Captive's War 1: The Mercy of Gods

PART THREEPUZZLES

Your species is not the first we have encountered with the delusion that peace is a desirable state. The Eklil of Hannabor spent half of their history composing scent-symphonies in praise of a state free from tension and pain that none of them ever experienced. The Mitria Salo worshipped the Point of Equanimity in defiance of all evidence that such a thing was impossible. Your own people were in a constant generational argument over which group or subgroup, gender or culture or religion, suffered most at the hands of the others, as if the concept of justice were not narrative and abstract.

Over and over again, we found it in our subject species, this faith that a state of peace was not only possible, but desirable. That if only someone were clever enough or wise enough, a way could be found for everyone to be in comfort and satiety.

This delusion has never been the error of the Carryx. We knew from the moment we knew anything that what can be subjugated, must be. The species that exist long enough to achieve higher orders of intelligence do so only by relentlessly out-competing the other species around them. And it is this endless, iterative testing of ourselves against the universe that drives us eternally toward greater power and effectiveness. Your people, like many of the subject species we’ve encountered, believed that there is a tipping point where the constant fight for supremacy becomes unethical. Where peace becomes the new norm. As though it is possible through intellect or philosophy to transcend the fundamental nature of all life.

The betrayer, though. That one managed both. He could dream of perfection without being fettered by it. He desired peace and destroyed countless worlds to take it. He held both these ideas in his mind at the same time, and instead of this dissonance ripping him apart, it made him powerful. If we had known that before it was too late we would have killed him. You should take note of that.

You would be wise to kill him too.

—From the final statement of Ekur-Tkalal, keeper-librarian of the human moiety of the Carryx

Thirteen

The librarian, if that’s what it wanted to be called, led them at the pace of a brisk walk. Rickar was at the back of the group, several long steps behind.

His face hurt where the wound was still healing. The remnants of the clothes he’d worn since Anjiin stuck to his skin, but they’d been doing it so long he hardly noticed anymore. Tonner and Else and the others were all in clean tunics and trousers of off-white and yellow, their faces washed and their hair brushed. Campar had a little beard he hadn’t had before, neatly trimmed and shaped. Jessyn’s hair was still wet from the shower. She and Irinna held hands like schoolchildren on a field trip, Tonner and Else walked side by side without touching, with Dafyd close behind them. Campar sped up and slowed down, checking in on each member of their little group over and over again like a sheepdog herding his flock and keeping an eye out for wolves. It was the big man’s look of disapproval that had encouraged Rickar to give the rest of the group a wide berth.

Synnia didn’t come with them, and no one seemed to question her absence. Nöl wasn’t there, and no one commented on that either, but Rickar had seen enough in the past weeks to guess. He was so happy to see them all, he wanted to cry. He was afraid of what would happen if he did. Or maybe he was just afraid. Fear had become the default setting, of late.

The hallways were as wide as streets. The walls, of the same cool metallic roughness as the holding cell, had been but laced by lines and patterns and angled in so that the ceilings were always a little bit narrower than the floors. After a life spent in the gentle curves of Anjiin’s grown coral buildings, the architecture of the Carryx felt aggressively manufactured. Like they were moving through the interior of some vast machine.

“You are all permitted access to this pathway,” the librarian said. “And also to the complex.” Or rather, it whistled and hooted and the black square on its chest spoke a second later.

“The complex?” Dafyd echoed.

“Where the work is done,” it replied, as if that answered the question.

“The work?”

“Soon, soon,” the librarian said, patting at the air with one of its mantis-like forearms. The gesture was eerie because it seemed almost human. Like the thing had learned how the primates of Anjiin used their bodies well enough to mimic them but not so well that the movement seemed natural.

Other groups passed in the corridor. He recognized some. Rak-hund that had murdered people in the invasion, Soft Lothark jailers from the ship. Others were unfamiliar. A flock of hand-sized globes that floated and swam through the air in a chorus of ticking that might have been something about their method of flight or might have been a conversation. A thing that looked like someone had crossed an ape with a crow that stood alone in the corridor with its face to the wall. A thick black animal that could almost have been a dog, but with a mouth that opened vertically set between far too many eyes. And the wide-bodied Carryx themselves, lumbering along on their massive forearms with their abdomens skittering behind to keep up.

