Captive's War 1: The Mercy of Gods

Twenty-Nine

Can we do it?”

Tonner opened his mouth, closed it. The only thing in his mind was surprise. The only thing he could think to do was laugh, and it wasn’t the funny kind. Jessyn and Synnia sat across from him, the big window at their backs so they were mostly silhouettes. Jessyn looked serious. Synnia looked hungry. The silence was the hum of distant machines carried through the flesh of the prison walls and the breath of thin wind against the glass.

Around them, the others—Campar, Dafyd, Rickar, Else—were sitting on the lab equipment or leaning against walls. None of the new people had come. This was just the family, and Tonner didn’t have any clear idea what he could say.

Campar stepped in for him. “It seems to me that’s not the first question. I think we should start with why we would even consider it. Don’t misunderstand, I appreciate dramatic flair, but we’re talking about group suicide.”

“We’re talking about fighting back,” Synnia said.

When he’d first arrived at the prison, Else had told Tonner about Ostencour and the way Synnia’s grief had locked her into his plans for insurrection. It hadn’t seemed critical at the time. It was a thing that had happened, only here it was, still happening. The past hadn’t passed at all.

“A distinction without a difference,” Campar said. “If you fight back, it’s still my head on the pike. And I’m not in the market for a death, however noble.”

“I agree with Campar,” Else said. “This seems like rushing into something we’re not ready for.”

Rickar shook his head, shifted his weight. “How much prep work can we be expected to do? If we’re waiting for a good, safe time to revolt, that’s the same as agreeing that this is our life now. We’re going to do what the Carryx tell us to do. This isn’t temporary. This isn’t a rough period we’re going to get through.” His voice grew tighter with every word. Tonner felt himself tensing up with him. “We can talk about the phrasing and the details,” Rickar went on. “Jessyn’s asking if we’re willing servants.”

“If you aren’t going to fight back now,” Synnia said, “when are you going to start?”

“When there is a faint hope of success?” Campar said. “When it isn’t futile? I’ll keep looking for synonyms, but the central point I’m reaching for here seems clear to me. Is it not for you?”

“Hey hey hey!” Tonner said, rising to his feet. The sharpness of his voice snapped their attention back to him. He looked over to Dafyd, but the younger man was folded in on himself, thinking and watching and keeping his own counsel. Tonner lifted his eyebrow. You want to take this? Dafyd didn’t seem to notice him.

This was the man Else had left him for. What a fucking joke.

“I’m not interested in the philosophy of freedom,” Tonner said, maybe a little more sharply than he needed to. Or maybe not. Maybe what the group was missing was a smart tap across the cheek. “Jessyn. What exactly is the project Jellit’s friends are proposing?”

“They know what we did with the Night Drinkers. It’s the same idea, just pointed at—” She paused, carefully avoiding the word Carryx. “At a different target.”

No, it’s not the same idea, Tonner thought. The words were half formed before she finished speaking. The Night Drinkers had made the weapons, and they’d only had to reverse engineer them. They’d even had the jump start that they were beginning with the same basic materials. They’d had a Night Drinker corpse and performed a dissection and basic protein assay. Getting samples of the Carryx or their knife-legged Rak-hund and exploding squat-bodied Soft Lothark wouldn’t be possible.

No, they couldn’t do it. Except.

What if they could?

“I understand,” Else said, “that they want to take a stand, but—”

“This isn’t about our emotional health,” Synnia broke in. “This is about what we are. As a fucking species.”

Dafyd had gone to the librarian’s den enough that another visit wouldn’t raise suspicion. He wasn’t going to get the bastard to lie down for an exam, but he might be able to police up the alien equivalent of skin flakes and hair. The Night Drinkers had been able to make bombs. Jellit’s friends had built pistols.

“Tonner?” It was Else. Her gaze was on him, her chin down, her head tilted just a degree. Pulling him out of his head the way she used to back when the universe made sense.

“I’m not saying it’s a good idea,” he said. “But is it a possible one? Maybe.”

