“I don’t think you better do that,” Penny said.
“This conversation is going nowhere. Let’s see if we can crack her out of all these rote answers and get some real talk from her.”
The woman glanced at the vermin as they babbled in their vermin tongue. She showed no interest in what they said and turned back to her child.
Then the screen on the wall behind the bassinet came to life.
~The ship!~ she cried in recognition.
~Yes, that is one of your ships,~ Kris said.
~There is only the ship,~ the woman insisted.
~Your ship is one of many. Now watch what we humans did to this ship when it tried to kill my people.~
Quickly lasers, rockets, then Hellburners smashed into the giant mother ship. Quickly, it began to blow apart. The screen cut from the last vision of the exploding ship before Kris fled to a view of the wrecked and broken hulk tumbling dead in space. Nelly filled the screen with pictures from her nanos as they cruised through the empty voids of the hulk. The final view was of the great hall, lifeless and empty. The view rose to take in the ceiling and its stars.
Now the screen changed to show Navy ships giving battle to the vast horde of alien warships. Cameras caught them as they fought, were caught, burned and died. They had launched a camera on some of the junk that covered for the rockets that lofted the Hellburner. It recorded the fight, the mother ship being slammed twice and beginning to burn itself out. The vision of destruction changed again.
~This is from my ship as we approached your great ship,~ Kris said.
The mother ship withered and burned. Great balls of explosions blew out into space. Then the ship, starting from the bow, blew itself to bits from the inside.
~Every woman, child, and man died on that ship. Every Black Hat. And most definitely the Enlightened One. Did he lead them right? Was that where the ship was meant to end its days? I blew it up,~ Kris snapped. ~I and the ships I lead hammered it until the Enlightened One blew up all of those who followed him.~
~You lie. Vermin die. Vermin wither up and die. They cannot stop the ship!~ the woman screamed.
~Your ship cannot stop me. It cannot stop my people. We are not vermin,~ Kris snapped.
~Yes you are. You are all prey,~ she said, head whipping around, eyes going wide with near madness. ~You will all die. You are vermin! I can smell the fear on you. I can smell the dirt. Your way is only death, and we, the people of the ship will kill you.~
~Like those ships, huh,~ Kris said.
Nelly began to rerun the video.
The woman turned her face to the far wall, her back to the scenes of dying ships.
Nelly created a projector and flashed the video on the wall in front of the woman.
The alien turned, but Nelly turned the projector faster.
The woman closed her eyes and screamed at the top of her voice. ~Lies. It is all lies!~
“Jack, put a dart in her,” Kris ordered.
“It will be a mercy to take her out of her pain,” Amanda said.
22
Kris Longknife paced the brig. The alien woman was in one cell, a padded cell made up to specs found in Nelly’s records. It turned out that the Wasp’s standard configuration didn’t include something so archaic as a padded cell.
The baby was fussy again. Penny had fed her the last bottle a bit ago. She and Amanda had considered pumping some more breast milk from the drugged mother, then thought better of it. There was a reason Kris had put the woman behind bars.
The look of hatred on her face as the sleepy dart took effect would chill the blood of a granite gargoyle.
The woman stirred. Her eyes opened. ~You again,~ she mumbled.
~I am still here. You are still on my ship.~
~You lie,~ she said, her mouth twisting in hatred. ~Vermin do not have ships.~
NELLY, COULD YOU MAKE EVERYTHING BETWEEN HERE AND THE OUTER HULL TRANSPARENT?
I’M NOT SURE I COULD DO THAT, KRIS. IT’S NEVER BEEN DONE. AND IF IT WENT BAD, I MIGHT JUST BE OPENING A HOLE IN THE SHIP.
LET’S NOT DO THAT AND SAY WE DID, Jack suggested on Nelly Net.
YES, LET’S, Kris agreed.
~You will not believe anything I say,~ Kris said.
~You are vermin. You should not say anything. Only people talk.~
Kris turned to Jacques and Amanda. “Any suggestion how we get past this?”
Jacques shook his head. “You might put her in a space suit and force her to take a look at our fleet.”
Jack shook his head. “Not unless we sleepy dart her again. I wonder how many times we can do that in one day?”
“Besides,” Jacques said, “her programming may be so hardwired, it’s unbreakable. Even if she saw it, would she believe it? The Black Hats she talks about threw her ass off their ship as an example to terrify the others, and she still thinks it’s her fault, and she needs to make amends. They killed that one guy for talking sense.”
He scrubbed at his face, then finished in frustration. “You’ve talked to her, but a lot of good it’s done you. Kris, until us vermin earn the right to talk in the presence of these Enlightened Ones, all that’s gonna happen is a lot of dying.”
“I don’t like what Jacques just said,” Amanda said, “but I can’t disagree with him, either. Trying to talk to them is like smashing your head against a brick wall. Jacques has gone to an extraordinary extent to get them talking, and this woman is still a brick wall. Give it up, Kris.”
Kris turned back to look at the woman. “I guess that’s all I can do.”
I’m a Longknife, but this woman’s invincible ignorance has beaten me. The society that bred her has made her blind to anything they don’t want her to see.
~Give me my baby. Minna is hungry. I am heavy,~ the woman said, lifting one breast.
Everyone looked at Kris. She nodded.
Jack pulled out his automatic, and the woman backed away from the barred door to sit down on the elevated block that passed for a bed. Penny entered the room and handed the child gently to the woman, future mother to mother.
The woman took the child and immediately brought it to her breast to suckle.
Penny just as quickly backed out, and Jack shut the door with a firm click.
Kris went to stand just outside the padded bars. ~We will take you back to your people tomorrow.~
The mother did not look up from her baby, so intent was she in rearranging her mussed hair, stroking her face. ~Why take me back? They will be able to smell vermin on me and Minna.~
~You can wash in a stream,~ Kris said.
~You cannot wash vermin off. I’ve slept with a vermin,~ she said, looking daggers at Jacques.
~All the women have slept with a vermin and gotten up none the wiser,~ he said.
For a moment, that seemed to break through the woman’s walls. For a second, Kris thought she might be open to considering just what that proved.
But only for a moment.
The woman shook herself. ~I have been surrounded by vermin. The stink of it will never wash off. They will never take me back.~
Kris puzzled on that for a moment. Then she made an offer. ~You can remain on our ship. We will care for you and your child. Two babies survived the destruction of one of your ships. We are raising them with care.~
The woman looked at Kris bleakly, then turned her back to her and began to sing a song that Nelly could not translate. “It makes no sense. It is just a lot of words that rhyme.”
“Maybe it’s a nursery rhyme,” Jacques said.
They left the woman nursing her child and made their way back up to Kris’s day quarters. There, they sat around the couch and chairs and stared glumly at the floor.