Human Legion: Marine Cadet Part 28

"Yes, I can provide the equipment you have asked me for and more besides. We do not have the engineering capability to build s.p.a.cecraft or nuclear weapons, but simple radio communications equipment will be an amusing diversion. We too know how to have fun, friend. And as for your abilities, human Arun, you have skills exceptional for your species. Your planning capability is similar to the way our minds work in the scribe phase of our lifecycle."

"Steady on, pal," said Arun, although he felt warm to hear his ally speak highly of him. "Nearly as clever as a scribe? I wouldn't go that far."

"No, of course not. I exaggerate."

"Hey! What do you mean, exaggerate?"

"I mean your mind is still inferior to a scribe's. For example, you are too fixated on your problem with the Aux. Consequently your mind can only think of solutions to that problem by ignoring your other four critical objectives. A scribe would consider all five simultaneously."

"As usual, Pedro, you're not making a shred of sense. I just want to get through the week alive."

"Yes. That is what I just said. Being a member of the hive grants me the gift of specialization. I can leave such short-term considerations as how to survive this week to others in my nest. That leaves me s.p.a.ce to ponder your four other strategic objectives, namely: your desire to graduate as a Marine, to regain the trust of your squad, to mate with the female Lee Xin"

"Wait! I never said that about Xin."

"Not in so many words. And the objective you have mentioned even more than this female is Scendence. Your match in 48 hours is crucial on many levels. You are the star Deception-Planning player. Yet you are banished to the Aux levels. You cannot play that game."

"You don't have to remind me. I can't be there. Done deal. I won't waste time worrying about something I can't change."

Pedro gave a slight outward tilt to both antennae, the equivalent of pointedly raising eyebrows.

"What're you hinting at? What can I do?"

"You? Nothing."

"Exactly. I need a subst.i.tute. But we're only three more wins away from immunity. At this stage, you can't just drag a player out of the spineway and expect them to perform at that standard."

"Agreed. You need a player with excellent planning ability. Preternatural by human standards."

"Right."

"An ability to think in what human opponents would regard as radically new ways. To make plays of such originality that our compet.i.tors will not antic.i.p.ate them."

"I suppose."

Pedro didn't reply. He stood impa.s.sively and to the human's eyes without expression (or had he moved his antennae out a notch further?). Arun recognized this sudden silence. According to Pedro, this was him allowing Arun's slow human brain to catch up with the implications of their conversation. Which meant... What?

"Horden's spiny growths!"

"Indeed," said Pedro, spiraling his feelers.

"You! You're offering to be my subst.i.tute. And... Xin. She's already agreed to this, hasn't she?"

"There is still some slight reluctance on her part, but her xenophobia is only natural for you humans. The logic of my offer is una.s.sailable."

Some slight reluctance. I'll bet, thought Arun, but then he remembered how to begin with he'd felt revolted by this strange alien friend. He went through all the reasons why the idea of Pedro taking his place in the Scendence match was madness. But every objection flaked away under closer inspection. He was only left with one question.

"Why? Why are you getting involved, Pedro?"

"Friends help each other in times of difficulty. And we are friends, aren't we?"

"I ... yes." He thought for a moment. "Yes we are!" He knew he'd miss Pedro if he never saw the great lunk of an insect again. He also knew him well enough to suspect that Pedro wasn't telling the whole truth. Pedro persisted with this crazy alien notion that Arun was important. In protecting Arun, Pedro believed he was guarding the interests of his nest.

"And that's not all," said the Trog.

Arun's palm went to his forehead. Pedro's artificial voice lacked emotion, as always, but its volume had increased. Which meant he was excited about something. What now?

"I am extolling your virtues to this Lee Xin. I have learned much about you, Arun McEwan. Enough for me to embellish the truth so as to draw attention away from your many shortcomings. I am confident that on your return from your banishment to the auxiliary, this Lee Xin will be so filled with mating hormones that her skin will flush red with the need to"

"Okay, you can stop right there!" Arun spoke from behind both his hands. Being bigged up by a seven-foot long insect. This had to be a new low. If word ever got out... "And for you information, she's Xin Lee, not Lee Xin."

"Really? Try telling her that."

Arun glared into the s.h.i.+ny black bulbs of the aliens expressionless eyes. d.a.m.n! He hated the creature for knowing more about Xin.

"I am serious," said Pedro. "Ask her. You and Lee Xin have a unique connection. You share a destiny. This makes the success of your courts.h.i.+p highly likely."

"That's enough about me and Xin! That topic is out of bonds."

Pedro dropped his antennae disapprovingly.

"I don't care what you think," snarled Arun. "That topic is forbidden."

"Very well, friend McEwan. Let us turn instead to your plan, Operation Clubhouse. I have noticed many ways in which I can improve it. My adaptations will help you to achieve the other four objectives you have temporary forgotten."

