“No,” Henrietta stated. “The new meds are very unstable and can only be given a short time after they’re drawn up. Maybe Peter and I can take shifts together.”
“I don’t think that’s wise,” Stiles began.
“No sweat, Arietta,” Peter suggested. “We have plenty of time to overlap in the mornings. You can give me the meds after I wake up and just before you go to bed.”
Henrietta began to object. “But—”
“That will be acceptable,” Stiles added quickly. Stiles was afraid his plan was coming unhinged, but then that idiot Campbell provided him a convenient way out. He’s so stupid, Stiles realized. Doesn’t even know when to shut up for his own good.
“So, we got three-and-a-half days of this shift work to go through before we get out of here,” Jimmy complained. “Just because we chased after a wild goose you thought was out there … a dead goose.”
“Hey, don’t blame me for that,” Stiles argued. “I only added four additional days to our schedule. We were going to wait for Peter’s treatments an extra day anyway.”
“And,” Henrietta added, “I must admit those extra days did come in handy for the rest of his treatments.”
Henrietta glanced at Peter. Stiles saw them both blush. He wondered what was up with that.
“So, Henry,” Stiles asked, “have you finished all your homework for this afternoon’s activities?”
“I’m ready,” she replied. “Or, at least as ready as I’ll ever be ….”
* * *
“Man, oh, man; this thing’s cold,” Ali complained.
“And heavy,” Jimmy added. “Must be made of lead.”
Ali and Jimmy were pushing the crash cart through the corridor to the medical laboratory. They were bringing one of the Wasatti warriors in for Henrietta to examine, and she was not looking forward to it. Her dissection experience was limited and she had absolutely no idea what to expect. Externally, the Wasatti looked like giant, four-limbed insects, but it was anyone’s guess what the insides were like. Will we even be able to cut into their thick-shelled skin? Henrietta wondered.
“Here’s your patient, Doc,” Ali said. “Now, don’t hurt him … or her … or … it.”
“That’s the least of my worries,” Henrietta replied. “I’m just trying to figure out how not to hurt me, messing with this thing. How do we know the insides aren’t poison … or might explode in my face?”
Ali laughed. “Yeah, I don’t envy you one bit. Be careful. Me, on the other hand; I’m looking forward to this. I want a better look at the armor this thing’s got.” He paused for a moment, “Oh, here comes Peter and Stiles. Guess it’s time to begin.”
Henrietta saw the boys walking down the corridor. “Can’t put it off any longer, I guess.” She motioned her eyes toward Stiles as they got nearer. “I’m sure he’ll have plenty of great advice.”
Ali nodded.
“What’s the plan?” Stiles asked, arriving in the room like the head of medicine at some large teaching hospital.
Henrietta looked down at the dead warrior, unsure where to start.
“Crack ’er open like a lobster,” Jimmy suggested. “Wonder what it tastes like with butter?”
Henrietta laughed. “True, we are running out of food. But me—’cause I’m a veg-head—will stay with packaged proteins, thank you very much; you guys can eat that if you want.”
“I think I’ll pass,” Ali replied.
Henrietta steadied herself. “Are all of us ready?”
Everyone nodded. Henrietta saw Jimmy step back a few feet and secretly wished she could do the same.
“Perry, record all proceedings for the official records. Henrietta Moreira, senior medical officer aboard UCSA Sampson K. Perry, Year 500, Day 17: this is a dissection of a Wasatti Marine captured upon jump from Vega space.”
Now what? Henrietta wondered. She ran her hand down the side of its massive armor. It was so black it soaked up all light, and there was no seam she could find anywhere. “How’d you get that arm to move, Ali?”
Ali nosed next to Henrietta and wrapped his hand around a wrist. The others crowded near the crash cart to watch. “I twisted here, like this.”
The opposite arm jerked slightly up, sputtering several times before hovering over its chest.
“Here, give me your hand, Doc.” Ali guided Henrietta’s fingers to a slight indentation in the battle armor where the wrist widened out to accommodate the claw. “See, feel that little pit? Put some pressure on it and rotate your hand.”
