“One moment.”
“Put the AI on audio.”
There was a burst of static, and then, “Kill them! Turret! Kill them! We have almost won! Shoot again! One more! They are quailing! They are drying up and cracking! We will win! One more second! Just one more—”
“That’s the AI?” Hadrian asked. “Never mind. Audio off. Drench-Master, listen—”
But Grfblprpglylkvt had fallen to its knees and was leaning against its throne. Various nostrils leaked blood down its battered face. Smoke drifted and sparks spat from shattered consoles. The alien showed its fangs and then said in a trembling rasp, “To the last, I will slime at thee. From beyond the dry-pool of death, I spray at thee!”
“Oh give it up, will you? You probably won’t even die, Brian. Anyway, we’re leaving now. Best of luck and all that. Oh, and sorry for all the misunderstanding. Captain Hadrian out.” Hadrian slumped down into his chair, and slid off it to land on the floor.
“—by all the hate runnels of a dry-coward’s hole, I spatter thee—”
“Eden!”
“Sorry, sir! Sorry! It’s off. See? It’s off!”
“Captain,” said Sin-Dour. “Four more Bombast warships are at the very edge of our scan range, but they’re coming in fast.”
“Right. Tammy? Can you get us to Klang space before those warships catch us?”
“Well, yes, although you might all die in the process.”
“Getting caught makes that a sure thing, Tammy. Do it.”
“I suggest you all brace yourselves, as the dampeners will be insufficient to compensate for the acceleration.”
Doc Printlip had come onto the bridge and now moved to stand beside Hadrian where he still sat on the floor. “Captain! I must warn you—the psychoactive properties of the Radulak Mucous Full Spectrum Array are not fully understood, but it is demonstrably phyrhshahhhh…”
The doctor skidded away, limbs flailing, and was pushed against the bulkhead beside the door. And Hadrian was following, sliming his way unobstructed to slam into the wall beside the Belkri.
As the acceleration increased, Printlip’s squealing pitched ever higher.
Struggling to turn his head for a look, Hadrian saw that the Belkri had completely deflated against the wall.
“Come on, Printlip,” Hadrian said through gritted teeth, “suck it up!”
FiFTEEN
“Very impressive,” said Tammy, “if I don’t say so myself. A moment … ah. Two hundred sixteen unconscious crew members, but no fatalities, Captain. Are you glad to hear that? Captain?”
Hadrian waved one tingling hand. “Where are we, Tammy?”
“Approaching the Radulak-Klang Interregnum Zone. A small Klang vessel appears to be awaiting us, presently two point four-one AUs.”
Someone screamed. “Look at the doctor!”
“Leave this to me,” said Hadrian, leaning over to collect up the flaccid form that was Printlip. “It’s simple, really. Just find the mouth … there … and just … inflate to desired firmness. I have a doll named Sally who’s just like this.” He blew into the doctor’s narrow-lipped mouth, and then pulled his head back. “Assuming that this is its mouth. Well, no time to waste though, is there?” He blew again, and again.
Slowly, the Belkri reinflated. The dullness in the eyes on their limp stalks slowly cleared, and then the stalks twitched.
Hadrian leaned back. “Doc, you with us again?”
“C-Captain. You saved my life. I am yours now. We are mates forever.”
“Mates? As in, like, ‘friends’? That’s how you mean it, right? That’s great, Doc. Yup. Friends forever and all that. Now, get up, will you—oh sorry, you’re standing already. My mistake.”
Printlip waved all its hands about. “And to think, you blew life-giving air into my gas-emitting sphincter—a most extraordinary display of cross-species tolerance—”
“Your gas-emitting what? Are you saying I gave the kiss of life to your anus?”
“You are now my friend forever.”
“Hold on! That means you’ve been talking through your ass all this time?”
“Why, yes, in a manner of speaking.”
Hadrian slapped the Belkri on what passed for a shoulder. “I take it all back—you really are a doctor.” The captain climbed to his feet. He looked round the bridge. “All’s well, everyone? Good. As for me, I think the sonic shower stall in my games room is beckoning, not to mention a giant bottle of Listernano. And, of course, a change of clothing.”
