“Gee, I’d have the chef give them to the mattre’d to deliver personally, but they’re both busy with this evening’s banquet,” Calum replied sarcastically. Hafiz knew, very well that if he wanted the damned bars he’d need to take them from the food locker himself. The replicator worked, but even it required sup plies from which to manufacture foodstuff and those supplies took up more room than the nutrient bars and caps.
“Very well,” Hafiz said, and beckoned imperiously to Jana and Chiura, who were following in the wake of the other young ones headed toward the hydroponics garden, which they would soon, Hafiz knew, come to regard as a garden of delights. “Young ladies, you will accompany me to the food locker and assist in conveying supplies to our destination.”
The girls looked at each other and shrugged.
The driver of Khieevi ship designated by Fourteen Klaclu am) Two KUdu was greatly agitated.
Partly this -was from the pain in his sixth foot, which had come into contact with the damaged shuttle pilot who managed to dock aboard Fourteen Klaclu am) Two Klicfu before the crew of the large ship realized that both shuttle and the operator of same were infected with an alien substance that ate them. Once they had made this discovery, members of the crew attempted to neutralize the infected personnel in the customary way, by stomping them to death. Unfortunately, this brought feet, pincers, and in some cases other delicate body parts into contact with the alien substance.
The driver really didn’t feel well at all and neither did the affected crew members, who could now truly be called a skeleton crew, if not an exoskeleton crew, since the exoskeletons were the first parts eaten away by the substance.
The high-pitched pain sounds they were producing made the driver’s brain ache as well as his foot, which he realized would have to be sacrificed before long or it would involve his entire leg. Unlike the crewmembers, he had not done any actual stomping of the infected shuttle soldier. He had merely nudged the soldier with his foot to tag the tainted one for elimination.
He feared that he would be the next to be eliminated. If the disease didn’t claim him, he would surely be stomped by the other, healthier ship drivers, or worse, his damaged part -would be severed and he -would be fed to the Young.
The Young would be even angrier and more ferocious than usual, as they had not received a good feeding in many, many lengthy time units. The Niriians -were a stingy, selfish race who kept their pain to themselves and did not beg or plead or weep, no matter how meticulously and slowly they were disassembled. They were so retentive of their feelings that they refused to writhe even under the worst provocation. They also were rather frail things and tended to die. Quickly. Quietly. No nutrition for the Young there.
When the shuttle from scout ship Fifty-three Kliclu am) Sewn Kiack.<) reported a juicy colony of the OneHorns, the swarm had been hungry for conquest, and more to the point, the Young had been even hungrier. The lair of the OneHorns had proved elusive and was much sought after, since the members of the race thus far encountered possessed a particularly satisfying capacity for emotional projection. Shock, fear, outrage, loathing, and an unplumbed depth of capacity to suffer and emote anguish -when correctly manipulated made even one of these beings a sweet feast for the Young.But this time the Khieevi had been -worse than thwarted. According to the shuttle soldiers -who survived, the -world -was filled -with nothing but shadows of OneHorns and their buildings, shadows that could not be touched or hurt or killed and had no redeeming nutritional value to either soldiers or the Young. Worse, there were the growing things with the prominent white sexual organs, similar in appearance to stationary growing things on other -worlds. These emitted pheromones of fear which had seemed promising, but when the shuttle soldiers attacked them, the growing things had the temerity to attack back! The entire ground fleet had been lost and many of the swarm ships infected by contaminated shuttles, which nonetheless returned to their ships. The Young knew. The fear and pain of their own elders had been fed to them as a substitute for the alien food, but it was not enough. So much time had elapsed since a proper feeding, nothing -would satisfy the Young now but the actual physical bodies of their elders, whom the eldest of the Young would replace.