The librarian turned, then started down a gently sloping ramp. Rickar caught Jessyn’s eye and tried a smile. The smile she gave back was quick and small, and her eyes flicked away at once. He felt as embarrassed as if he’d asked her to come to bed with him and had her laugh at the thought.

That wasn’t her fault. He wasn’t at his sanest.

When hell came to Anjiin, he’d been with a group of his old friends from Dyan Academy. Some, he’d followed from the café where he’d first learned about the things that Samar Austad hadn’t lived to see. Some were part of the gathering they’d gone to join. Else, bless her, had offered him a place in her basement, but that had seemed like a terrible idea. He’d made his excuses and stayed where he was.

All of them, Rickar included, had been either drunk or otherwise altered by the time the grid appeared in the sky and the voice had followed it. He’d been outside, sitting around a fire pit with an older woman he’d known on and off for years and her precocious ten-year-old son. The memory of her seeing the uncanny brightnesses in the sky and treating them like a great treat as a way to keep her child from panicking hurt Rickar now. She’d died in the first strike.

Three others in the group had as well. A single loud sizzle like someone had overloaded an electrical circuit, and they’d collapsed, the air smelling of distant lightning. One of them had screamed, but only once. He could still see the blood pouring out of her side where the exit wound gaped. He could still see her son’s eyes widening.

Irinna touched his forearm, and he flinched, but he was back in the corridor with the alien monsters. How terrible that should be a better place than his memories.

“You’re all right?” the young woman asked softly.

“Sure. Fine,” he said. “Thank you.”

She nodded once sharply before moving back to Jessyn’s side. Rickar shoved his hands in the rotting remains of his pockets and lowered his eyes. He felt himself on the edge of a kind of sensory overload. He felt that way often.

The corridor broadened, the ceiling rising away into a cathedral-tall space. Vast, dark walls towered higher than the tallest buildings at Irvian, lines of brightness and dark covering them like calligraphy in some unimaginable script. Archways where the walls met the floors seemed like decorative flourishes until they came close to them and saw they led to alcoves tall enough that Rickar couldn’t have touched the ceiling with his outstretched hand. Huge windows, high above in the cathedral space, let in what appeared to be natural light: wide white beams cutting through a haze of dust. A dozen or more species chittered and sang, moved through the broad central space or squatted in it in groups like undergraduates having a picnic by the duck pond. The far side of the chamber felt like it was almost too far away to see. The air smelled weirdly like a forest—rot and wet and growth and decay.

There was something else about it too. An energy in the atmosphere. A brightness. Like the air itself was easier to breathe…

“What the hell is this?” Tonner said.

“This is for you,” the librarian said, its reedy, machine-mediated voice somehow managing to be warm and reassuring. “Your place is this way.” It gestured with the thinner pair of forearms. “This way.”

The alcove it led them toward had a band of red across the top that reminded Rickar of the old Gallatian parable about spreading a blood offering over the doorway of a house as a sign of faith that made the demons pass it by. The alcove itself was like a deep side chamber off the bedlam of what Rickar already thought of as the public square. Counters stood at the height of workbenches, but made from something like fiberglass or hard ceramic and attached immovably to the walls. There were a series of complications on the benches. One that could have been a centrifugal sampling unit. Another that looked like some kind of off-brand CCA-resonance imager. A screen that had the menu script of the proteomic dictionary they had used back at the Irvian Research Complex in some previous lifetime. Salvage from Anjiin, torn out of whatever building they’d been in and brought here, just as they had been.

The librarian shuffled around, surprisingly agile for something as huge as it was.

“This is a laboratory,” Tonner said. “This is our laboratory. From home.”

“Functionally,” the librarian agreed. “The details are approximate. But we believe that all of the work you did there can be continued here.”

“Why?” Jessyn asked. Her voice had an awed tone that made Rickar wonder if she was aware she’d spoken.

A small brown creature with vast yellow eyes and something equal parts fur and feathers covering its body scurried in, looked at them all, and scurried back out. The librarian moved deeper into the alcove and they followed. A turn in the alcove’s back had obscured another structure, and the team gathered around it like students taking a guided tour through a museum. Here is a display of ancient art. Here are the skulls left from long-past atrocities pulled out of their graves for your edification. Rickar moved forward too, trying to see better, and then back. He felt hungry and nauseated at the same time.

