really have killed us all for the sake of a gang of frozen corpses?”
I heard the words she did not speak: a gang of frozen corpses who are nothing but soldiers, not quite human, fit for nothing but to fight and eventually die on some ball of rock out among the stars.
“If I had to,” I said.
The corners of her lips curled slightly in a malicious smile. “And how do you know that those pods actually hold your precious soldiers? Maybe the Skorpis commander put forty-nine of her own warriors in them, to take you by surprise.”
I made myself smile back at her. “The Skorpis commander made an honorable agreement with me. She’s a warrior. She’d kill me if she could but she wouldn’t deliberately lie to me.”
“You think not?”
“She doesn’t have the same set of values that you do,” I said.
Randa’s eyes shifted from me to her husband. “Let’s go,” she said to Delos, “and leave this madman to his frozen soldiers.” With that she ducked through the hatch.
Delos looked up at me with eyes that were almost sad. “Somehow I get the feeling, Orion, that I would learn a lot more about the universe by going with you.”
“Be my guest,” I said.
But he shook his head. “I wish I could. I’m not a soldier, but I have a duty to perform. And I know my place.”
“Maybe you can help to end this war.”
“How?”
“I wish I knew.”
He put out his hand to me. “We’re on opposite sides, I know. But-good luck, Orion. I wish there really was a way to end this war.”
“Search for it,” I said, taking his hand.
Chapter 18
Part of my agreement with the Skorpis commander was that she allow me to leave the Lunga system. Alone now in the survey vessel, I broke orbit and headed in the direction that the Tsihn fleet had taken. The Skorpis battle cruisers remained in orbit, but I knew that as soon as their commander decided to, they could overtake me and blast me into vapor.
The survey vessel was not capable of lightspeed. The only safety I could hope for was to find another Commonwealth ship in normal space. A forlorn hope, I realized. Space is vast, and most of the ships traveling through it go to superlight velocity as soon as they can, which puts them completely out of touch with turtle-boats such as mine.
But I had another means of communicating.
I put the ship on autopilot, with instructions to warn me if any Skorpis or Hegemony vessels appeared nearby. Then I leaned back in the pilot’s chair, closed my eyes, and reached for contact with the Creators.
This time it was easy. The Golden One appeared immediately, decked in a magnificent glowing robe. He seemed to be hovering in the emptiness of interstellar space, a splendid god radiating power and glory.
“What a strange ape you are, Orion,” he said. “Threatening to kill yourself if the enemy refused to return your troopers to you.”
“I’ve died before,” I said. “There’s no great trick to it.”
“But you expect me to revive you each time.”
Vaguely I recalled a slight, soft-spoken Hindu with dark skin and large liquid eyes. “It would be a relief to be taken off the wheel of life,” I said.
“You seek nothingness? Oblivion?”
“It would be an end to pain.”
Aten smirked at me. “Your nirvana is not to be, Orion. Not yet. I have further chores for you.”
“First revive my troopers,” I said. “Awaken them and allow them to live normal human lives. They deserve that much, at least.”
“They will be revived, I promise you. I haven’t given up hope of enlisting the aid of the Old Ones and similar ancient races. Your troopers will help you to establish the next point of contact with them.”
“End this war,” I urged him. “Stop the killing. What’s so important that it makes you send billions to their deaths?”
“What’s so important about those billions that it matters when and how they die? They’re creatures, Orion. Creatures. My creations. I can use them as I choose. I use them as I must.”
“Why should we help you to carry on this war? What’s the point of it? Why can’t you stop it?”
Aten shook his head as if disappointed in me. “How little you understand, my creature. Don’t you think I would end the war if I could? It isn’t that easy, Orion.”
“Why not?”
“If it takes two to make a fight, it also takes two to make peace. Anya and her ilk won’t stop fighting. They want their way, and that way will lead us all to utter disaster.”
“She must think differently.”
“She is wrong!”
I thought, If only I could find Anya, speak with her, learn why she is fighting, what her goals are.
But the Golden One read my thoughts as easily as if I had spoken them aloud. “She would kill you out of hand, Orion. The goddess you love now seeks only blood and vengeance. Anyone serving me is her enemy and she will destroy them. She is my enemy, Orion. And therefore she is your enemy.”
No, I thought. She could never be my enemy.
“Fool,” spat Aten. And he disappeared from my awareness.
I was back in the cockpit of the survey vessel. Warning lights on the control board were blinking red, the contact alarm beeping annoyingly.
The screen showed a lone vessel, a sleek scout ship moving at nearly lightspeed toward me. Cranking up the sensors to maximum magnification, I saw that it bore the hexagonal symbol of the Commonwealth.
It was a Tsihn ship. Its captain appeared on my display screen, small and slight, scales rippling pink and pale yellow.
“You are the survey vessel from the Blood Hunter,” it told me, rather than asking me. “The humanoid known as Orion.”
“That is correct.”
“Good. You will be attached to my ship and then we can haul our eggs out of this region before a Hegemony cruiser spots us.”
I stayed aboard the survey ship while the Tsihn scout sent out an EVA team to grapple my vessel and attach it to theirs. Once we were safely linked to them, the scout ship accelerated to lightspeed and made the jump to superlight velocity.