Human Legion: Marine Cadet Part 17

The answer came in the form of four Marines who came out of the distance at the double. They wore full combat armor decorated in the gold-and-black diamond pattern of the 101st a.s.sault Marines, specialists in ground a.s.sault. They were supposed to have the thickest skulls and smallest brains, the better to survive the frantic descent from orbit to ground. Some said Neanderthal DNA had been used in their breeding program to toughen them up.

Two of these bone heads from the 101st had SA-71 carbines, one carried a plasma gun, and the other a flame thrower. They held their weapons as if they would open fire at the merest provocation. Debating their ancestry might not be a good plan.

"Beat it, kid!"

Arun hated to take that kind of drent from anyone, especially from Marines who weren't even in his regiment, and boneheads at that. Then one of them raised his carbine, and Arun hurriedly made up his mind that staying alive was the best course of action. He turned and pedaled away.

By the time he'd returned to the main ramp at Helix 6, he'd used up any spare time to go wandering, but there was still plenty to see on the ramp as he descended toward Level 9 and the tunnel that connected with the Troggie nest.

Just past Level 4, an electric truck was towing a heavy weapon strapped onto a trolley. What was that? A Fermi cannon perhaps? It was big enough. Probably something for use in the orbital defense platforms.

Between 5 and 6, Arun pa.s.sed an Aux a human manual worker pus.h.i.+ng a wheeled trolley down the ramp. The Aux was struggling a little. If Arun had more time and if the Aux hadn't stank so much he would have stopped to help.

Up ahead he could hear the sound of running. He listened closer and made out three pairs of boots thumping along the ramp. Most likely they were novices or cadets on a punishment run. He'd had plenty himself at school. If you merely looked at an instructor in a way they didn't care for then you'd be off on a thirty-mile run. The instructors didn't mind where you went so long as you did your thirty. Woe betide anyone who didn't.

The Aux...!

With a squeal of brakes, Arun came to a sudden halt. He looked back at the Aux he'd just pa.s.sed.

Surely not?

He s.h.i.+fted gears and pedaled back up the ramp.

The Aux slunk against the wall. He seemed to know that Arun was interested in him, but instead of acknowledging the cadet politely as Arun would expect any Aux to do he turned to face the wall. Like many Aux, he wore a woven hat with a stiffened peak that shadowed the eyes. Arun leaned his bike against the wall and took off the Aux's hat.

Despite Arun's attempt to be gentle, the Aux flinched as if pained.

Hortez!

This was the novice Arun had admired and envied throughout school.

And it had been Arun with his escapades in the Troggie tunnels who'd taken that s.h.i.+ning success of a cadet squad leader and turned him into ... into this!

"Man, you look terrible." It was all Arun could think to say.

Hortez finally looked up, straight into Arun's face. Under his scruffy beard, the outer reaches of his face were a mix of black from deeply ingrained grime, and the angry red of flesh peeling after being burned.

Hortez stank.

The Aux who cleaned, washed, and cooked in the hab-disks were expected to be clean themselves, but Hortez didn't look as if he'd had a proper wash since that moment in Little Scar's office when Hortez's star had plummeted to these depths.

Arun looked again into his old friend's face and saw that under the grime there was another pattern, one painted in deep blues and yellows.

"Do they beat you?" he asked.

Hortez nodded.

Rage bubble up within Arun. He kept it in check, for now. "Look, pal, I know that from where you've ended up, my words are worth as much as an ice cube in the backdraft from a fusion engine, but for what it's worth ... I am sorry."

"It wasn't your fault."

"I guess not but... but you're here and I'm not and that's kinda hard. I'm sorry about that."

"You're sorry? How do you think I feel?"

It took a moment before Arun realized that Hortez was trying to be funny. He'd always had a wicked sense of humor and had laid down a constant barrage of practical jokes throughout their years together at novice school. Some of that spark was still there. Not much though. Frakk! It was only a few weeks since Hortez had been his squad leader. What had they done to him?

"What are you doing here, anyway?" asked Hortez. Then he frowned and shook his head. "Forget it! You'll have to keep your mysteries, McEwan. I can't talk. Gotta go. Tell Brandt I wish him luck."

"Don't leave. Your face... This isn't right, we need to do something to fix this."