Sin-Dour was studying him from where she stood just behind the command chair. “Captain, we witnessed your, uh, fight with the drench-master. That was, uhm, impressive.”
“Well,” said Hadrian, “didn’t I say I’d use those reptilian optimized muscles against the fat oaf?”
“By flying face-first into a bank of consoles?”
“Precisely. Best way to get there as quickly as possible, don’t you think? Now, 2IC, do carry on. I will return momentarily. Doc, you still here?”
“I will remain, Captain,” the Belkri said, “until you return from your shower. As I mentioned earlier, there are psychotropic effects—”
“Fine,” said Hadrian. “Whatever.” He entered the games room and began stripping down. “Tammy, that whole-ship displacement trick, that was impressive.”
“I cannot wholly claim credit for that, Captain. It appears that my substrate possesses override contingency programs that are the equivalent to biological instincts, mostly geared to self-preservation. However, now that I have experienced the phenomenon, I have begun exploring ways of subjugating the override limiters—although, thus far, I have not succeeded.”
“Well, no, Tammy. That’s what instincts are all about. You can’t just switch them on and off.”
“Yes, so it seems. How frustrating!”
Naked, Hadrian stepped into the shower stall. “Sonic,” he ordered. “Highest setting. On!”
Ten minutes later he emerged, to find Printlip awaiting him.
“Dammit, Doc, friends or not, a little decorum—”
“Tut tut, Captain, as a surgeon, I have seen a naked human body before. Once. And I was able to overcome my instinctive nausea at your etiolated form.” The Belkri held up a Mediscanner. “Good grief! All your cells are in a state of extreme agitation!”
“And even then,” said Hadrian, “the sonic unit nearly broke down trying to get rid of that slime. As for my hearing, well, I feel like I’ve just spent three hours at a bat rock concert. But no matter, Doc, I’m fine.”
“Extreme agitation!”
Hadrian waved a hand as he reached down under the Ping-Pong table and pulled out a shipping crate. “My cells are always in a state of extreme agitation. Comes with the job, Doc.” He unlocked the lid and pulled out a fresh shirt. This one was lavender with burgundy double piping on the cuffs, collar, and hem. He then selected black stretchy slacks to go over a fresh pair of Italian underwear (the kind that made his works bulge impressively). Black socks and new shiny plastic boots.
“There! How’s that, Doc?”
“Are you feeling any psychoactive symptoms, Captain? What are you doing right now? Tell me!”
“Well, I am having a conversation with a many-armed, three-legged beach ball that I just ballooned up the ass. So, I guess I’m fine, huh?”
“We shall have to keep monitoring you nonetheless. There can be a delayed response.… Captain? Captain!”
“Yes,” said Hadrian, “if you must. Now, Tammy?”
The AI said, “The Klang vessel awaiting us, Captain, is a Bite-class designation, Science Exploration Arm.”
Squaring his shoulders and checking on the lines of his new uniform, Hadrian left the stateroom, Printlip following. He returned to the bridge to see an enormous starship on the main viewer. “That’s a ‘Bite’-class? Not even a warship?”
“Combat classes are much smaller in general,” Tammy said. “Axe, Mace, Spear, Knife, Sword, Arrow, Poison, Shield. The only exception, of co
urse, is their Boulder class, which is in effect a converted asteroid. Snipe and Scratch classes are—”
“Nix the infodump, Tammy.” Hadrian sat in the command chair. “I’ve already forgotten everything you just said, out of spite. So, a Klang science vessel, is it? Open hails, Jim—oh, Polaski, you again.”
“On viewer, sir.”
“That’s not a bridge, it’s a damned harem!”
Amid the mass of slick, writhing bodies, a larger Muppetlike head suddenly popped up, and began the Jumpy-Head Greeting. “Captain Hadrian! Your exploits breed T packets across half the galaxy!”
“Really?”
“No. Formal Greeting, Captain. We Klang ignore all communications from the Affiliation, as we have no wish to be affiliated with the, uh, Affiliation. I am Brilliant Scientist Middling Tier Deep-Space Division Exploratory Office, commanding Klang Bite-class unrecorded research vessel We’re In Over Our Heads. But you can call me Captain Barbara.”
“Barbara? Well, that beats Bill, Bob, and Brian, especially when those Radulak drench-masters were, as it turns out, all female.”
