Conquerors' Pride

22

"I'm okay, ma'am," her assistant said from across the makeshift autopsy table. Words aside, he was looking a little green above his breather mask. "We almost done?"

"With this session, yes," Melinda assured him. "I'm going to have to scrounge up some specialized instruments before I can do anything with the cranium. We'll look at the tongue and then take a break."

"Yeah, I heard about that tongue," Hobson said darkly. "That's how that one iced Bremmer and Ranjithan."

"Yes," Melinda nodded, moving to the other end of the table and picking up a probe and clamp. "Open his mouth, will you? Carefully."

Hobson complied. Easing the probe under the tongue, Melinda lifted the tip out into the open and clamped it in place. "Interesting," she murmured, touching the edge.

"What are those things?" Hobson asked, leaning in for a closer look. "Look like little shark teeth."

"They're pieces of bone, I think," Melinda said, wiggling one of the dark-white triangles with her probe. "Fastened directly to the tongue muscle. Definitely sharp."

"How come they don't cut themselves?"

"They probably don't normally protrude quite this far out," Melinda said, picking up a scalpel and making a small incision between two of the bone teeth. "The muscle tissues have likely contracted somewhat over the past forty hours. Ah."

"What?" Hobson asked.

"Blood vessels," Melinda said, easing the incision open. "A fairly major set, right here at the edge."

Peripherally, she saw Hobson glance away. "Major Takara's coming," he said.

Melinda straightened and looked behind her. Takara was coming toward them through the deepening dusk, picking his way carefully around the boxes of equipment and supplies that had been piled beneath the wide rock overhang. "Major," she nodded as he stepped up to the plastic bubble of their makeshift autopsy room. "Anything from the biochem people?"

"Yes," Takara said, "and you can both relax. Turns out the Conquerors' genetic pattern isn't even remotely similar to ours. That apparently means that any viruses or bacteria associated with your subject there aren't going to have the slightest idea what to do with human body chemistry. Shouldn't be able to bother any of the native Dorcas ecosystem, either."

"And vice versa, I suppose?" Melinda asked.

"Right," Takara said, unsealing the bubble's flap door and stepping inside. "So much for any War of the Worlds scenarios we might have hoped for. How are you doing, Hobson?"

"I'm holding up, sir," Hobson said. "This isn't exactly my usual specialty, though."

"Consider it part of the exotic life your Peacekeeper recruiter promised you." Takara nodded at the Conqueror corpse on the table. "Looking at the tongue?"

"Yes," Melinda said. "And I think I know how he killed those two men." She touched one of the sharp bone fragments with her probe. "These bone teeth are attached to what seems to be a ridge of erectile tissue just beneath the tongue's surface. Normally, the tissue is soft and pliable, which lets the teeth float loosely. Keeps them from scratching or cutting anything in the inside of the mouth. When the tissue engorges, though, the teeth stiffen into place, turning into a sort of serrated knife along each edge. They might physically interlock, too, which would give the arrangement more structural strength. I'll have to poke around a little more to see if that's the case."

"Well, be careful while you do it," Takara warned. "The autopsy on Bremmer indicated there might have been some kind of poison in that wound. You at a break point here?"

"We could be," Melinda said, glancing past Takara's shoulder at the fading light past the overhang. Evening was coming, and they would have to quit soon anyway. "Do you need me somewhere else?"

"Colonel wants to see you in his office. Could take a while."

"All right," Melinda said, stripping off her gloves and breather mask and dropping them into the prep tray. "Hobson, can you get the body back into storage by yourself?"

"No problem, ma'am."

"And then get cleaned up and report to Lieutenant Gasperi in Command Three," Takara added. "Whenever you're ready, Doctor."

