The boy looked even more puzzled at this.
"What do you think the last brother said to the heroyne when his house was gone?"
On more familiar territory now the boy replied, "Don't eat me!"
"And let's see you make a stab at guessing what it did do."
The boy gave the usual reply whilst the heroyne in the picture book repeatedly gobbled down a man in priestly attire…
It started after the first sleep period, when the clans came groggily from, in most cases, drugged slumber. Apis had woken before most of the others. Yes, the destruction of the station was terrible, but it was also the most exhilarating thing that had happened to him. His mother woke shortly after, and studied him speculatively as he gazed at the other clan members rising and beginning to move about. No one had an individual cabin. They were in a huge hold, and what privacy they had was provided by plastic sheeting easily suspended in low gee — probably created by slow acceleration of the ship rather than any grav-tech, as Peerswarf informed him.
"Go and find a food dispenser," his mother ordered him, and he quickly went, not being inclined to disobey when her voice took on that tone. Apis soon found a machine set in the wall, and collected a ration of food bars and a container of some sort of hot drink — there had been no labels on the machine. He was on his way back when he heard the uproar. Immediately curious, he went over to investigate.
Two full-gee men stood uncomfortably by doors at the back of the bay. There was something quite odd about their identical dress: they wore white shipsuits that appeared to be padded and armoured, and down one side from armpit to ankle were words in no language Apis understood. They wore visored helmets that armoured one side of their faces, and joined to a ring of the same white metal around their necks. On the exposed sides of their heads they each wore scaled augs with an organic appearance. They both also carried weapons of some kind. Apis realized that these men wore military uniforms — but no Polity uniform that he recognized.
"We want five of you — now," one of the men said, his voice seeming almost disinterested.
The rousing Outlinkers ignored what he had just said, and bombarded him and his comrade with questions. Apis glanced aside and saw that several other Outlinkers were standing back with their heads bowed and fingers pressed to their own augs — none of which had the organic appearance of those worn by the guards. They all bore expressions of puzzlement.
"Nothing," said the old man standing next to him. "I'm getting nothing."
As the questioning grew more insistent, the Outlinkers drew closer to the two soldiers, who simply seemed puzzled by this behaviour. Apis did not see or hear what initiated action. All he saw was the soldier — who had not spoken — swing his weapon, and all he heard was the sickening crunch of breaking bone. The crowd parted around a clanswoman falling slow, and foetal, to the floor. Afterwards, there was silence.
"We want five of you," said the speaker, in that same disinterested tone, and the Outlinkers began to move away. "Now," the man added, pointing his weapon at the crowd for emphasis. One of the crowd stepped forward. It was Peerswarf, the man Apis liked to think was his father.
"We demand you let us speak with the ship AI. This is intolerable. Are we animals to be treated like this?" Peerswarf watched as others tended to the woman. There was an expression of disbelief on his face. Apis stared at the woman, and saw that her skull had a cavity and she was not breathing. It seemed that no one wanted to admit she was dead.
The speaker raised his tinted visor and gazed at Peerswarf. Now a sneer twisted the soldier's features.
"We do not allow idiot silicon to order our lives. There is no AI on this ship. Under God, men fly it, men control it, men operate the guns."
Silence of shock, more profound than the assault had caused, met this statement.
"She is dead," said one of those who had stooped down to the woman.
Peerswarf glanced down at him as if he had said something illogical, then he returned his attention to the soldiers.
"You killed her…"
"Yes, and more will be killed if five of you do not come with me now."
"What… what for?"
"We need five able hands to work in the engine room."
"Engine room?"
Since when had anyone worked in the engine room of a ship? Automatics handled such things. Robots normally did the work in such places.
"Now!" yelled the soldier, and with that raised his weapon upwards and pulled the trigger. There was a low thrumming and something crackled across the ceiling. Apis heard the caroming of ricochets, and noted the line of dents in the metal. Rail-gun, primitive.
Hesitantly at first, several Outlinkers stepped forward, to be directed through the doors. More soldiers waited beyond. Apis turned to hurry back to his mother, but she was already standing at his shoulder. They gazed at each other but they did not speak. Later, when the five returned, dirty, tired, and with the radiation tags on their belts into amber, they exchanged that gaze again. All their lives they'd had information access. They now knew the score: they were in the hands of barbarians.
"I am Deacon Chaisu of the warship General Patten," the face on the screen informed them later on. "It is unfortunate that a member of your group was killed today — may she rest in the arms of our Lord — but it must be understood that you are indebted for your lives to the people and planet of Masada and to the God of the Faithful. A small portion of this debt can be cancelled by your work upon this ship, and finally in the yards on Flint…" The Deacon went on and on about the wonderful things they could do, and the projects in which they might become involved. He then told them they were the defenders of humanity.
"Perhaps you are unaware of what caused the destruction of Outlink station Miranda… Some of you may know the story of the system of Aster Colora, some of you may know of the more recent events on the way-station world of Samarkand. On the latter world, thousands of people were killed by the transgalactic servant of Satan that names itself Dragon. It used a nanomycelium to destroy the buffers of an interstellar runcible so that a man arrived on Samarkand as photonic matter. His arrival was the cause of a fusion explosion that killed many. Many more died in the aftermath, for Samarkand was a cold world heated by energy build-ups from the runcible. The rest of the population froze to death. Know now that the nanomycelium used to destroy Miranda was the same one — that Dragon destroyed your home. You must work now to…"
So it went on and, each time they thought it had finished with a 'God defend the faithful', Deacon Chaisu would start up again.
"Propaganda officer," said someone nearby.
"They're religious," observed Apis's mother.
"So?" asked the speaker.
"They believe their own propaganda. It's where the word originates," she replied knowledgeably.
Apis asked, "What is going on?"
"There is an old word for what we are to become," said the man nearby.
"What is that?" asked Apis.
"Slaves," his mother told him.
The sprawns were the blue of tool steel and over ten centimetres long. Their wings made it necessary for nets to be stretched across their ponds at all times, to prevent them flying off to die in an environment hostile to them. As Eldene understood it, they were another expensive delicacy destined both for the tables of the Theocracy and for them to trade in exchange for luxury goods from other worlds.