“Not our problem,” Cat says.
I drop onto the bench and lean back against the wall. “It is our problem, Cat. If they wind up going to war, there’s no way this doesn’t spill over onto us. It’s barely a klick from the perimeter to the nearest part of their labyrinth.”
“Mickey is correct,” Speaker says. “If it comes to open combat between my nest and theirs, the winner will turn to you next, if only to replace the materials lost in the fighting. I think you would be quickly overwhelmed.”
“Maybe,” Lucas says. “Maybe not. We’ve got weapons systems you haven’t seen yet. You’d be surprised what we can do if we’re pushed to it.”
“Stop,” I say. “Everybody, just … just stop, for one goddamn minute. Please. Jamie, sit down. Lucas, shut up. Speaker, how locked in are we with these things? I get that you may not have really understood how we’d react to being asked to give someone up. Can you go back out there and renegotiate? Tell them we don’t have ancillaries? Maybe there’s something else we can give them instead.”
“I can try,” Speaker says. “However, I should tell you that, from their perspective, an agreement has been reached. We take agreements very seriously. If I attempt to renege at this point, the most likely outcome is that they destroy me, and then destroy you.”
“Sounds good to me,” Lucas says. “Maybe we can get a jump on them while they’re working on you.”
“Lucas,” I say. “Seriously. Shut up. You are not helping.”
He opens his mouth to reply, but I guess something in my face convinces him to let it go.
“How much time do we have?” Nasha asks.
Speaker turns to her. “Time?”
“Yeah. How long can we stall before they start getting antsy?”
“I do not understand,” Speaker says. “What good does stalling do? At best, it delays the inevitable. At worst, it may allow for more of them to arrive.”
“Honestly,” Jamie says, “if I’m going to do this, I think I’d rather get it over with. Sitting around thinking about it for another hour is not going to make me any happier.”
“No,” Nasha says. “You’re not going out there until you absolutely have to. It’s like the king and the thief, right?”
She looks around the cabin. All she gets back are four blank stares.
“The king and the thief,” she says. “It’s a parable. My mom must have told it to me a hundred times. None of you know what I’m talking about?”
“Maybe it’s a New Hope thing,” Cat says.
Nasha rolls her eyes. “Look. There’s this thief, okay? And he gets caught, and they haul him in front of the king to be sentenced. I guess he stole something big, because the king sentences him to death. As they’re hauling him away, the thief says, ‘Wait, Your Highness! If you spare me, I’ll teach your horse to speak!’
“Well, that gets the king’s attention. ‘How long would this take?’ he says. ‘A year,’ the thief replies. ‘Give me a year, and your horse will speak.’ The king thinks it over, then shrugs and says, ‘Fine. A year it is. If my horse doesn’t speak before that time is out, you’ll hang.’ The thief bows, and the guards lead him away.
“Once they’re out of the throne room, one of the guards says, ‘What was the point of that? All you’ve done is postpone your hanging.’ The thief smiles. ‘A year is a long time,’ he says. ‘The king may die in that time. I may die in that time. Or who knows? Maybe the horse will learn to speak.’”
After a long, awkward silence, Speaker says, “What is a horse?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Nasha says. “The point is, we hold out for as long as we can. So, how long is that, Speaker?”
Speaker takes a moment to consider, mandibles gnashing together.
“This is not entirely clear,” he says finally. “We did not specify a time frame.”
“Okay, then,” Nasha says. “We wait until they come knocking.”
“SO HERE’S SOMETHING I don’t understand,” Nasha says, breaking a silence that’s lasted almost two hours but has felt more like a month. “This planet is kind of a shithole, right? No offense, Speaker, but this place isn’t really super-friendly to life, is it?”
“I do not have a point of comparison,” Speaker says. “It seems friendly enough to me.”
“Take my word for it,” Nasha says. “It’s not. That’s not my point, though. My point is that the Union has explored a whole lot of planets over the past thousand years, most of them more habitable than this one, and in all that time we’ve run across, what, one other intelligent species?”
“Two,” I say. “Roanoke and Long Shot. Three, if you count the system that ate Eden’s first colony ship.”
“And Acadia’s,” Lucas says. “Did they ever figure out what was going on there?”
I shake my head. “Not really. All we know is that something makes ships vanish without a trace as soon as they hit the system’s Oort cloud, and that anything that can pull that trick is probably not something we want to mess with.”
“Didn’t you say there were sentients on New Hope?” Cat says. “That’s at least four, right?”
“Whatever,” Nasha says. “Point is, most habitable planets don’t host technological intelligence, right? What are the odds that there would be two of them here?”
“The universe is a weird place,” I say. “It’s a good question, though. I guess our base expectation is that the emergence of one intelligent species on a planet suppresses the emergence of any others. That’s what happened on old Earth, anyway. There were a half dozen hominids that could have made the jump, but as soon as we crossed the Rubicon, the rest of them mysteriously disappeared. Who knows, though? Maybe this is just a kinder, gentler place?”
“How about it, Speaker?” Nasha asks. “Any insights here?”
“I’m sorry,” Speaker says. “I do not think I understand. You believe there are two thinking species on this planet?”
That gets him a long moment of silence.
“You told us you’ve been negotiating with those things,” Nasha says finally. “Are you telling us that they’re not even sentient?”
“As I have tried to explain, this is a complicated question. The creatures outside are primarily ancillaries. By your definition, many of these may not be sentient. However, there seems to be at least one Prime present as well.”
“I’m not talking about the individuals,” Nasha says. “The species, though—they’re sentient?”
“Again, I think I fail to understand. We have agreed that we are sentient, have we not? Do you not acknowledge that I am sentient?”
Nasha opens her mouth to reply, hesitates, then closes it again.
“So,” I say. “Are you saying those things out there are creepers?”
“Please clarify: Am I a creeper?”
“Yeah,” Lucas says. “You’re a creeper.”
“Then yes, the creatures outside now are also creepers. We are the same. I told you that they are vassals of our friends to the south, did I not?”
“But—” Nasha begins.
“You’re a worm,” Lucas says. “They’re spiders. You’re not the same.”
“Apologies,” Speaker says. “I thought we were clear on this point. This shell is not biological. It is a construct. How else could we have mimicked your vocal apparatus in such a short time? This gives us great flexibility. We can take on many forms.”
“Really?” Lucas says. “You’re a mech?”
I shake my head. “Not really. Creepers aren’t mechs, exactly. They’re some kind of hybrid—or at least the specimen we captured was.”
“Correct,” Speaker says. “We are hybrid. Part biological, part mechanical. This is why we put such value on obtaining metal. Availability of various metallic elements is the most important limit on our reproduction.”
“Huh,” Nasha says. “I’m even less eager to hand over the rover now. How many of those things will they be able to make with what they scavenge from this?”