Holloway's "office"—a chair and computer desk in a corner of the tactical-equipment section of the overhang—was buzzing with activity when Melinda and Takara arrived. Holloway himself was standing in front of a map that had been fastened to the rough rock of the wall, holding a discussion with several of his men. Other Peacekeepers were moving back and forth between the desk and the other workstations, dropping off reports and picking up new orders. And off to one side, standing or sitting on the uneven floor, were a half-dozen tired-looking men in camouflage outfits.

The group by the map broke up. "Dr. Cavanagh," Holloway greeted her, stepping back to his desk and sitting down. "Sorry I can't offer you a chair, but we're a little short of furniture here. How's the dissection coming?"

"We've made a start," Melinda told him, stepping up to the desk and giving Holloway a quick once-over. He looked as tired as the men by the other wall. Maybe more so. "I've done a preliminary examination of the exterior and a closer study of the torso area. I need to do the head and the limbs, and then we'll move on to microscopic tissue studies."

"I see." Holloway picked up a small plastic sample box from the scattered electronic equipment and stacks of paper cluttering the desk and handed it to her. "Take a look. Tell me what you think."

Melinda took the box and looked through the lid. Inside, nestled in the palm of a camouflaged glove, was a thin, dark-brown disk, slightly curled at the edges. "It looks like a slice of sausage," she said. "Where did it come from?"

Holloway gestured to the camouflaged men. "Sergeant Janovetz?"

"We found it just north of the settlement," a raw-boned man near the middle of the group said. "In a little cubbyhole built into a sort of white pyramid thing the Conquerors have got set up on Overview Ridge."

Melinda frowned at Holloway. It had been barely two days since the Conquerors had invaded. "They're moving equipment in already?"

"They moved these in, anyway," Holloway said. "There appear to be four of them: one each north, south, east, and west of the settlement."

"Pretty good-sized, too," Janovetz said. "The one we saw was about three meters tall and a couple wide at the base, with probably a couple hundred of these cubbyholes cut into it."

"Some kind of defense station?" Melinda suggested. "Or a sensor array?"

"The positioning's right for either one," Holloway agreed. "Only problem is that the pyramids seem to be completely inert. No active or passive electronics, no power sources, no metal. Nothing." He nodded at the box. "Except those things."

Melinda looked into the box again. "How many were there?"

"There were four others in the cubbyholes we could see," Janovetz said. "Could have been more—we couldn't see into the top ones. Most of the holes were empty, though."

"Plenty of room for expansion, then," Melinda said.

"My thought exactly," Holloway nodded. "Means we'd better find out what the hell those things are. Preferably before the Conquerors get a whole shipment of them in."

"I understand," Melinda said. "I'll do what I can."

It was after midnight when she finally unsealed the flap door of the biochemical bubble and stepped wearily out into the dim nighttime lighting of the main medical ward. To her complete lack of surprise, Holloway was waiting there for her.

"Doctor," he murmured, getting up from where he'd been sitting against the rock wall and shutting off his plate. "Any progress?"

"Some," Melinda said, glancing at the rows of sleeping injured. Burn patients, most of them, victims of the Conquerors' laser weapons. "Can we talk somewhere else?" she whispered. "I don't want to wake them."

"Sure," Holloway whispered back. "This way."

He led her past the cots and the medic's duty station to the huge curtains that had been rigged at the edge of the rock overhang to keep light from leaking out. Holloway found an edge and a minute later they were outside in the cool mountain air. "What did you find out?" he asked.

"Not very much, I'm afraid," Melinda said. "It definitely follows the same genetic plan as the Conqueror tissue. But all that means is that it probably originated on the Conquerors' homeworld. The cellular structure is extremely tight-packed, which in humans might suggest either part of a sensory cluster or the central nervous system."

"Sensory cluster," Holloway murmured thoughtfully. "Maybe we were right about the pyramids being sensor stations."

"Maybe," Melinda nodded. "Again, that's what it might suggest in humans. We don't know what the Conquerors' patterns are like yet. One other thing: the cellular structure appears to be extremely uniform, with only the edge being made of a different material. Again, in terms of Earth biology that would suggest it's not an egg."