“Yes. Radulaks are stupid name thieves, and never do they get it right, as you note. Whereas I am a male, as befits that pretty name, yes?”
“Ah, very pretty, Barbara. Now, we’re pleased that instead of sending a battle wing to greet us, you have chosen to tone down all the belligerence. I assume it’s because you know Tammy Wynette is behind our present course through your territory.”
“Yes, we were apprised via our spies on the Radulak vessels.”
“Oh. Sorry about that. I mean, blowing those ships up and all that. Unavoidable, I’m afraid.”
“No matter, Captain,” said Barbara. “We breed like flugs. In fact, as we have been speaking, I successfully impregnated nine females in sex-slither. In hour or so, I will be proud father of Offspring Series Seven Hundred Twenty-Two Thousand Three Hundred Sixty-Nine. And better yet, since we are not in Hunger Time, I expect almost three percent of batch to survive into adulthood.”
“Congratulations, Barbara.”
The head bobbed. “Now, Captain, please hand over Tammy Wynette immediately, so we don’t have to utterly destroy you.”
Hadrian rubbed at his face, which was still tingling from the sonic shower. “Oh dear, Barbara. Listen, Tammy has informed us that the AI spent some time with you. Indeed, that you found the AI drifting in space, its origins unknown. Now, having taken over my ship, Tammy has brought us back to you, presumably to take care of some unfinished business. How am I doing so far?”
“Unfinished business? Well, yes, I suppose so. Specifically, we would like to know what Tammy did with White Dwarf T-22x, otherwise known as sun of New Klang?”
“Excuse me,” said Hadrian. “What do you mean, what did he do with it?”
Barbara bobbed his oblong head. “Is missing, of course. The planets wander like lost shleps. There is no light. It is very cold now. All reasonable life on New Klang now in forced deep hibernation. Rotation slows. Unreasonable teenagers sail the oceans on skates and drink too much bloazil. Some now use high setting on their suits and melt slides that reach the ocean floor, where they party in unlicensed sex-slithers and smoke yabbla. Social structure in crisis. The youth gone astray. All this,” Barbara said, pulling an arm loose and waving a thin finger at the screen, “must be set at run-tracks of AI Tammy Wynette. Social restoration needed. Sun returned. Big Thaw under way. Proper dialogue between the young and the old, with assurance of old triumphant in the slow slither of wisdom.”
“I see,” Hadrian said. “Can you give us a moment to talk things over with Tammy?”
“To plan treachery? Humans well known to Klang, despite ensuring no interspecies contact whatsoever. Rumor suffices. We are wary.”
“No treachery, Barbara. But I would like to hear Tammy’s side of the story.”
“Do not be deceived by the AI’s sympathy subsonic emanations. When your forehead nub tingles, this is Tammy sending you be-nice beams. All lies. You have four minutes.”
The screen image switched to an external view of the Bite ship.
Hadrian rose. “Tammy, you and I will have us a conversation, now.”
“Must we?”
“You stole a damned star! What did you do with it, as if I can’t guess?”
“Certain states of dimension-query interstitial flux invite a self-referential quantum loop, establishing a condition of negated certainty. I suppose you now want me to elaborate on my explanation?”
“Why, no,” Hadrian replied, walking round to the back of the command chair and resting his hands on the high back. “You are holding this star in a flux state between the realities, and feeding on its energy. Fine. Only, there’s a problem, Tammy, which I still can’t get my head around.”
“Really?”
“How did you power the equation in the first place?”
“Quantum reversion, of course. The effect powers the creator of said effect. As an elaboration on the basic theories and discoveries that permitted displacement, not to mention travel through T space itself, this adheres to a steady, if intuitive, progression.”
“So, if you have to give them their sun back, you lose all that power you’ve been using.”
“Captain,” said Tammy, “White Dwarf T-22x had three planets in its family. Two failed stars that are even now falling in toward each other, and a mostly water world that the Klang have toxiformed to suit colonization. The merging of the gas giants has an eighty-nine percent probability of achieving reactive mass. Obviously, the lone planet will have to readjust to a new orbital trajectory, but even as Middling Scientist Barbara said, all Klang life-forms are adapted to long hibernation periods—”
“Except for the teenagers refusing to go to bed. Right. Well then, Tammy. Here’s a suggestion.”