Henrietta did as she was told and was rewarded with the other arm starting to slide back to the side. “Yeah, okay. I see what you did.” She studied the area very carefully, turning the arm to reflect the room’s light along the surface of the suit. She saw several tiny triangular indentations about the same shape as the suit’s claw-tips. They were arranged so the claws on the same arm could fold down and slot into them, as if scratching its own wrist. For the record, Henrietta explained what she was doing. “It appears there are several depressions along the wrist on the space armor. It appears the claw-tips fold up on themselves and manipulate the slots.”
“That’s interesting,” Peter observed. Everyone looked at him, so he continued his thoughts out loud. “In hand-to-hand combat, let’s say I had a hold of one of his arms with enough strength that he couldn’t move it. With the other free arm, he could fold up his claws and power-away his restricted arm. Tricky ….”
Now that she knew what to look for, Henrietta felt several depressions at random locations along the lower arm, which previously had looked like simple decorations. She manipulated another depression and observed the warriors’ head turn toward her. She imagined the thing coming to life and telling her to stop messing around. She flinched at the sudden motion. “That’s just wrong,” she lamented.
“Now you know what it felt like,” Ali replied. “Just imagine that happening with a gun in its hand, and out in the dark ….”
Stiles and Ali had stripped both warriors of their loose weapons and equipment once they got them in the storage room. The two warriors contained a treasure-trove of stuff. There were all kinds of weapons, from daggers to full assault rifles, what appeared to be a shoulder-launched missile system, gas canisters they were very careful how to handle, and a universe of electronic tools and gadgets. The Marine body remaining in cold storage even had an EVA sack attached to its torso with an apparently worthless piece of broken metal. What it represented was anyone’s guess. Now, all that was left to examine were the armored bodies of the two 9-foot-long Marines.
Henrietta shook away her fears and grabbed the neck of the thing. She twisted, trying to unseat the helmet, but it would not budge.
“Try rotating the other way,” Jimmy suggested. “No reason both civilizations should think the same about how things attach.”
Henrietta did what Jimmy suggested, but it still did not separate from the collar. She picked up a laser scalpel and looked up at Peter for encouragement. He shrugged noncommittally, but nodded.
“Here goes nothing,” she said. She twisted the laser controls to half power and ran the knife-edged cutting tool along the armored chest. “Using a point-five laser scalpel on the armor ….” There was not a mark on it after she tried cutting it. “Switching to full power … and nothing.”
“This is getting us nowhere,” Stiles complained.
“Well, we know what doesn’t work,” Jimmy offered. “That’s something.”
“Stuff it, Null-Grav.”
“Things won’t be simple,” Peter observed. “There must be fail safes built into a warrior’s armor. The last thing you’d want in the middle of some space battle is your armored spacesuit coming off.”
“True,” Henrietta agreed. She studied the armored claws for a moment, mentally piecing together how they would fit together. She depressed the arm actuator on one arm until the other rested over its chest. She then found the pit on the opposite arm and did the same, bringing the two claws together
above its chest. Through trial and error she got pretty good at manipulating the armored pieces and could pretty much move them any way she wanted. Henrietta looked to see where the claw tips would touch the opposite wrist, as would a human folding his hands together. “Hmm, there’s a slight notch along both wrists. That’s probably something you wouldn’t do in a fight, would you?” Henrietta asked.
“What; grab each wrist?” Peter asked. “Probably not.”
Henrietta pushed along both wrist notches simultaneously. A crack opened along the centerline of its chest.
“Cool,” Jimmy exclaimed. “You found the keys to the safe.”
Henrietta ran her finger along the crack and felt a quarter-inch bridge between the gaps near where a human’s sternum would be. In shape, she saw that the main claw would fit exactly along the top of the bridge between the two halves. She took her thumb and pressed on it as hard as she could. “I thought that would open it,” she said.
“Maybe it takes more strength than you got,” Stiles suggested.
Henrietta took a medical pick and handed it to Stiles. “Here. Be my guest,” she said. “Insert it in this slot, here, and yank down on it.”