Campar threw his hands in the air. “Are you serious? These things killed millions on Anjiin in the blink of an eye. And that was when we had warships and missiles and armies. You think a few scientists are going to do them damage with improvised handguns and biochemically active water balloons?”

“I’m not saying that, no. But what’s the first step? If. If we did it, the first step would be to figure out what we can about their physiology. Way before we got to application, there’s a lot of basic research that’s kind of begging to get done. And there’s no downside to that. To knowing more. We know some basic things already. We know they need a high-oxygen environment. We know they evolved as an aquatic species.”

“We know,” Campar said. “We know what now? How do we know that?”

Tonner shot him the look he might have given to a first-year asking the most obviously stupid question in class.

“Look at them. The physiology and size. Classic aquatic markers. But something drove them out of the sea at some point in their past into the high-oxygen atmosphere of this planet. It’s the only thing that allows a creature of that size to—”

“Great, all we need is a big fire and some buttery sauce and we can have a beach bake,” Campar said.

“Just saying there is research we could do,” Tonner replied, sounding more petulant than he wanted to.

Synnia put her hand toward him, palm up, as if she were presenting him to the group. “And since we aren’t fighting those others any longer, we can use that part of the schedule for the resistance.”

Else looked down and away, her fingers rubbing together unconsciously like she was craving a cigarette. He’d seen her tempted often enough to know what it looked like, and he felt a little thrill—small and petty—knowing that he could still get to her. Maybe it was only on an intellectual level, but really that was where they’d always been the best together.

“Do you really think they’re going to give us the resources to construct some kind of Carryx plague?” Campar asked.

“Well, they aren’t afraid of bombs and guns,” Tonner shot back.

Dafyd spoke for the first time since Jessyn and Synnia had returned with Ostencour’s request. He had that same dreamy tone that he got when he’d only half been paying attention. “No, it’s us. They’re not afraid of us. Interested in, maybe. Hoping that they can use us. But they aren’t afraid.”

“Whatever,” Tonner said. “So our answer to Ostencour is not right now. But I don’t see any reason we shouldn’t start gathering the information and background that might let us—”

The wide door shuddered and rolled open. The librarian of the human moiety stood in the corridor. Tonner’s stomach lurched and he took a breath he seemed unable to exhale. The black eyes shifted among them. When it trilled, Tonner thought, This is it. This is how I’m going to die. But the voice that came from its translator was the same reedy, pleasant tone that it always had.

“You will all come with me.”

Campar glanced a question to Dafyd, and the younger man shook his head. Synnia’s breath went ragged and the color had gone from her face, but her chin was high and defiant.

“Is there something wrong?” Dafyd asked.

“There is an alteration. You will come with me.”

Rickar shifted, and Tonner saw that he had the crowbar in his hand. The thought passed through the whole group, a shared understanding that had everything to do with living together so intensely and so long. If this was slaughter, they’d go down together, and they’d go swinging.

Dafyd stepped toward the Carryx first, then Else and Rickar. The librarian turned its back and started off, not bothering to see if the others followed. Tonner trotted over to the kitchen and picked up a knife before he followed. It wasn’t much, but nothing was going to be enough. His hands shook.

The librarian moved along the path they always took, heading for the vast common area and the laboratory alcove. The traffic of a dozen species parted before it, everything from every planet shifting to avoid its attention. They didn’t just go about their business, though. A little crowd was forming even as it kept its distance. Bystanders at the disaster waiting to slake their curiosity.

Jessyn fell into step beside him. Her expression was blank and bland. Tonner knew the fear behind it, but she made it easier for him to pretend calm too.

When she spoke, her voice was steady and soft enough that it only just carried over the ambient hum of the place. “No soldiers.”

It was true. Among all the strange bodies and uncanny eyes all around them, there weren’t any of the usual enforcers. They passed the empty socket that had been their alcove lab. The holes in the counters where they’d wrenched out the equipment looked like the wreckage of a war. That they’d done the violence themselves didn’t make it better. He shifted the knife to his left hand, stretching out his right where it had started to cramp.