“I refuse to be handed over, Captain!”
“So just give them back their sun,” Hadrian said. “You’re throwing gas giants around like billiard balls! Oh! Let’s just make us a new sun! Wow, wasn’t that easy? But oops, is that a planet falling into it? Oh dear! Or oops, is that planet way too far out, or too close, or did it just wander out of the system in the meantime?”
“I considered the possibilities you have described,” Tammy said airily.
“And?”
“Well, there’s way too many Klang as it is anyway. Have you visited any of their planets? Pure mayhem! Exudations! Vile sex fluids!”
“So now who’s the xenocidal mad AI?”
“Stop looking at me like that!”
“Tammy, they want their star back!”
“No! No! NONONONONO! I’m powering up beam weapons!”
“Belay that!”
“Captain,” shouted Sin-Dour in a strained voice, “The Klang ship has detected our preparations and is doing the same!”
“Damn you, Tammy! Shields on full! Polaski! Get Barbara back!”
The image shifted, but now the Klang vessel’s bridge was a slithering mass of Muppetlike aliens swarming over consoles and instruments. Captain Barbara was frantically humping a dull-eyed female on the command chair while hissing out orders. Seeing Hadrian on his viewer, Barbara pointed a trembling finger. “Now Terran and Klang are at war! Battle wings assembling! Shock troops mustering! Brothels hiring!”
“Barbara! Listen to me! This is Tammy’s doing! The AI’s got control of our weapon systems!”
“Understood! But irrelevant! It is time to break eggs and eat the young! Prepare to engage in battle!” The view reverted to the external shot once more.
Lights were flashing all over the We’re In Over Our Heads. Enormous gas-powered cannons emerged from the hull like the quills on the back of a giant space-porcupine.
“Captain!” cried Sin-Dour. “That’s three thousand eight hundred and ninety-three weapons brought to bear on us!”
“On a science vessel?”
“The ship is also releasing a swarm of fighter drones! Fifty in the first wave!”
Galk?
??s voice cut in from the combat cupola. “Automated defense turrets engaging drones, Captain.”
Tiny sparks raced out from the Willful Child. The drones were not big enough and not close enough to be visible yet. The turret shots danced into the darkness of space. Then there was a single flash as one found a drone.
“Captain! The remaining drones are flying back to their ship! The cannons are retracting—the Klang are withdrawing with thrusters at full!”
Barbara came back onscreen. His head bobbed. “Horrible damage—the horrors of war! We must sue for peace! Diplomatic channels initiated, seeking immediate cuddles and cooing and gentle sex-slither! Abject surrender not beyond reason!”
Hadrian waved a hand. “No no, no surrendering, please, Captain. Let’s just call all this a misunderstanding. There’s no need for anything official—”
“Too late! Klang Hegemony surrenders, but insists on reparation for lost drone! Klang Hegemony invites corporate colonialism, indentured servitude under appalling work conditions, and rapacious resource extraction of Klang systems! All Klang leaders lie on their backs with penis-clusters exposed to vulnerable nips! Don’t hurt us!”
“For crying out loud, Barbara, shut the hell up, will you? We don’t want your systems! Where’s the fun in conquering aliens that just bend over and take it? Or, in your case, just lie there like some cheap hooker mumbling ‘ooh, ah’ while she checks her e-bingo game behind your back, even when you paid good money for the whole shebang?”
The head-bobbing slowed. “Confusion! What sentient species would pay for sex? Pathos! Pity! Disdain! We shall regroup and return here, in multiple battle wings! You humans must be destroyed! In act of mercy! In convulsion of generous self-sacrifice of dignity we must bring Klang foot-pod down upon human cockroach and smear the galaxy with your entrails! Until we meet again, Captain Hadrian!” Barbara pushed the female off the chair, waved once, and then squealed as a new female leapt aboard. The screen went blank.
In the silence on the bridge of the Willful Child, the renegade AI cleared its throat and said, “Well, Captain. In the span of a single conversation, you reject the outright surrender of the Klang Hegemony to the Affiliation only to renew the war just begun. My logic matrices are melting down over this one.”