"You can't, McEwan. Don't make it worse for me."

"Why because they'll beat you? I can't stand for that. I need to let the authorities know."

After a bitter laugh that led into a hacking cough, Hortez replied: "I admire your naivety, pal. As if anyone who can make a difference would care."

The fire returned to Hortez's spirit. Arun could see it in his eyes. His spine uncurved somewhat. "They do more than beat us, McEwan. They kill us. A third of final year novices fail graduation. That's several hundred kids suddenly stuck without a role, all at the same time. There's only so much laundry work needed, man. Do you know we sleep in groups back to back because there's no s.p.a.ce to lie down? We have to fight each other for food. It's all clean and civilized for those lucky enough to be your servants in the hab-disks, but not for us. We're excess population and the Hardits, who own and run us, take every pleasure they can in reducing our numbers. They're gonna pick one from my team tonight and kill them. Sometimes they tell us that just to enjoy our fear, but don't follow through with their threat. At other times, they killed two, just to keep the rest of us guessing. And I'm almost beginning to believe them when they say that they're only being kind. Starving to death is a tough way to go."

"What can I do to help, Hortez?"

"Stay out of it, McEwan. Don't draw attention to me and maybe I'll get lucky."

Arun took a deep breath. "Fine. I'll do as you say. Just one thing."

Hortez had already turned around and was bracing against his heavy trolley, ready to push it down the gently sloping ramp. "What?" he called over his shoulder.

"How is Alistair?"

Worse than all the horrors he'd ever seen was the deathly look in Hortez's eye when he glanced back at Arun.

"Last I heard, worse than me," said Hortez. "He's out on the surface without adequate protection against the sun's radiation. He's going to..." He shut up suddenly, his eyes widening in horror.

Arun looked behind and stared into the face of a Hardit.

If you looked past the fur and gripping tail that earned them the nickname of monkeys, and the three eyes set in a triangle high above the snout, the Hardits were approximately the size and shape of small humans, much more so than the ma.s.sive hexaped Jotuns or the insectoid Trogs. Their att.i.tude was what marked them apart from the other species. When they weren't snarling through their teeth-filled snouts, Hardits could often be found snoring, slumped against a corridor wall for one of their many naps. There wasn't a particular enmity between humans and Hardits, but it was a given that if a Hardit were awake, then it would be angry.

"What occurs here?" The Hardit wore a speaker on the collar of its grimy blue overalls. The synthetic voice was that of a human male, but the alien could be female for all Arun knew. If it possessed gender characteristics a.n.a.logous to humans, they were completely obscured under its scruffy fur and clothing. It looked scarcely cleaner than Hortez. The difference was that it looked healthy. Arrogant too.

"Do you understand question? What occurs here? Answer!"

"It's my fault," blurted Arun. "I asked this Aux for directions. I am lost."

One of the things Arun hated most about aliens is that their faces either did not move or else their facial expressions were unintelligible. Possibly at some level scent maybe? the Hardit was sneering, laughing, or fuming with rage. All that Arun could tell was that three cold, yellow-flecked eyes stared at him down that long snout. It looked about to bite him Then the Hardit addressed Hortez. "Verify!"

"Yes, Mistress Tawfiq Woomer-Calix. I answered the request for help as swiftly as possible so that I might return my worthless attention to my duties."

This monkey-frakker, Tawfiq, snapped her attention back to Arun. "You wear a scent identifier for insect nest," she said her artificial male voice. "That makes you even more lost than you realize. You must descend four more levels before come to nest. Insects use you for unknown purposes. You human too stupid to understand. Insects very cunning, very manipulative. They have a purpose for you that will not end well when they realize human is worthless species. Better for all of us if humans wiped from galaxy. Go away!"

Arun bowed. "Yes, ma'am. Please forgive me, Mistress Tallfat Woomer-Cat-Licks."

The Hardit growled. "It is Mistress Tawfiq Woomer-Calix. No, do not attempt to correct your speaking. Do not speak at all. Your voice irritates me. I do not forgive you. I want you go away."

Arun nodded with as much deference as he could muster. With a last glance at the pitiful figure that had been his squad leader so recently, he grabbed his bike and set off for the lower levels.

He hoped he had been sufficiently polite to deflect retribution away from Hortez, but he felt anything but deference for the foul monkey-veck.

