“There are survivors. My Reifications confirm that there is at least one Devolysite still extant on the surface. Furthermore, our sensors showed no thermal blooms consistent with either a catastrophic reentry or a crash.”
“So,” said Tegrese with a sardonic smile as she leaned away from the table. “The impossible task of eliminating the escaped Aboriginals is now merely improbable.” She became serious. “We shall need many of the frozen clones, and all four of the Arbitrage’s landers, if we are to—”
Idrem shook his head. “That will not answer our needs. Firstly, several of the Arbitrage’s landers have been converted into refueling auxiliaries. Secondly, any clones which are still in cryogenic suspension will be of no use. They take too long to revivify and longer to indoctrinate to our dominion. The Slaasriithi response from Beta Aquilae will be here before they are ready.”
Tegrese seemed almost abashed. “Then what are your plans?”
“We shall dedicate all our revivified clones to the project, who are currently aboard one of the two landers that are en route to us. The other one, a paramilitary version, will be our landing and assault craft.”
Tegrese nodded, seemed to be searching for some worthwhile point to raise. “Will the other cannonballs not simply follow our lander planetside and destroy it?”
Sehtrek pulled up a holographic report on what they knew about the cannonballs. “I do not have complete technical intelligence on the devices, but their shape and performance indicates that they are intended for extraatmospheric work. Without wings, all their flight must be powered. So, given their very limited atmospheric duration compared to craft with lifting surfaces, it seems unlikely that they would descend to pursue our lander.”
Tegrese finally asked Nezdeh a pertinent question: “So, given the planetary communications blackout, how will you find the Aboriginals?”
“Our agent has a Devolysite that will deliquesce when I send the appropriate Reified command. As it dies, it emits a strong return wave through the Reification, which shall guide our initial point of descent. Its deliquescence also signals our saboteur to begin providing us with terminal guidance, that we may more narrowly locate the Aboriginals and kill them.”
Sehtrek nodded at Nezdeh’s synopsis. “Is there anything else we need to consider?”
“We will need patience,” she answered. She considered Tegrese from the corner of her eye. A great deal of patience.
* * *
Tlerek Srin Shethkador allowed the iris valve to remain open for several seconds before he entered the isolation cell in Ferocious Monolith’s brig. It had already been determined that the subject was susceptible to the will-eroding power of fearful anticipation. So it would be now.
The Aboriginal woman was sitting well away from the door. But since the cell was round, there was no corner in which to shelter her back and gain some sense of defensibility, of security. Her clothes were still wet from the hourly drenchings of cold water he had ordered. Every sixty minutes, one autarchon entered to hold her down, another brought in a container of cold water which he poured over her slowly. Then they left, never having said a word, never having met her eyes. She was an object they were watering: nothing more.
Shethkador stared at her slim, shivering legs. Some Aboriginals — they were rare, but they existed — were able to immediately discern the true purpose of such treatment: to unnerve and defocus the subject by demonstrating that they were alone, helpless, and of no urgent interest to their captors. Questions and direct engagement sent a message to most subjects that they were important, and that was a form of power, a slender bit of nourishment for their own aspirations to regain dominion. The rare captives who were able to distance themselves from their fears intrinsically understood that there was no act of cooperation or placation that would serve to appease or please their captors, because their captors desired neither. The captor-captive relationship was not, ultimately, sociaclass="underline" it was simply manipulation exercised by the dominant to extract compliance from the subordinate.
So taught the Progenitors; Tlerek silently recited, such is the truth of the universe. To which this sodden Aboriginal female was as senseless and deaf as the rocks floating around them, here in the trailing trojan point of the fourth planet out from V 1581.
She looked up; her shivering redoubled. Shethkador was pleased. In his youth, he had spent some effort perfecting the disinterested stare with which he regarded her now. “Stand,” he said.
She did, slowly. The reluctance with which she complied was not indicative of defiance, but uncertainty over what actions might displease him. Excellent. “You may ask questions, now,” he told her.
“Where am—?”
“When you are given the privilege to speak to me, you are to address me as Fearsome Srin. If you fail, you shall be immediately punished. If you fail repeatedly, you shall be terminated. Now, try again.”
“Fearsome Srin, where am I?”
“Aboard my ship. What do you last remember?”
She frowned. “I was being sedated for cryogenic sleep procedures on Jam.”
“What is Jam?”
“That’s what we call the second planet in V 1581.”
“You call it ‘Jam’? As in, a sweetened fruit spread?”
“No, as in a traffic jam.” When she saw that Shethkador’s expression did not change, she tried a different approach. “Like a big guy trying to crawl in a small space; he gets jammed, stuck—”
“So the name refers to all the fleet traffic that is passing through the orbital facilities there. Continue.”
She nodded with tolerable deference. “My partner and I were able to get away from our original ship in Sigma Draconis Two and stow away on the Changeling, just after we did the job for you.”
“You did a job for me?”
She blinked, fearful. “Yes. You — you’re a representative of CoDevCo, right? Fearsome Srin?”
Now it becomes clear. “I am not a member of the Colonial Development Combine. I, along with others, compelled that megacorporation to do our bidding during the recent invasion of Earth.”
The Aboriginal was now too confused to remember to be fearful. “You compelled CoDevCo to—?”
“Attend,” Shethkador ordered. “The Colonial Development Combine was suborned by Ktor to facilitate our invasion of Earth. CoDevCo may have retained your services as a confidential agent and saboteur, but it was ultimately acting at our behest.”
“But the Ktor are — are creatures with pseudopods, that live in liquid methane, or—”
“Female, assess me; do you see any pseudopods?”
“No.”
“That is because there are none. The description of our appearance was a ruse, so that no other power would be aware that we, too, are humans. However, our breed last dwelt upon Earth over twenty millennia ago, before the harvesting.”
The woman’s face was expressionless: Shethkador knew the symptoms of information excess when he saw them. “This is of no concern. You were hired as servitors of the legitimate leaders of the Ktor. But those who ordered you to change the cold cells you delivered to the Slaasriithi ship were impostors.”
“How do you know about—?”
Shethkador crossed the distance between them in a single long step and swung the back of his hand against the side of her face. It was a mild blow, compared to what he was capable of, but it spun her head, sent her against the wall. She slid down, stunned, and then started to weep. “When you address me directly, you use my title.” He waited. “What is my title?”