The cages were cubes of clear material—glass or plastic or transparent ceramics—and a little over waist high. In one, a cluster of red orbs clung to a stick, shifting slightly as though they were ruffled by some unfelt breeze. In the other, a wide, flat creature lurched about on three stumpy legs. Its body was an iridescent blue that flashed to vibrant red when the light struck it at certain angles. It reminded Rickar of a turtle that was missing a quarter of itself.

The librarian gestured toward the bright red orbs. Berries. Eggs. Fungal growths. Whatever they were. “These are from one of our subject worlds. This”—it pointed to the not-turtle—“is from another. You will make these first organisms nourishing for the second.”

The librarian shifted its mass away, making more room for them in front of the cages. The others surged forward. Most of the others. Dafyd Alkhor kept back the same way Rickar did, though probably for different reasons. The younger man was scowling and glancing back toward the mouth of the alcove like there was something there he’d forgotten.

The research team, though, were packed close to the cages and the samples. Tonner stood in the center of the group, Else at his side, commanding the little space with his body the way he always had.

“These are from different planets?” Tonner asked. “Different evolutionary trees?”

“Yes,” the librarian said.

“Do they match either of the biomes from Anjiin?” Tonner asked. There was already a sense of authority coming into his voice. “Are these known structures, or are we starting from scratch?”

“An important question,” the librarian agreed without answering.

Irinna pushed down on the cage with the red orbs, and it clicked, the top rising open on a hinge that Rickar couldn’t see even as he saw it working. The smell that came out was like incense and fresh-turned earth—spicy and rich.

“You are permitted as many samples of the organisms as are of use. We have duplicated your supplies from your former laboratory. If you have other needs, I will consider them.”

Jessyn was reaching in to stroke the red orbs. They shifted on their stick, neither moving toward her nor away from her. Rickar wondered whether they knew they were food.

“What if we don’t do it?” That was Alkhor. He had moved back to lean against the opposite wall. The librarian had to turn to look at him, his bulk scattering the rest of the group.

Else stepped in, moving physically between the thing and the young man. “Or if we can’t. This isn’t a small project. Generalizing two whole biomes from single samples and then reconciling them? If it’s more than we can manage?”

The librarian planted its two massive forelegs on the ground, leaning forward on them to let its hindquarters dance from side to side in agitation. For a moment, it seemed to be at a loss for words.

“This is your task,” it said.

“What about these other creatures,” Dafyd asked. “Are they being tested too? This same test?”

The librarian’s answer came quickly this time. “The only test is whether a subject species is useful. Usefulness is survival.”

They were all silent for a moment. The implications of the simple statement were like ice water in Rickar’s blood.

Campar chuckled. “Come on, that’s pretty much what every funding committee says.”

No one laughed.

The path back to the rooms felt shorter than the walk out had been. Rickar had noticed that before in other, less exotic circumstances. The first walk through a new neighborhood, the first commute in a new city, the first time finding his way to a new address to meet someone, and the anxiety of walking with them to a café that he was only halfway sure he could find. First times always expanded the experience of the space for him. Going back was faster, the distance shorter, because it was known.

When they got back, Synnia still sat exactly where she’d been when they left, her hands folded in her lap. The others had fallen into conversation, so he went to her, asked which of the rooms were taken and which he could lay claim to. She showed him, and he picked the door farthest from the others.

He showered awkwardly, startled by the blast of red fluid, then luxuriating in the warm water that followed. The bruises on his back had faded, but he could still feel them. And his ribs ached when he breathed too deeply. He washed his hair and shaved and tried to remember what he could about the psychology of trauma. He’d read a book about it once, but it had seemed like abstract knowledge at the time.

The clothing that the aliens had left for him fit well enough, but he could still wish for a decent jacket and a pair of soft shoes.

When he reached the common room again, cleaner and fresh-faced apart from the scab on his neck softened by the shower and bleeding, he found that the others had hauled the couches and chairs and cushions into a rough circle. A little oblong, really, with the apex of the curve focused on Tonner. Another thing that hadn’t changed.

He went to the kitchen where a pot of something that looked and smelled like soup simmered on a thermal pad. It had an aroma like beef and fresh ginger, and nothing had ever smelled better. No one objected when he took a bowl and a spoon and helped himself. After the near tasteless paste he’d survived on during the journey, the depth and richness was intoxicating. He listened to the others talking as he took stock of the pantry. Fruit and frozen meat, loaves of bread that had been kept cold enough that they were still thawing, fresh vegetables, but nothing leafy. Whatever the Carryx used to keep food from rotting on the way from Anjiin was good enough for pea pods, but lettuce was apparently a bridge too far.