"Could it be a cutting or budding of some kind? I seem to remember that some plants and animals reproduce that way."

"Some do, yes," Melinda agreed. "Most of the ones we know about are fairly primitive, but that doesn't necessarily mean it can't occur in more advanced animals. I don't think the pyramids are Conqueror nurseries, though, if that's what you're getting at."

"Why not?"

"For one thing, I think I've got a good candidate for sexual organs in our Conqueror specimen," Melinda said. "If I'm right, it means they shouldn't reproduce via unisexual buds or slices or whatever. For another, why would anyone put a nursery out in the open like that? Especially in the middle of a war zone?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of an incubation site for one of the Conquerors' homeworld animals," Holloway said. "Something vicious that would help distract us from our fight against the Conquerors themselves. These things were pretty well protected—I don't think you heard, but each of the holes was covered by a little mesh door. Janovetz had to break a catch to get it open."

"No," Melinda said, suppressing a shiver. "I hadn't heard that."

Suppressed or not, Holloway noticed. "You cold?" he asked. "We could go somewhere else to talk."

"I'm all right," Melinda said, looking up at the stars and the thin clouds drifting across them. "I was just wondering whether it's safe to be out in the open like this."

"We're all right," Holloway assured her. "I don't think the Conquerors have anything that can still fly at the moment. Whatever their expertise at full line-ship combat, they don't seem nearly as adroit at this close-in planetary work. I'll have to thank your brother someday for his thoughtfulness in providing us with those Copperheads."

Melinda winced. "I'm sorry, Colonel. The idea was never to cause this much trouble for anyone."

"It's all right," he said. "I just hope they're able to find your brother Pheylan."

Melinda twisted around to stare at his silhouette. "How did—? Did the Copperheads tell you?"

"Actually, they were even more closemouthed about it than you were," Holloway said. "But it's been simmering in the back of my mind for a couple of days now. A private rescue mission into Conqueror space was the only halfway reasonable thing I could come up with. I assume from your reaction that I was right."

"Yes." Melinda looked up at the stars again. Wondering what their chances really were of finding Pheylan. Or whether he and Aric would both disappear into the darkness.

"You can't fight their part of the war for them," Holloway said quietly into the silence. "All you can do is try to handle your part, and let them be free to do theirs."

"That's easy for you to say," Melinda said.

"You think so?" he countered, his voice suddenly hard. "I have friends and family, too, you know. They're sitting in ships and ground stations all over Lyra and Pegasus Sectors, waiting for the Conquerors to attack. I can't do their worrying for them. Neither can you."

Melinda took a deep breath. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about," Holloway said, his voice calm again. "I've been in the Peacekeepers for twenty years now. It took me the first ten to learn how to let go. Anything else you can tell me about the sausage slice?"

"Not really," she said, forcing her mind away from Aric and Pheylan and back to the task at hand. "What I need to do now is run biochem tests on both the slice and the Conqueror body and do some comparisons. Do you suppose there's any chance of getting another slice, perhaps from one of the other pyramids? Or are the Conquerors protecting them too well?"

"Interesting you should bring that up," Holloway said. "Janovetz's team came under assault about three klicks out from the pyramid. It was his opinion that trying to get that close in again would be suicide unless we were willing to risk sending in some serious air cover, which I'm not. But I was looking over the recorder report just now, and I noticed that it was only on their way in toward the pyramid that the team encountered any real resistance. Once they were right there beside it, the attacks stopped."

"Sounds like the Conquerors didn't want to risk damage to the pyramid," Melinda suggested.

"I agree," Holloway nodded. "What's more curious is that the team was then also allowed to leave the pyramid without coming under any further fire."

Melinda frowned. "Are you sure about that?"

"It's right there in the recorder," Holloway said. "There were still bursts of laser fire chasing them away, but nothing that even came close."

"Seems odd," Melinda said, staring into the darkness. "Why would the Conquerors want to just let them go?"