"When you say adaptations, are you talking a few slight nudges or it is more throw everything away and start again?"

Pedro hesitated before replying: "The second choice." It was sweet of him to act embarra.s.sed enough to pause.

Arun shook his head. "I don't care who came up with the plan so long as it works. What I don't get is that you keep talking about me as this great being of destiny. But you think my plan's so drent you had to rebuild it. Anyone else would think you regard me as a loser, not this great hero."

"I have never described you as a hero. A person of destiny need not make all the decisions or have exceptional ideas. They might not even be a leader. Even an odious imbecile can be a great being of destiny."

"Okay, I get the picture. Maybe if I survive to have more of these discussions, I'll teach you the concept of being too honest."

"I haven't finished, Arun McEwan. With me you have established a friends.h.i.+p across species boundaries. You laugh at this but have no idea how rare that is. Perhaps that is where your destiny lies: to build a great interstellar coalition across species."

Arun sobered. A grand coalition free of the White Knights?

Was that his future? Was that the secret behind the Human Legion to come?

Arun laughed at his ridiculous hubris. "I'll leave the big picture to you," he told his friend. "Remember, my poor human brain can only cope with worrying about whether my buddies and I will still be alive this time next week. Go on, tell me your s.h.i.+ny new version of Operation Clubhouse."

Pedro shook his head. It looked like a negative human gesture, but indicated eagerness.

As Pedro explained his ideas, Arun's spirits lifted so high he was practically floating.

Yes, we can do this!

Arun was so excited that he decided not to puncture the triumphant mood by mentioning the other factor he was trying to ignore for now: the contents of the carts they'd helped to smuggle off planet.

The Hardits were gunrunners.

And the more he thought about that, the more Arun was convinced they were connected with the traitors drugging the cadets.

Arun wouldn't let them get away with that. But first he had to survive the week.

* Chapter 39 *

As Operation Clubhouse rolled out over the days that followed, radio equipment was produced in the Troggie catacombs that stretched for miles to the east and southeast of Detroit. After the comms came specialist explosives designed to give out smoke and heat but not consume oxygen. They were intended to confuse thermal and visual targeting systems in the defense of nest tunnels, where conventional explosive munitions could easily overcome ventilation, choking the defenders to death.

Amongst the Tunnel-Aux, as Arun had started calling the Detroit Aux, favors were acc.u.mulated and paid. Supplies were cached in places where the Hardits never bothered to look. Following Arun's example of exchanging his clothes with Madge, scent-marked Aux overalls were swapped freely, allowing the humans to move far out of their a.s.signed areas.

Arun almost began to believe Pedro's fantasy that he was a man of destiny. Whenever he had these delusions of greatness, Arun reminded himself that it wasn't his genius but Hardit laziness that made the whole business possible. Rubbing those long snouts in their own drent gave Arun the greatest satisfaction of all. The Hardits had sneered about the law of supply and demand, but now the human Aux were twisting that law to their advantage. With a new sense of purpose and a little extra food, that initially came in the form of a gray tasteless paste courtesy of the Trogs the oversupply of human workers meant some Aux could be spared to work for their own ends.

Humans working for the benefit of others humans for the first time in their lives. It was really happening!

After Springer managed to pa.s.s a message back to Blue Squad about the reality of life in the Aux, the word spread amongst the cadets in their hab-disks. Discrete packages of food and medicine were left in laundry bins. Cadets found reasons to wander far and wide through Detroit, making contact for the first time with their discarded brethren of the auxiliary services. But whenever the Hardits were in sight, even when lolling out of breath against walls as they often did, the Aux acted the part of broken, hungry slaves, losers far beneath the notice of any nearby cadets... until the moment the Hardits pa.s.sed out of sight.

As far as the Hardits were concerned, they had work for a certain number of human workers. So long as the humans carried out those tasks adequately and didn't cause trouble, that was the limit of Hardit interest in their inferiors. They might make exceptional engineers and miners, but as bureaucrats and overseers, Hardits sucked.

Even accounting for Hardit indolence, Arun's original idea would have been a high risk gamble that might just have poked the Hardits in the eye, but would probably have paid for that shallow victory with the lives of Arun and his friends.

But Operation Clubhouse had grown far beyond Arun's initial idea, a product of cooperation between scores of individuals. Maybe more, Arun had no idea how many Trogs were involved. Thousands perhaps. Arun might have sparked the idea but it was made possible by Pedro's brains, the engineering and logistical capability of his nest-siblings, the guilt of the Agri-Aux, and the bravery and tactical cunning of Springer and Madge.

And the Tunnel-Aux...

They were the greatest revelation of all.

At first the disgraced Blue Squad cadets had kept the other Aux out of the main picture, not fully trusting the others in Team Beta. Broken women and men could have sold them out for the chance of some more bread. But Adrienne was their ally here, helping to breathe some life back into Beta, enough for them to help out with simpler tasks. Perhaps she sensed that her world was changing, that this was her final chance to improve her lot, if only a little.