You haven't seen the last of me, Tawfiq Woomer-Calix.

* Chapter 23 *

"It is a caste thing," said Pedro, after Arun had recounted his meeting with Hortez on his way over. "It is like our guardians. Our people go through many phases as they progress through their lifecycle from hatching to enriching the soil with their rotting flesh. The phases are more than just different roles, there are profound physiological and mental changes too. At the end of a long and useful life our people become a burden on the nest. We can no longer support them. They must give way so others can replace them. It is no different from your brief human lives giving way to the next generation."

"You're wrong," said Arun. He got to his feet and started pacing the hard-packed dirt floor, clenching his fists. Pedro had learned not to become alarmed by Arun's displays of anger and gave Arun time to collect his thoughts.

"We've all got to go sometime," said Arun. "I get that. But Hortez and the kids who failed school? That isn't right. It's like we toss them into a deep well of despair. Then we turn our backs and pretend to forget all about it, because if we ever peered into that well, we would be so consumed by grief that we would throw ourselves in and drown in that despair."

"You are young," said Pedro. "Mortality and youth do not sit together comfortably."

"That's what I mean. Hortez and the kids who failed school are just teenagers. They aren't spent husks like the guardians of your people. They're only just starting out in life. A caste thing? No, we humans don't have castes."

"Don't you? Tranquility is a complex multi-species planet, and part of an even more complex star system that is itself part of the White Knight empire. You humans are the lowest caste of all. And these Aux the lowest human sub-caste. You do not like this but it is the truth. You are in a caste system whether you like it or not."

Arun chewed that over. He sat down, embarra.s.sed by his need to pace in front of the alien. "Okay so we're bottom of the heap. How do the Hardits fit in? Are they the next layer up?"

"It is more complicated. They see themselves as equal or superior to the Jotuns but the White Knights gave the Jotuns the responsibility to run system defense and the supply of Marines. Your Marine base is a relatively recent addition to our star system. It was a mining system for millennia before that. Hardits dislike all other species, but those who share our planet reserve a special level of hatred for the Jotuns for disturbing their star system, as they see it, and for you humans for being the cause of the Marine base's expansion. What makes it worse for the Aux is that there are many levels in Hardit society. The Hardit you spoke to will be one of the lowest of all Hardits, probably a criminal. From their perspective, to be tasked with overseeing human Aux workers is a humiliating punishment."

"I always thought they looked perpetually angry. The Hardits I see are failures who take out their frustration on the one group even lower than them their human workers. Figures. But if they're such losers, why hasn't Hortez stood up to them more? He was a Marine cadet, if only for a few days. That counts for something."

Intoxicating thoughts of freedom and rebellion swirled around Arun's mind. "Tell me more about the Hardits," he asked his friend.

Pedro answered without hesitation. "The species you call Hardits originate on the planet Iradis 3. First contact with the Tans-Species Union was 0.73 million years ago. Unlike most primitive species, the Hardits initiated that contact. They are a s.e.xual species, the s.e.xes barely tolerating each other except during mating season. Their princ.i.p.al sense is smell, and the average lifespan without longevity treatment is 172 years."

The Trog gave no sign of consulting a softscreen or any other gadget. How did he know all those facts? "That's not what I'm after," Arun told Pedro. "Give me more than dull facts. Something that marks them out as different."

Pedro thought a moment. "Sometimes they are said to be able to see through solid rock. In fact they have a highly developed sensitivity to changes in gravity. In practice that means they know exactly how far they are below the surface of their planet. If two groups of Hardit miners began tunneling toward each other at opposite ends of a planet, you could be confident that the two teams would meet at precisely the same point without needing any technology more sophisticated than picks and shovels."

Arun frowned. "No, that's still not it. Tell me their weaknesses. Give me something I can exploit."

"Since we became friends, human McEwan, I have studied your planet of origin. Your Earth and the Hardit planet are unremarkable except for one aspect you both share: magnetism. Your planet has an iron-nickel core that operates as a dynamo, producing an extremely powerful planetary magnetic field. The Hardit planet's core has more sulfur than iron, and even more significantly, their planet's mantle is highly metalized. This destabilizes the dynamo effect of their core resulting in a remarkably weak magnetic field."