Stiles tugged at the suit to no avail. He repositioned himself at the base of the body, anchored his hips against the crash cart, and using both hands pulled with all his might. The bridge in the gap clicked, followed by a harsh warning tone, sounding like a cricket fighting for its life. The carapace swung open, revealing the creature’s torso. Cracks formed along the upper legs and neck of the spacesuit, until the entire armored suit separated into six large pieces. It looked like a flower blossoming in rapid motion.
“There you go,” Stiles said proudly. “One Wasatti bug for your consideration.”
Ali and Jimmy shifted the pieces of the suit around until they got them away from the naked body. “Come on, Jimmy; let’s see what this thing’s got. Now that we know how to open these suits, we can get the other one off too.” The two curious boys hefted the battle-suit pieces to the side of the lab and began analyzing their new-found treasure.
Henrietta heard them discussing various parts of the suit like kids in a toy store as she, Peter, and Stiles took in their first views of a real Wasatti body. Carefully, she extended her index finger and gently prodded the shoulder blade of the bug. It hardly moved. “This thing looks really mean,” she observed.
The plates of its bony skin, although long-dead, were hard as titanium. The flat plates shone with an intense iridescence like an oily sheen covering a calm pool of water. If not for what it was, the colors would have been beautiful. Henrietta grabbed a surgical mallet and tapped the breastplate, ringing the exoskeleton like a crystalline rock. “Perry, can you take an image of the insides of this thing with the MRI?”
“I have been evaluating that possibility since the armor was removed, Henrietta, but unfortunately, there appears to be a high amount of ferric metallicity incorporated within the specimen’s exoskeleton. The use of magnetic resonance would not be suggested. It is possible the skin plates would tear apart explosively.”
“Could that be a possible weapon to use against them?” Stiles asked.
“It is not inconceivable,” Perry replied, “however, the weight of such a weapon would make it extremely difficult to carry into battle. And by the time one got into the extreme close range needed to affect the creature, the Wasatti warrior would likely have already killed the soldier yielding the magnetic resonance device.”
“Next time, just tell me ‘no,’ ” Stiles replied.
“Yes, Captain Essen.”
“Hey guys,” Jimmy shouted, “take a look at this.”
Henrietta tossed her mallet back into the instrument tray and walked over to the mechanical workbench where the others were working.
Jimmy shoved an electronic probe into a rectangular box recessed into a shoulder cavity of the spacesuit, and hooked it into an external speaker. The electronic input produced a series of clicks and clacks. “Anyone want to guess what that is?” Jimmy asked.
“No,” Stiles replied impatiently. “Why don’t you just tell us?”
“Lady and gentlemen, I present to you the first recorded example of the Wasatti language.” Jimmy manipulated the box again and more clicking sounds came out.
“That’s how they talk?” Peter asked.
“Yep, that’s it,” Jimmy replied proudly. “Up ’til now, the Bugs only communicated using Colonial Standard; they caught on fast to our language and we had no idea what their native sounds were like. Now we know.”
“What kind of language is that?” Stiles asked, but instead of a question, it sounded more like an accusation.
“Well, it’s most similar to the Xhosa language of Old South Africa. It’s been extinct for hundreds of years. It’s a form of Old Bantu.”
When it was apparent no one had any idea what Jimmy was talking about, he went on, as though he were teaching a group of students eager to learn. “It’s a tonal language. The same sounds have different meanings based on pitch. They aren’t written, but three letters are used to represent the basic clicks; ‘c’—for six dental clicks—like putting your tongue at the back of your teeth, ‘x’—for six lateral clicks—like putting your tongue at the side of your mouth, and ‘q’—for six palatal clicks—like putting your tongue at the roof of your mouth. In all, there are eighteen different clicks.” Jimmy began talking in Xhosa and it sounded half-way between a cork being pulled from a bottle and someone calling for a horse.
Henrietta noticed that Jimmy was really enjoying himself, and his confidence was blossoming as he spoke.