And it was still only pathetically little that Arun was offering his fellow Aux.

But for those with nothing, he mused one night as he listened to the ragged snoring in Beta's room, a little was a prize worth dying for.

Each day, Arun, Hortez, Springer and Madge would be sent off on a pointless mission to Alabama, the only purpose being to burn in the sun for the amus.e.m.e.nt of their alien mistresses. That might have been the Hardits' purpose, but the Blue Squad Aux used the time to plan, prepare and negotiate with the Agri-Aux.

Out in the fields the human workers were better organized than their equivalents servicing the tunnels. Fearful of the lethal effect of the sun's rays, the Hardits did everything they could to avoid emerging onto Tranquility's surface. That meant human taskmasters were in place, who reported daily progress toward quotas and milestones. They were very aware of the painful consequences of any slippage, but they were nonetheless free to run their own affairs.

The Hardits were so averse to the surface that it was a mystery the monkeys had fed themselves in the long millennia before human slaves were brought to the planet, the only clues being a crumbling underground ruin the Agri-Aux had discovered. Buried in the mud were plastic manacles far too big for human or Hardit limbs.

Underneath a veneer of pride and discipline a heart of darkness beat within each Agri-Aux, festering with the guilty knowledge that they were alive because they had denied others their protective suits. The outfits looked like pure white dresses patterned in pink, but they were steeped in blood.

Springer proved adept at exploiting this guilt, which she did mercilessly, although Esther put up little resistance.

Number 24 was the first to report the fruits of the Agri-Aux cooperation. She was one of the youngest in Team Beta, a girl much younger than the cadets. Despite coaxing from Springer and Madge, 24 refused to speak her real name, or anything about her former life. The only time Arun saw her smile was when she shyly came up to him one night to tell him that she had discovered protective outdoor gear, left in the topside building where she had emptied her cargo of novice excrement.

There were eight gifted outfits, crude hats and smocks sown from grain bags. Esther had spoken of them. Alistair had lived and died in one of those eight outfits. They hadn't the protective technology of the Agri workers' suits, but the outfits would ease the burn.

They were a welcome gesture.

When Esther came to see them later that afternoon in the Alabama depot, she had more help to offer. As she explained, her people weren't helping out because they were being nice. This operation was all about atonement, a gesture of contrition made for the dead, not for the benefit of the living. It would be a one off. All debts paid.

The final piece of the puzzle slotted into place when the banished Blue Squad cadets decided to let the rest of Beta in on the plan, co-opting Adrienne as their leader. The moment they saw that sly grin on her face when Springer told her what they had planned for Cliffie, they knew for sure then that Adrienne had thrown in her lot with the plot.

After three grueling days, finally everything was either in place or had to be abandoned because the countdown had hit zero.

Tomorrow was the day of the crucial Scendence matches, with the winners only two more steps away from Cull immunity.

Tomorrow was the final day of Arun's banishment to the Aux ranks. If Tawfiq's revenge was unsatisfied then she would want tomorrow to be the last day of his life.

It was time for Operation Clubhouse.

* Chapter 40 *

Before he faced danger, Arun was used to feeling either grim determination, utterly focused on the task at hand, or wild mania that usually led to unfortunate incidents.

But that was artificial, induced by drugs accessing the parts of his brain engineered to make him a good Marine.

There were no combat drugs in the Aux world, which he a.s.sumed was why Madge was starting to lighten up. But that meant to find courage today, Arun had to draw deep within himself. It wasn't working. p.r.i.c.kly heat flared along his spine, making the sweat drip down his back. The fear of letting his buddies down kept paralyzing him so that he couldn't move, could only bend over with hands on knees trying to find the courage to keep moving on his way to Team Gamma's room. The place where Cliffie had nearly suffocated him.

The opening act of Operation Clubhouse was down to Arun acting alone. When he planned this, it hadn't occurred to him that he might not have the guts to see it through.

Strangely the same fear of letting his friends down that made him pause, also drove him on, until with leaden limbs, he stumbled into Gamma's room at breakfast time. The memory of being asphyxiated under a mound of clothing made his heart flutter, and put such a wobble into his legs that he had to halt just beyond the threshold, not trusting his limbs to keep him upright if he took another step.

"Err, excuse me," said Arun, putting a quiver into his voice that didn't require much acting. "May I speak with you?"

He'd expected to find Cliffie seated on his throne, but this time he spotted the Gamma Team leader in one corner, hunched over in a secretive discussion with his lieutenants. Cliffie cast a scornful glance at Arun and then went back to his meeting. That was the extent of Arun's audience with Gamma's leader, but one of the lieutenants separated herself from the group and walked over to him.