Tenacious

29

Kris woke up the next morning, hurting in a lot more places than her shoulder.

Jack put an arm over her.

“Ouch. Be careful.”

“I avoided your cut.”

“That little woman was packing a lot of wallop in her hits. I don’t think the spider silk is quite calibrated to handle blunt-force trauma.”

“It serves you right for trying to be the hero. Single combat to resolve all our differences? I thought that was just a guy thing.”

“You enjoy watching two cute chicks going at it?” Kris shot back. With a grin.

“That mean old biddy is not a cute chick. And you, my love, are never cute. And never, ever, a chick.”

“I’m not?” Kris’s grin was long gone.

“No. You are lovely, drop-dead gorgeous, a stunning beauty, but cute is for our little daughter. And as for a chick. You are an admiral, viceroy, and most fighting captain in the king’s Navy. Chicks are for young things that don’t have any experience under their belts.”

Kris made a face at him. “I’ll give you a 3.9 out of 4 for recovery on that one.”

“Would you like to do something before we shower?” Jack asked.

“Love, I’d love to do something before we shower but I have a bad feeling that if I try, I’ll have a whole lot of bad feelings.”

“Where are the painkillers?” Jack asked.

Sal told him, and Jack headed for the bathroom to return with two white tablets.

“You don’t mind a rain check, do you?”

“I’ve got the shower changing into a nice warm tub of water for us to soak your aches and pains in,” Jack said. “Ain’t the Smart Metal app wonderful?”

They arrived for breakfast late, just as the wardroom was emptying of Navy and filling with scientists. Captain Drago was filling a cup of coffee to take with him, but he dropped into the chair across from Kris. Once again, Jack was getting her chow.

“That was quite a fight you put up,” the skipper said with a broad grin.

“You watched?”

“The drop bay is on the surveillance-camera system. I think the whole crew watched.”

“All of it?” Kris asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Right up to the where you started your striptease. Then I killed the feed. How did it turn out?”

“I’ve got a cut on my shoulder that bled very freely and very red. We now have twenty new recruits.”

“Hmm,” he said, and sipped his coffee thoughtfully. “How do you think they’ll take it when they find out that we’re at war with their Sky Gods or whatever they call the star walkers?”

“A good question. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

“Before we break orbit?”

“No. We need to educate these folks a lot more before we take them that far.”

“And after we’ve educated them, what if they want to switch sides?”

“I’ll blow up that bridge when I come to it.”

“Spoken like a true Longknife. By the way, how is that kid coming along? The sick one that started all this?”

“I’m waiting to hear from Doc Meade,” Kris said.

“Speak of a walking miracle and who walks in,” Drago said. “Good Morning, Doctor.”

“Yes, it is. I’m finally going to get some sleep.”

Kris turned to see a very exhausted woman stumbling toward the coffee urn.

“How is the young boy?”

“On the mend,” she said. “Otherwise, I would not see any prospects for sleep. His fever broke two hours ago. His other vitals are back in what is the normal range for these folks. I had him on double the dosage we tested on human kids of his weight, and that’s what it took to beat this. Those extra proteins must be doing something for them, but what it is, I have no idea.”

“So they’re a mystery to us,” Kris said.

“But becoming less of a mystery by the minute. I think you’ll find very interesting some news I was just told.”

The skipper made to leave.

“Hang around a bit. I think you’ll enjoy this bit of rumor.”

Captain Drago sat back down.

“One of my associates finished an autopsy on the woman who killed herself yesterday. No, day before yesterday. My hours are all messed up. Anyway, they are maddening. Very like us, but not, you know.”

“No I don’t, but I’m listening,” Kris said. Her body hurt, and she was hungry. Maybe she was a bit cranky.

“Their brain is so much like ours, but different,” the doc said. “So very different in some major ways and a lot of minor ways. I’ll keep this simple. There’s this part of the human brain where we think resides the ability to see yourself as part of something larger. Some people call it the ‘God Part’ of the brain.”

“I’ve heard of it,” Captain Drago said.

“Well, we found a portion of that woman’s brain that’s atrophied. Not used at all, and if I’m guessing right, I think it’s the part of their brain that does that.”

Kris puzzled that over for a few moments. “Could that be why what we see down dirtside is a lot of small groups?”

“With a strange lack of any concept of something bigger than themselves,” Doc Meade said. “Yes, they talk of the Sky Gods, but I don’t think they think of them the way traditional humans think of their God.”

“Their creation story even had their Sky ‘Gods’ as just like them until they chose to walk the stars,” Captain Drago said.

“You listened to the song?” Kris asked.

“No, I found it long and boring, but I did get Dr. la Duke’s executive summary. Did our researchers find any hint of a divine something down there?”

“It was conspicuous by its absence,” Kris said. “Even when looking at the potential death of her grandson, the woman with the stick could only talk about a ‘will’ that meant he must go down into the ground.”

“Nothing but fatalism, huh,” the skipper said. “What does that mean for us and the spacefaring raiders?”

Kris frowned and turned to the doctor.

“Ever hear,” Doc Meade said, “of a line that went, ‘All people are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights: the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’?”

“Father says it regularly,” Kris said, “although I think the original was ‘all men were created equal.’”

“I got it from my mom,” the doctor said, “whichever way it went, it says basically the same thing. People have the right to throw off a tyrant. It’s our God-given right. Now subtract God from that equation. Where do your basic human rights come from?”

“I know plenty of atheists who would take offense at that,” Captain Drago said.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to start a fight, but where do you get the right to freedom if the powerful have their boot on your neck, like that woman who killed herself? If there is no sense of something greater, beyond just us, some higher moral good, what have you got?”

“Ten thousand years of slavery before the folks from that planet below rose up in a killing rage,” Captain Drago said.

“And a hundred thousand years of zooming around the galaxy,” Kris said, “flattening anything that might become a threat to you, while everyone follows the ‘Enlightened One’ because he’s the enlightened one and has the Black Hats to throw you out on your ass if you don’t follow orders.”

“A horrible thought,” Doc Meade said.

“Any suggestion as to how we reactivate the ‘God Part’ of the aliens’ brains?” Kris asked.

“I’d like to convert this hypothesis to something closer to a theory, Admiral. I plan to run the little boy through a battery of tests today. Among the ones he needs, I’m going to slip in a full brain scan. After that, I intend to ask for volunteers for more tests. I’ve got legitimate reasons to build up a medical database for them. If they get injured or sick, I’ll need it to know what to do for them.”

“Do it, Doctor,” Kris said. “I never thought I’d be contemplating biological warfare through genetic manipulation, but it sure beats the idea of having to slaughter every last one of them.”

“And how do you propose to get close enough to them to apply this biological warfare?” Captain Drago asked.

“First, she confirms her theory, then I’ll drop the problem in the lap of my flag captain,” Kris said with a wicked grin.

Drago stood up. “Jack, you better feed this woman. She’s evil when she’s hungry.”

“She’s evil when she’s fed,” Jack said.

“She’s a Longknife,” the doctor said. “They are born evil.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Kris said, reaching for a bran muffin. “You say the nicest things to me.”