“So what do you suggest?”
“I suggest we try to learn more about our prisoner.”
“And how are we going to learn more about a creature that won’t, or can’t, talk with us?”
“Let’s start with the basics: physiology. What you said about their ship architecture also holds true for living things, too: form follows function. Maybe a detailed look at what we suspect to be an Arat Kur body will give us some insights into the species’ psychology.”
“Maybe. Maybe it will simply give the bastard another opportunity to attack us.”
“I doubt it,” Caine disagreed. “We still have the gun, and it’s displayed a thorough understanding of what that means.”
“Yes, but perhaps it’s had time to formulate a new strategy. Suicide, for instance.”
“Trevor, if the Arat Kur wants to commit suicide, then we’re done for. Neither positive nor negative stimuli will compel it to cooperate.”
“That’s not necessarily true.” Trevor chose his next words carefully; he was sure that the idea behind them would not be popular. “Negative stimuli can produce results even when a subject wishes to die.”
Caine looked up. “Trevor, are you talking about torture?”
Trevor tried to find the carefully oblique phrases that were the stock-in-trade of official milspeak, gave up. “Yes, torture. If necessary.”
Caine shook his head. “Trevor, leaving ethics aside for a moment, let’s recall our intel and survival objective: that the alien communicates with us. Sure, if you use pain, you might make him talk. Or, on the other hand, because the alien’s psychology and physiology cause it to have radically different reactions, it might clam up for good. Then instead of having the possibility of getting answers, we find ourselves facing the certainty of death.” Caine stared straight into Trevor’s eyes. “Besides, we might owe him.”
“We owe him? What and why in hell do we owe him anything?”
Caine maintained his unblinking stare. “How did his ship get nailed?”
“Hazawa’s PDF laser. Damn good shooting.”
“No argument. But why did this particular exosapient even come into range of that weapon? Why did Hazawa even have a chance to shoot at him?”
“He—” Oh Christ. “All right, we were running a diplomatic beacon: a white flag. It was wrong, but it was also a mistake. On the other hand, these bastards have invaded our territory and, judging from yesterday’s results, killed a shitload of our brothers and sisters in arms. That wasn’t a mistake. It was coldblooded murder. This little shit is a soldier. He’s earned whatever he gets.”
“How do you know he’s a soldier?”
“What?”
“What if this Arat Kur is not a soldier? Remember what you said about his craft: not much like a military design. Maybe that’s because it isn’t part of their military. In which case, maybe he isn’t, either. In that case, we’d be torturing an Arat Kur civilian, possibly to death, whom we ambushed while showing a white flag.”
Trevor closed his eyes. The ethical issues had become even more murky than his vision and more uncertain than his balance. “Okay, then what do you suggest we do?”
“We suit up to go below and meet our prisoner.”
Trevor saw Caine’s feet disappear into the access way leading to their module’s lower deck. Ironically, Riordan was now better moving in zero-gee than Trevor, who bumped awkwardly along after him, left arm dragging and his legs twitching at inopportune moments. Trevor swam through a gauntlet of orange emergency lights to catch up with Caine at the Arat Kur’s prison cell and produced the handgun. Caine nodded, overrode the lock on the door, and pushed himself forward—into darkness.
“Damn it. I meant to turn the lights on in here.” Caine’s helmet lights winked on, played quickly about the room.
Trevor shrugged. “So what? A little sensory deprivation might make our guest more cooperative.”
Caine’s helmet lights picked out the spacesuited Arat Kur, floating motionless in a corner on the opposite side of the room. The cables wrapped around the oblong shape were intact. Trevor centered the laser aimpoint on the lower half of the alien’s belly. “You’re covered.”
Caine activated the room’s lights and the two humans closed to a meter’s range. Still no movement. Caine undid the knotted cables. The coils fell away from the Arat Kur, which simply floated, inert.
“Is it dead?” asked Trevor.
He had meant the question as a rhetorical gibe, but Caine leaned closer to inspect the life-support unit on the alien’s back. “I doubt it. There are no red lights showing on its life-support pack. However, a number of gauges have changed since we came over from the wreck. Probably those are simply measuring the drain on energy and air supplies.”
Trevor nodded; a reasonable hypothesis. “What do we do with him now?”
“We dress him out,” said Caine.
Trevor’s stomach contracted, trying to get away from the alien and the notion of seeing it fully exposed. “Is this a suitable environment for him?” he croaked.
“He should be okay. The atmosphere we found on his ship shows that they are oxygen breathers. If anything, he’ll find our air a little bland. His had higher traces of sulfur.”
Trevor found that removing the Arat Kur’s spacesuit was not especially difficult. The garment was semirigid, with a more flexible strip running across the dorsal surface. This strip functioned as a hinge, which allowed the suit to split into anterior and posterior halves. The ventral surface was quartered by the intersection of longitudinal and latitudinal seals. Opening the suit involved undoing these ventral seals and then exerting a slight pressure on the dorsal hinge; the Arat Kur eased out of the garment like an irregular pea forced out of its pod. Its six legs also dragged free of their coverings limply, then they slowly curled back up toward the body until the rear two pair laid flat against the flat belly and the front pair were bunched up just under the alien’s chin.
Chin? Well, at least that’s how Trevor thought of it: the Arat Kur didn’t really have one. The creature’s body was essentially a front-heavy ellipse. The front was a blunt, flattened surface with a large, recessed central orifice: the alimentary opening, maybe? Two wide-set eyes were located above this “mouth” and two equally wide-set orifices were located beneath it. Slight, rhythmic alterations in those lower orifices suggested that they were respiratory ducts.
The Arat Kur’s back was most notable in that it seemed to be the only part of the body that sprouted any hair. The growth was sparse, occurring as small, evenly distributed clusters of short, fine spines. Each spine rose from the center of a pronounced pore. These, and a few other apparently hairless pores, were the only ones on the alien’s entire body.
Trevor pushed away from the presumed Arat Kur. “Any helpful insights?”
Caine shook his head. “None. You?”
“No. But I don’t trust it, the way it just floats there, waiting. Waiting for what? For us to turn our backs? To die?”
“Maybe it’s not waiting at all. Maybe it can’t move.”
“Can’t move?”
“Maybe it’s in shock. Or in an altered state of consciousness. Or is too emotionally traumatized to respond.”