He didn’t recognize where they had been led at first, but he saw when the others did. Rickar’s eyes widened, Jessyn’s narrowed, but it meant the same thing. The alcove was brightly lit, and the counters in it were like the ones they’d had in their own lab. There was even the red stripe at the top of the archway. Without the fungal mat filling it, there was no way to identify it as the Night Drinkers’ former home and the site of their slaughter. All marks of the little animals who had killed Irinna had been erased.

Inside, the space was similar to the one they’d had, but not identical. In one sample case at the back, a branched stick had a population of the little self-contained farming organisms they called berries. In another, the brightly colored, three-legged thing that wasn’t a turtle. The librarian stopped in front of the cases and turned toward them. If it was aware of the weapons and fear that had followed it to this place, it didn’t show any sign. The smaller, pale arms next to its mouth gestured at the cases.

“These are from one of our subject worlds. This is of another. You will make these first organisms nourishing for the second.”

“The Night Drinkers,” Dafyd said. “The ones that were here?”

“You have earned access to their resources. As you prove more useful, you will earn access to more resources.”

Tonner heard the unspoken other half of the statement. Fail to be useful, and someone else will be moving into the space you used to live in.

When the librarian moved, they all shifted out of its way, just the same as all the other subject races had. At the mouth of the alcove, other things shuffled back and forth and began to disperse. The show was over. If they all seemed a little disappointed that there hadn’t been more blood and death, that might only have been Tonner’s imagination.

“Oh, look at this,” Campar said, running his palm over a cabinet. “This is a dynamic imaging deck. I’ve always wanted one of these.”

Jessyn put her hands on her hips, scowling at the space. “This stuff isn’t going to fit in our rooms.”

“Maybe it doesn’t need to,” Rickar said. “If the little shits are all dead, security isn’t as big an issue, right?”

“Unless some other set of monsters is out there we don’t know about,” Jessyn said. “Or unless one shows up from someplace the Carryx ate after they ate Anjiin. We can’t pretend we’re safe. Not now, not ever.”

Synnia’s smile was triumphant. Tonner didn’t like it. “You know what this is. This is a sign.”

“A sign,” he said.

“The tools we needed to take on our new project, given to us exactly when we needed them. It’s the universe telling us that Ostencour’s plan is the right thing to do.”

“Or the natural playing out of consequences,” Campar said, trying for lightness. “Hard to tell those apart sometimes.”

Synnia shook her head. “It’s a sign.”

“Whatever it is, let’s start with inventory,” Tonner said. “Did anyone bring a pen?”

In the end, Dafyd and Campar stayed to catalog the new equipment and begin the long process of calibrating everything to match the familiar devices back in their rooms. Jessyn and Rickar stood guard at the mouth of the new alcove, him with the crowbar and her with the knife, talking to each other softly as they swept their gaze across the passing monstrosities. Else and Synnia headed back to the rooms, to guard them and keep the protein assays running and maybe rest or eat or eke some space out of the day for something like a life.

Tonner wanted a book. Or music. An entertainment feed showing bad comedies. He wanted a piece of art to look at and a glass of wine to sip. He wanted a café with a live band and a little bamboo dance floor. He wanted food so spicy it burned the next day when he took a shit. He wanted to meet a stranger in a library and to spend an hour flirting with them. He wanted a life. He wanted a possibility.

Instead he had an imaging deck, a magnetic lensing microscope, a more advanced protein library with self-generating speculative databasing and automated synthesis paths, a soft-tooth separating grinder that would probably be able to take tissues down to their cells without breaking as many cell walls in the process. Wonderful toys for a game he was tired of playing.

Between manufacturing medicines for Jessyn and whoever else wound up needing some in the future, and building the berries into a reliable food source for the turtles, they were already taking on a workload suited for twice as large a team. And then add on becoming a secret bioweapons lab in their spare time…

What he needed was more people.

What he needed was to care less about all of it.

He didn’t know what he needed.