“He didn’t say life or death,” Irinna said, gesturing with a single raised finger in a way that suggested she’d been interrupted before and was getting irritated. “He said there was only one test. Being deemed not useful doesn’t have to mean some kind of summary execution. Maybe not-useful species are sent home.”

“They killed an eighth of our population just to get our attention,” Campar said dryly. If Synnia had been there when the conversation began, she was elsewhere now. That was probably wise. Rickar leaned against the counter and ate, close enough to be part of the group and also not claiming his place in it.

“It doesn’t matter,” Tonner said. He was a little wild around the eyes. Fear, Rickar thought. Well, fair enough. They were all frightened. But something else too. Excitement, maybe. Or the drive that had made his workgroup a thing worth hauling across the stars. “Maybe they kill us. Maybe they ship us back home. Maybe something else. I don’t care, and you shouldn’t either, because we’re not going to fail. This is what we do, and we are going to do the hell out of it.”

Jessyn’s little nod was almost subliminal. Rickar found himself more moved by Tonner’s resolve than he’d expected to be. He remembered something he’d read when he was young and thinking he might go into the military. A leader must be utterly decisive, especially when giving orders that conflict with the ones from the day before. He didn’t recall who’d said it, but he had the sense it was some famous leader. He hadn’t understood it then. He did, maybe, now.

The others grabbed onto Tonner’s certainty like it was an umbrella and they were caught in a hailstorm. Rickar watched their bodies shift into calmer, more familiar postures.

“I was looking at the food organism,” Else said. “It didn’t seem like it was growing out of the stick. I think those are different things.”

“Maybe the red berries feed on the stick,” Jessyn said.

“If they do, that’s going to give us two organisms from their biome.”

Tonner snapped his fingers and pointed at Else, grinning. Rickar felt himself smiling along. It was a good insight. It felt like an accomplishment, and an accomplishment felt like a little sip of power in an ocean of powerlessness. Nothing could be normal, but work could sustain them.

Across the room, Dafyd was leaning against the window, arms crossed and the huge expanse of the clouds, arches, and terraced pyramids at his back. Rickar would have expected him to be more engaged, but he seemed to be listening with half an ear at most. Rickar wondered what was distracting him, but then the conversation shifted and distracted him instead.

“We take rolling shifts,” Tonner said. “Always someone in the lab. No downtime in the project, and no one collapses from exhaustion. It didn’t look like there were enough workstations for more than two or three people to be in the lab anyway. Whoever’s not there does theory work here.”

“And eats and sleeps,” Else said.

“Yes,” Tonner agreed. “Those things. Very important.” Rickar chuckled and felt a little bloom of affection for the man. Whatever you thought of Tonner Freis, he was utterly himself.

“We’ll need something to take notes with,” Campar said. “We’re undersupplied in the notebook department.”

Tonner pointed at him now. “We’ll figure that out.”

“We can work in pairs,” Jessyn said.

“You and Irinna,” Tonner said as if it had been his idea. “Else and Campar. I’ll take Dafyd.”

“Are you sure?” Else said. “You and Campar have a chemistry sometimes. I don’t mind doing the follow-on work if you’d rather—”

“One senior researcher, one assistant. Jessyn, you just got a field promotion. Congratulations,” Tonner said. “And I’ve got the most experience, so I’ll take Dafyd. Keep it close to even.”

Else sat back, her arms crossed and the little mark of concern on her brows, but she nodded. Rickar tipped back his bowl, swallowing the last of the broth. It had grit at the bottom that tasted like dirt from heaven: savory and thick and pepper-hot. The ceramic clicked when he put it on the counter.

“I suppose,” he said, “that puts me with Synnia?”

The sudden quiet was eerie. They all turned to him. Irinna was the first to look away.

“When you were in the showers,” Jessyn said, then lost what she was going to say and tried again. “Synnia said she’s not going to participate.”

“Ah,” Rickar said. “Well, I can sign on as jack-of-all-trades. Fill in wherever a hand’s needed.”

“You can stay in your room and out of my way,” Tonner said.

Rickar’s laugh was like a cough. It wasn’t funny. “You can’t be serious.”

“I couldn’t trust you when the stakes were low,” Tonner said. “Why the fuck would I trust you now?”