“Next, during the assault on Earth’s Solar Station, the enemy wisely targeted General Derdowski’s CCC. He had seven supply trucks with him that looked identical to his CCC, and the enemy managed to knock out six of them without hitting the CCC. Each of those trucks had a guard, and the enemy ignored them to hit the trucks.
“Again, we were very lucky, because without Derdowski and his CCC, we could have either lost the entire war, or we could have lost touch with the thousands of robot ships that are continuing the exploration of space, and the expansion of Human Space. That would have stunted our growth for fifty years.
“Besides adding more trucks as targets, and guarding them better, we will adopt a practice of always sending at least two CCCs on each mission. Other suggestions are welcome.
“Also, our streamlined command structure, which can have a hundred thousand men and fighting machines reporting to a single CCC is a bit extreme. In the future, there will be typically ten thousand tanks per CCC, and every fighting unit will have several CCCs that it can report to, should its primary one be knocked out. This will involve vastly expanding our officer corps, but there is a lot of good talent out there.
“Lastly, the army itself will be vastly expanded. New Kashubia will soon be passing a law requiring universal military service for all full citizens. You don’t have to join the army, but if you don’t, you can’t vote. It is likely that most of the other planets will soon be following suit.
“You might reasonably ask why all of this huge expenditure of wealth and manpower is necessary. The answer is simple. Humanity now faces the worst enemy that could possibly be. They are very ancient, with histories that go back for almost seven million years. They are incredibly numerous, with at least sixty-eight thousand planets that have populations of perhaps a hundred and fifty billion people on each of them. And they are unspeakably evil. When they take a new planet, they eradicate absolutely all life on it, usually using thousands of neutron bombs in low orbit, in addition to totally poisoning all life in its oceans. That, and they regularly eat their own children. In fact, they don’t seem to eat anything else.
“There are only two things that give us any possible hope of defeating them. The first is that despite their great age, they have never developed computers to the extent that we have. They have nothing like our electronic people. The second is that they have never developed anything like our Hassan-Smith transporters. They are limited strictly to the speed of light. And since their domain is some six thousand light-years across, we will never have to face more than a small percentage of them at any one time.
“On the other hand, they have several technologies that we, at present, can’t begin to understand. They can, for example, accelerate and decelerate from almost light speed instantaneously. And they have some sort of a shield that can deflect rail gun needles, among other things.
“We have one of their ships. In time, we will learn more about them, and their technology. Because they are limited to light speed, it is likely that they do not yet know that we exist, and this gives us time to prepare.
“But, the indications are that they have already scouted all or most of Human Space, and have been doing so for hundreds—or even thousands—of years. Their attack may come sooner than we think. We may have five years, we may have fifty. But when it happens, we’d better be ready.
“This afternoon, we will be going over the taking of that alien ship, and explaining what little we know about it.
“That’s all for now. Dismissed.”
Mickolai found himself wishing that he was still at last night’s party.
CHAPTER TWELVE
FROM CAPTURED HISTORY TAPES,
FILE 1846583A ca. 1832 a.d.
BUT CONCERNING EVENTS OF UP TO
2000 YEARS EARLIER
Bronki’s New Body
Or, Eating Your Math Teacher
Kren had to pick Bronki up and put her on the stool in front of her computer. Seeing that she had difficulty staying upright, he quickly got some rope and tied her to her seat, before she got her computer online.
“This will probably take me an hour to arrange,” Bronki said. “The pain is getting worse, not better. Why don’t you go out and find me a big meal. The feeding stupor will help me endure the pain you’ve caused me.”
“I will do that, soon. But first, I would like to see you fulfill your side of this bargain.” Kren had visions of Bronki calling in the authorities while he was out.
“You are not a very trusting person.”
“This is true. But you have every reason to hate me, for what I have done to you. I would be a fool to trust you at this time.”
“Kren, you must realize that I am over five thousand years old. There is very little that can happen to a person that I haven’t seen. Also, I am one of the most intelligent teachers at the university, as well as one of the wisest. Look. Every being must play the game of life from the position that she finds herself in at the present instant. The normal emotions—hate, joy, anger, greed—these things were useful to us when we were savages, but now that we are civilized, they only get in our way. Do you understand that I don’t hate you?”
“I can believe that. But you must understand that I only started to become intelligent a year ago, and from the position that I find myself in now, I still think that I would be a fool to trust you. Go online, and do the things that you have promised while I watch. Then I will take you someplace comfortable, and I will hunt for you. Oh, and do the contract first, the deeds second, and the money third.”
“As you wish,” Bronki said. She had, of course, been planning to contact the authorities, and have Kren arrested and eventually executed, not because she hated him for his treachery, or even because she badly wanted to save her mathematical abilities, but rather to save herself the twelve thousand Ke she had promised, and two of the many houses that she owned.
She started to work the net, thinking that sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. Perhaps, a continued relationship with Kren would prove profitable.
First, she wrote, signed, and filed a confidential contract with the Bonding Authority for a fee of five gross Ke, which she talked Kren into paying by claiming that they did not accept credit.
Next, she filed a quit claim deed for both houses and all of their contents with the Land Authority, and then transferred the utilities and taxes over to his name. Doing the bank transfer to a new account in Kren’s name was a matter of only a few minutes.
Finally, she ordered a new body, with suitable brands burned into the girl’s upper arms, from the Dependable Carnivore Company, Ltd. The young carnivore was to be delivered the next morning, along with a syringe of anesthetic. The painful natural process that the aristocracy was so proud of using was not for Bronki.
“Now, will you please do something for this pain?” she asked him.
“Of course, I’d be delighted to.” Kren untied her from the stool, carried her outside, and placed her gently on the grass, with her back propped up against the house. Then he locked the door behind him, put the key of his new house in his belt pouch, and went hunting.
He was back in a dozen minutes with a large, but suitable juvenal.
Bronki had taken a mechanical pencil and a large pad of grass paper with her, and had used the time to sketch a life-sized diagram of her own brain, with carefully drawn lines showing exactly what parts Kren could and could not eat. These were one fairly large section and three small ones. These agreed with what his memories from the medic told him, so he readily agreed to follow her instructions.
Because of her weakness and pain, he had to use his sword to chop up the young boy he’d brought for her, but Bronki ate the pieces quickly, throwing the bones out into the now well-tended field, being too weak to chew them up.
“Probably just as well,” she said, as she became drowsy. “I’d need a new body soon anyway. As to the skills I’ll be losing, well, a few years of study will get them back, maybe better than before. I may even come up with something really new, you know. There have been cases on record where an old mind has lost a segment, for one reason or another, and when it finally relearned what it had lost, it had become very creative concerning that particular skill.”