"So? They never grew up knowing about compa.s.ses."

"The significance is rather more than that, human. A planet's magnetic field is like a force field, s.h.i.+elding the surface of the planet from the high energy particle stream emitted from the local star. Stellar flares from Earth's star cause power blackouts and damage to uns.h.i.+elded electronics but this has not been enough to place evolutionary pressure on your species' development. With such a weak magnetic field on the Hardit planet, their star has blasted away most of their planet's atmosphere, and left the surface a sterile husk."

"Hold on a minute. If there's no life on their planet, how did the Hardits evolve there?"

"I did not say the planet was lifeless, only that the surface is."

"So they're delvers. They live underground, like you in your nests."

Pedro spiraled his antenna in amus.e.m.e.nt. "They hardly resemble us, but yes their habitat is below the planet's crust. Vast natural caverns extend for depths of many miles beneath the surface. Which is why they are used as miners. Give them a little gravity, and dirt or rock overhead, and they will be happy, whether on a planet, moon, or asteroid.

"Aliens 101 is all very well, but I asked you to give me the lowdown on their weaknesses. Do they go catatonic when you s.h.i.+ne a bright light in their eyes? See that's something I could use. Maybe a common human cooking ingredient is a powerful narcotic? Like garlic. That's it! They go wild for garlic because it gives them such a mega-high and leaves them so blissed out they don't know what they're doing. That would work. C'mon, you gotta give me something."

Pedro flattened his feelers in disdain. "As if a human cooking ingredient would be a narcotic for an alien species. Do you realize how incredibly unlikely that would be?"

"Lay off, Pedro. It's just an example. I need to understand how to beat them, is all."

"If you had listened then you would already understand."

"Do what?"

"I have already been telling you what you asked for."

"About magnetic fields and stuff?"

"Yes."

That brought Arun up short, but he couldn't get his head around what the overgrown insect meant. "This is what our inter-species chats are all about, isn't it? Mutual incomprehension. You tell me something alien that makes no sense. Then you give me an explanation that makes even less sense. You love it. You're conducting an experiment. How much alien drent can you fill my poor human head with until my brain melts? Is that it?"

"Your words do not make sense," said Pedro through his voice box. "But I am learning your tangential ways now. I interpret what you just said as the following. One: I am angry. Two: I fear for my friend, Hortez. Three: I am too ignorant to understand your advice."

Arun shrugged. He was learning too learning that there was no point in getting angry with aliens. "I figure that about covers it."

"Then allay your concern. It is my calling as a scribe to address the shortcomings of the ignorant. That is why I enjoy our conversations so intensely." Pedro gave a little jump. He did that sometimes when excited. "The significance of their evolution is that Hardits are agoraphobic they do not like large open s.p.a.ces in general and planetary surfaces in particular. This is not merely psychological, they are very p.r.o.ne to cancers caused by exposure to Tranquility's sun. Ultraviolet radiation is lethal to them. They are easily dazzled by bright lights. Tranquility's air, even the pumped and filtered air we two are breathing in this lovely chamber, is heavy and oxygen-rich to them. You humans call them lazy. They are actually an industrious species, but they find the dense atmosphere very tiring. If they exert themselves, they hyperventilate easily. You think you see them dozing but they are not asleep. They are slowing heartbeat and breathing in order to regulate blood-oxygen levels. They do not acknowledge you because you are beneath their notice."

"Yeah, I got it," interrupted Arun. "We gotta use flash-bombs." He was about to go but paused. The big insect had helped him. He hated to admit it after all the trouble his contact with Trogs had caused but he owed Pedro. Rewarding the big lug was child's play.

"Thanks," said Arun. The insect's antennae circled lazily, indicating his pleasure at Arun's word. "Thanks... friend." Pedro's antennae circles grew larger.

Arun reckoned he'd done enough alien chat for one day not to earn Colonel Little Scar's displeasure. "Gotta go now. Hortez needs me. Gonna get myself a posse."

"What does that word mean?"

"Look it up, Pedro."

"But you cannot go yet," said Pedro, his circling feelers flopping to an abrupt halt. "Our inter-species learning has not progressed enough in this session."

"You reckon? I'm gonna raise a posse and I've just explained why. That's enough to keep your feelers wriggling for a bit."