Urrys Ostencour, sitting on a stool, looked up as Dafyd stepped into the room. His quarters were four levels down from Tonner’s group, and in the opposite direction from Jellit and Merrol and Allstin. The security man had kept his quarters spare and simple. Yellow walls and an off-white floor. The same little kitchen that Jellit’s quarters had, and an open room with chairs and stools and a low table of enameled metal. The others in his group were elsewhere or sleeping. Dafyd didn’t know which.

“I was wondering which one of you it was going to be,” Ostencour said.

“Which one of us?”

“Jessyn’s brought you my proposal. Somebody was bound to respond. The obvious choices were you or Freis. Or it could have been Yannin. Sit, please. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“I’m not here as a spokesman. I mean, I’m not carrying some official message or anything.”

“As a friend and colleague, then. Really. Sit.” Dafyd sat, and Ostencour’s smile widened a fraction, like he’d won some subtle point. “All right, Alkhor. Tell why you think we shouldn’t.”

“These projects they’re having us do? They’re only partly about the tasks.”

“I agree,” Ostencour said. “And I think we both know what the larger question is. All this? It’s about domestication, isn’t it.”

“Every new species I talk to, they’re either in fear or they’re resigned to what’s happened. Or they’re enthusiastically going along with it. The people like you and Jellit and Synnia. You’re missing.”

“Survivor bias,” Ostencour said. “The ones who raised hell are all dead.”

“Or who wouldn’t engage with it. I think that’s what happened to the hallway crows.”

“The what?” Ostencour asked.

“And the ones who didn’t fit the mandate. Who couldn’t make themselves fit in, if they weren’t in open revolt. The Night Drinkers weren’t trying to burn the librarian down. They were trying to burn us down, and they failed. I’m just trying to get my head around the whole thing. What the Carryx really want. Where the line is.”

“And you think it matters,” Ostencour said. His voice was gentle in a way that made the small hairs on Dafyd’s neck stand up. “Look, I agree with you. We’re seeing the same things, you and me.”

“The Carryx killed an eighth of Anjiin in a blink. We’re in their territory. There’s no kind of guerilla war against them that we can possibly win.”

“That’s true.”

“Then what are we talking about?”

Ostencour leaned back, the front legs of his stool lifting off the floor. He looked at ease, and at the center of his calm was a cold rage. “I remember you from the trip over, you know. How you tried to protect the jailers instead of fighting alongside Synnia and the others. I want you to know that I don’t resent your cowardice. I understand it. What I’m asking you to be part of takes an exceptional courage.”

“They can kill us. Not just us. If we convince them that humans can’t be domesticated? I think that’s everyone back home too. The Carryx see everything that isn’t them as a tool, and I think they throw away anything they can’t use.”

“You think they’d kill Anjiin, if we rebelled here.”

“I don’t know how to risk that possibility.”

“That’s already happened, son. That happened the day they took our sky for their own. You know what you’re doing? You’re thinking that if you just show your belly hard enough, if you just surrender utterly enough, you can control what they do. It’s a grief reaction, and it’s an error. Don’t be ashamed of it. It’s natural. But it’s wrong.”

“But you’re comfortable making that choice for everyone? Your noble last stand that gets everyone else killed is clearly right?” Dafyd was almost surprised by the buzz in his own voice.

“I don’t think there’s any decision to be made. I have worked my whole career at the intersection of humanity and violence. The Carryx are trying to figure out whether we’re domesticable, but I already know the answer to that. We aren’t. We never have been. Someone is going to fight back. That’s just the kind of primate we are. Curling up and being good pets? It isn’t going to happen, so we have between right now and whatever day the Carryx figure that out to do some damage.”

“We can’t win.”

“I’m not stupid, Alkhor. I know we’re going to lose. We already did. But I’m good at organizing, I’m good at fighting, and I think I can bloody their noses on the way down. If I don’t, someone who maybe isn’t as good as I am will eventually try. And when they do, the consequences are going to be whatever your friendly librarian and its bosses decide they’re going to be. There’s not a goddamned thing any of us can do about it.”