"I come up with three possibilities," Holloway said. "One, the Conquerors didn't want anyone coming close to the settlement; two, they didn't care where we went as long as we didn't damage their pyramid; or three, they cared about both of the above but didn't want to risk damaging the sausage slice the team had appropriated. If Janovetz had tried going forward instead of turning back, we might have a better idea which it was. Too late now, of course."

"Yes." Melinda hesitated. "Colonel—no offense—but why are you telling me all this?"

"Mainly because you're not military," he said. "You've got an entirely different background and point of view, and that might let you see things the rest of us miss." He paused. "Besides, given that you're the one who brought it up, I thought you deserved to be kept up to date on the situation regarding the tectonic-monitoring station."

For a moment Melinda didn't understand what he was talking about. Then, suddenly, it all came back. "Is that what Janovetz was trying to get to?"

"It was one of their objectives," Holloway said. "They didn't get anywhere near it, though. And until that defense force Command promised us gets here, we're not going to get another shot at it. If the force gets here at all, of course."

So that was that. If the tectonic station was harboring one of the CIRCE components, it was likely going to stay buried awhile longer. Locked away from both NorCoord and the Conquerors. If they were lucky. "What happens if the Conquerors find it?"

Holloway shrugged. "In theory a single component's of no use to anyone. If there is one there and they get it, we wind up in stalemate mode."

For a minute they stood there in silence. "What do you think our chances are?" Melinda asked at last.

"Against the Conquerors?" Holloway shrugged again. "Probably going to depend on how well we can dig in for the long haul. Like I said, they don't seem all that good at ground fighting; and if they were going to nuke or fry us from orbit, you'd think they would have tried it by now."

Melinda thought back to that short battle after the Conquerors had shot down their aircar. "Maybe the Copperheads took them by surprise," she suggested.

"That could be part of it," Holloway agreed. "But if you add up what we've seen of their basic armament and tactics, you don't see anything very impressive. Especially for what one would expect to be their elite shock troops."

"Maybe we don't rate anything that elite," Melinda said, a shiver running up her back. "Maybe their shock troops are busy somewhere else. On one of the more important Commonwealth worlds."

"That's possible," Holloway said soberly. "If so, we could be a long time getting any help here."

Melinda blinked away sudden tears. Her father and brothers, all separated from each other... "But that's their part of the war," she said. "Right?"

"That's right," Holloway said. "Save your mental energy for our corner of it." He hesitated. "If it helps any, try remembering how well we did against them after they shot us down. If they were that badly prepared to deal with us, they ought to be completely out of their depth on Edo or Avon."

He twisted his wrist up, and Melinda caught the flicker of pale glow as he checked his watch. "Anyway, I've kept you out here too long already. What with the rest of the dissection and probably another round of surgery, your day's going to be as busy as mine."

Surgery... "Yes, it will," Melinda said mechanically as an odd thought suddenly occurred to her. Something half-remembered from her preliminary examination of the Conqueror corpse. "I'll try to have reports ready on both the slice and the Conqueror body by tomorrow evening."

"All right," Holloway said, finding the break in the curtain and guiding her through out of the darkness into the dim light of the medical ward. "You know where you're supposed to sleep?"

"Yes, I'm fine," she assured him. "I want to check something first, though."

"All right. Good night, Doctor."

"Good night."

The Peacekeeper engineers had rigged a storage box for the Conqueror corpse put of an empty transfer pod and the refrigeration unit from a spare Icefire engine. It had been set up in an out-of-the-way spot a few meters from the autopsy area. A dark out-of-the-way spot, unfortunately, a factor Melinda hadn't properly appreciated when she'd headed off on this little side trip. But it couldn't be helped. This section of the overhang area wasn't yet screened from view from the outside world, and Holloway had expressly forbidden lights here until it was. She would have to make do with the diffuse starlight filtering through the trees or forget the whole thing until morning.

