The Hegemony had apparently fortified Bititu heavily. According to the reports I scanned, the asteroid was honeycombed with tunnels defended by a full regiment of spiderlike creatures that the reports referred to only as the Arachnoids. Very little was known about them; even their intelligence was in some doubt. Some scientists believed that individual Arachnoids were not intelligent, in the sense of being self-aware and motivated, but were instead part of a collective hive mind, as many species of insects have proven to be.
The most discouraging part of the reports was the admission that not much was known about the Arachnoids because none had ever been taken alive. They always fought to the last member. Not a happy prospect for those who had to do battle against them.
Then I saw that the Commonwealth’s scientific community requested that we take as many of the Arachnoids prisoner as possible, for them to interrogate and study. The phrasing of their request made it clear that they thought we soldiers slaughtered all the Arachnoids deliberately.
“Despite their nonhumanoid appearance,” the scientists’ request read, “the Arachnoids are to be treated as fully sentient, intelligent beings. Indiscriminate killing of these creatures is punishable by military code.”
I turned off the video reader with a feeling almost of disgust. Bititu would be a bloody mess, it seemed. There was no way to take the asteroid except by direct assault, and the enemy was well entrenched and willing to fight to the bitter end. I doubted that the Arachnoids would willingly allow themselves to become prisoners and objects of our scientists’ eager investigations.
With my mind full of foreboding I went down the metal passageway of the station back to the cryonic center.
A different medic was on duty now, a gray-haired male whose face was also a grayish pallor, as if he had not seen the sun in years.
“They’re coming around,” he whispered as I looked out across the big room filled with the cryonic capsules. His attention was focused on the dozens of display screens set into the curving panel before his chair like the faceted eyes of a giant insect.
I felt the chill of cryonic cold seeping into my bones. “Shouldn’t it be warmer in here?” I asked.
He shot me a disapproving glance. “I know what I’m doing, soldier.”
“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”
“They’re going to be disoriented for a bit. The briefings they’ve been getting while we’re pulling them out will be mostly subconscious, until they’re brought to the surface by trigger phrases.”
The trigger phrase, I knew, was simply the name of the target asteroid: Bititu.
“The last real memories they’ll have will be whatever they saw when they were put under.”
Skorpis warriors forcing them into the cryo pods. Knowing that they were nothing more than food to their captors, that if they were ever awakened it would be for ritual execution.
“Isn’t there some way we can tell them they’re safe, that they’re not prisoners of the Skorpis anymore?”
The medic glared at me. “Is that what happened to these soldiers? They were frozen by those damned cats?”
“Yes.”
“Shit on a goddamned mother-loving sonofabitch sandwich,” he snarled, his fingers suddenly playing across the control keys. “Nobody tells me any pissing thing. Same old army. If there’s a way to screw things up…” His voice sank to a disgruntled mumble.
At last he looked up from the controls and displays. “It’s too pissing late. There’s nothing I can do. They’re going to start waking up in a few minutes and they’ll still be thinking that they’re prisoners. If we don’t have a couple of heart attacks among them it’ll be a pissing miracle.”
My mind raced. Was there anything I could do? Could I reach out to them mentally and assure them that they were safe, that they had nothing to fear?
Too late. A heard a click and a sighing sound. Looking across the chamber, I saw one of the capsules pop open, white vapor issuing from it like fog seeping across a graveyard at midnight. Another clicked and sighed. Then more.
Someone moaned. Someone began to sob like a motherless child. Which we all were, of course.