“And to avoid confusion between nasal clicks with prenasalized clicks, you simply add a silent ‘k’, like nkc.”
“Hold it right there, Null-Grav. I’ve heard enough. I don’t plan to speak Bantu none too soon. Just tell me when you’ve learned how to speak Bug.”
“Well, I already know a few words. ‘Tsk-tsk tut-pop’ means ‘by your command.’ ” It sounded like Jimmy was sucking on a lemon.
“How do you know that?” Henrietta asked.
“Simple. Opening the main command interface menu, you can hear certain sounds. Then, using context from different menus, you start to hear those same words over and over. If you know what a menu is supposed to tell you, you can guess what words they use to describe it. It’s all cause and effect. For example, let’s say ‘x-1’ points to putting strength to the legs and ‘x-2’ points to strength to the arms. That means ‘x’ equals ‘strength,’ ‘1’ equals ‘legs’ and ‘2’ equals ‘arms.’ Presto; a Bug Dictionary.”
“I don’t know about you, Stiles, but I’m impressed,” Henrietta boasted.
Stiles shrugged.
“And once I start inputting the key words into my translator, I’ll really start to learn how to speak. With the size of this menu structure, I should be able to reach Level Four fluency within a year. I’ve already been working on Bantu, so this is just a modification of what I already have.”
“We’ll see if you’re as good as you think,” Stiles said. Turning back to the medical arena, he said, “Okay, Henry, what are you waiting for? Get back to your cutting.”
Henrietta rubbed her gloves together and continued examining the dead body. “Total body length is nine feet, four-and-a-quarter inches. Weight is …” she zeroed out the cart and took a reading, “… 283 pounds; however keep in mind the subject is likely desiccated and would weigh more if it were alive. Basic physiology is similar to that of humans; however, the knee joint bends the opposite way of human legs.” She grasped a thigh with one hand and the hamstring with the other and experimentally worked the leg joint back and forth.
“There are three claws to each foot, about four inches long with a pyramidal cross section. The tips look sharp as glass shards. There’s a smaller vestigial claw at the heel, approximately three quarter inches long.”
“Those heel nubbins remind me of corkscrews,” Peter observed.
“They are sharp,”
Henrietta confirmed, “almost like a drill.” She ran her hands along the inner thighs and tried to separate its legs. Henrietta blushed, looking closer. “I can’t tell if this is a male or female. Anybody got any ideas?”
“Don’t ask me,” Peter replied quickly. Stiles also shook his head.
“Help me turn it over,” Henrietta requested. The three of them plopped it into its stomach, and Henrietta continued her examination. “I see the … … where it eliminates waste,” she observed diplomatically, “so that is also similar to humans, but the front looks more like a modest plastic doll—”
“Oh, man; the Holy Grail!” Ali shouted from the side.
Henrietta stopped what she was doing and looked over at the two mechanics.
“What’d you find?” Stiles asked.
“Well, working with Jimmy, here, we’ve cracked a few codes and accessed their astrogation templates. We think their homeworld is a star system with six components, essentially two triple sets. The main triplets are F-type stars and the other triplets are K-types.”
“Oh yeah? Where are they?” Stiles asked.
“That, we can’t tell. We don’t have common referents. But if we ever do re-establish our location, I think we can piece together where these bugs come from. You know what that’s worth to the Colonial Academy?”
“How about any red supergiants?” Peter asked. “Can we tie their location to our current one?”
“No,” Ali replied. “The only template we can find right now is a very close-in view of their home system. Looks to be a trade route map of some kind; very complex. Not many outside star systems are plotted with this subset, though.”
“But look at this,” Jimmy said. “Listen up.” Jimmy opened another channel and a screeching tone came out.
Henrietta covered her ears.
“That’s their IFF signal,” Jimmy replied proudly.
“What’s that mean,” Henrietta asked.
Peter replied for Jimmy. “That’s the signal their ships broadcast to identify friends from enemies. A ship hears that, and their weapons won’t attack it.”
“Exactly!” Jimmy confirmed. “If we run into any more Wasatti, we can sneak right up to them with this little puppy.”