But she reached the storage box without anything worse than minor damage to her toes and shins. Hobson had pushed the spare equipment cart right beside it, and with a little cautious feeling around she located a breather mask and fresh pair of gloves. Putting them on, she popped open the cover.

The Conqueror body was lying faceup on the metal slab the engineers had spot-welded into the pod. Easing the head over to face away from her, she ran a hand up the neck beneath the backward curve of the cranium. If she was remembering correctly...

And there it was: the telltale smoothness of scar tissue. A vertical incision, slightly off center, extending most of the way between the skull and the top of the bony ridge that topped the alien's spine. Smooth, very professionally done, about five centimeters long.

And just about the right size for the removal of something the diameter of that sausage slice.

Slowly, carefully, she returned the head to vertical and closed the cover of the storage box. It was ridiculous, she knew. Completely ridiculous. And yet...

Behind her mask she snorted. No; it was ridiculous. The Conquerors had sexual organs—surely they didn't reproduce by budding. And they certainly didn't reproduce in any way that required surgery to function. Turning away, she lifted her gloved hand to the seal on the breather mask—

And froze. There, no more than ten meters away, something was floating slowly through the air across the storage area. Something pale white in color, insubstantial in form, moving between the piles of boxes and equipment.

A ghost.

Against her cheek Melinda felt her hands begin to tremble, every ghost story Aric and Pheylan had inflicted on her as a child surging back in a bubbling flood of panic. She took an involuntary step backward, coming up short as the small of her back rammed into the cold storage box. The ghostly figure paused, seemed to turn its head toward her—

And with a flash of horror she saw that the face turned toward her was that of a Conqueror.

It vanished at that moment, disappearing instantly into nothingness. But it didn't matter. Melinda's scream was already on its way.

"I'm all right," she said, taking one last sip of hot liquid and handing the cup back to the medic. Her hand, she noticed, was still trembling slightly. "Thank you."

"You sure?" Holloway asked.

"Yes. I'm sorry, Colonel."

"It was a perfectly reasonable reaction," Holloway assured her. "I'd probably have emptied a full clip into it, myself. Is there anything else you can tell us about it?"

Melinda shook her head. "Not really. It was definitely there, definitely three-dimensional, and definitely a Conqueror. And definitely looked like something straight out of a ghost story."

Beside Holloway, Major Takara shook his head. "This doesn't make sense, Cass. Even begging the question of how they did it, why bother running a hologram into the base in the first place?"

"Maybe to shake us up," Holloway said. "Create a ruckus so they could get an idea of personnel and weapons placement by seeing how and where we react. If all it was was a hologram."

"What else could it have been?" Takara asked.

"I don't know," Holloway said. "But we're dealing with aliens and unknown technology. And a slice of something that Dr. Cavanagh suggested might be part of a sensory cluster."

Takara frowned at him. "You're not suggesting that sausage slice is part of a high-tech retrieval system, are you? With a hologram as the far end of it?"

"Yes, it's a ridiculous idea," Holloway nodded. "I agree. But Dr. Cavanagh said it was floating around the equipment dumps; and at this point I don't care about looking ridiculous. Have we got anything out here with half a chance of blocking whatever sensor system the Conquerors might be using?"

Takara already had his plate out. "Well, we could rig another pod like the one holding the body back there. But that wouldn't—wait a minute. Here we go: the darkroom."

"What's that?" Melinda asked.

"Electronics reconfiguration chamber," Holloway told her. "Multilayered steel, lead, soft iron, and a couple others. Designed to block out anything that might damage unshielded crystallines, up to and including a fair percentage of cosmic rays. That's perfect, Fuji. Get the slice moved over there right away."

"Got it," Takara said. "What about the body? You want that moved in there, too?"

"Yes," Holloway said. "Dr. Cavanagh can continue her dissection work in there tomorrow." He looked at her. "If you feel up to it by then."

"I'll be fine," she promised.

For a moment his eyes searched her face. "All right," he nodded. "But don't push it."