Trang Page 18

  Chapter 18

  Philippe looked in the direction she was pointing. In the dark space on the far side of the planet from the sun, several round discs of yellow light were fading.

  “Human diplomat, how is this possible?”

  It was Max. Philippe looked at him blankly for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Why are you fucking asking him?” asked Shanti, annoyed, as she stepped out from the cargo containers. “Holy fuck, it’s not like it’s his fucking portal.”

  The barrage of obscenities snapped Philippe’s attention into focus. “I apologize to you for my companion’s harsh language,” he said to Max, earning an eye roll from Shanti.

  “It is of no significance,” said Max. “Copulation, while not sacred in our culture, is highly valued. But have you no insight to offer regarding the portal? Such an event has never before been recorded that I have knowledge of, and I have studied the portals my entire life. If the portals fail to operate, I believe that would be a tremendous disaster to many people.”

  “I’m afraid—” Philippe began, but he was interrupted by the horrible shrieking. He was suddenly hauled backward and dragged among the cargo containers by George. Shanti followed him. Weapons materialized in their hands.

  The shrieking cut out and a loud chirping began. “What is it?” Shanti yelled.

  “An alarm,” said Max. “We have been instructed to come to the defense station.”

  Do they think we’re responsible? Philippe wondered.

  “Because of the portal?” he asked.

  “No,” Max replied. “Because we are unarmed and there is an attack.”

  “That there?” Shanti said, still yelling, pointing back toward the planet.

  Philippe looked where she was pointing. The discs had faded, but he thought he saw a flash or two, like far-away lightning in a cloud.

  The chirping continued, and the four Hosts startled.

  Max looked at Philippe. His expression was one of utter bafflement. “This cannot be a true thing,” he said.

  “What is it?” asked Philippe, trying to keep the crawling hysteria out of his voice.

  Max’s expression of bafflement slowly and painfully changed into one of despair.

  “The attackers are the Cyclopes,” he said.

  Half an hour later, Philippe was sitting on a low platform in what were allegedly guest quarters in the defense station. Shanti and George were sitting alongside him.

  “Well, Philippe,” said Shanti, “you were right about the Cyclopes.”

  “I’d give my left arm to have been wrong,” Philippe confessed.

  “At least it wasn’t Earth who attacked,” said George. “As it is, most of the Hosts didn’t seem exactly thrilled to see us.”

  They sat for a moment.

  “Their weapons fire looks bizarre,” said Shanti. “It looked like they use beams of some kind.”

  George nodded with enthusiasm. “Yeah, yeah, I saw that, too, right before we came in. There were explosions but also all these beams, of light or something. You think it’s lasers, or something else?”

  Philippe looked at them, puzzled. “I didn’t see anything like that—I mean, I just thought I saw some flashes.”

  “You missed that?” asked Shanti.

  “He doesn’t have—” George pointed two of the fingers on one hand at his eyes. “You know, Nature Boy.”

  Philippe looked around the room, feeling suddenly ashamed of his eyes and their sad lack of artificiality.

  There wasn’t much to see, though—the room was bare. It was lighter in color than the diplomatic station, but otherwise similar in design to Max and Moritz’s office.

  They were probably sitting on a desk, Philippe realized.

  He remained seated anyway.

  “It’s weird not knowing what’s going on,” he said. Shanti and George looked at him. “Outside, I mean. It’s weird not to know how the battle is going.”

  “Not really,” said Shanti, as George shrugged. “You usually don’t when you’re fighting. You don’t have the big picture; you just know what you’re doing.”

  They fell quiet again.

  “That must have been what they were after!” Philippe exclaimed.

  The other two gave him puzzled looks.

  “The Cyclops who attacked me—he was trying to take something from a merchant’s room,” he continued, excited. “And then the merchant we traveled here with, he told me that the Cyclopes wanted information from him about how he conducted his trade with the Host planet.”

  They stared at him in silence for a moment that was long enough to make Philippe feel rather silly.

  “It’s—” he began

  “Defense information,” said Shanti, slowly. “Of course.”

  Philippe nodded. “Defense, or maybe navigation. Something like that.”

  “How did they get here, anyway?” asked George.

  “That’s a fucking good question,” Shanti replied.

  “They didn’t go through the portal,” said George. “We would have seen them.”

  “Maybe they snuck through earlier,” said Philippe.

  “An entire invasion force?” asked Shanti.

  “Um, maybe they’ve been sneaking through for a while? Just a couple of ships at a time?” he replied.

  Shanti mused for a moment.

  “You saw the defense system here. I don’t think that’s possible,” she said. “And they would have had to sneak an entire armada through the space near the Host’s diplomatic station. Also not possible, even if you’re just doing a couple of ships at a time. That space is crawling with surveillance—ours, theirs, and everybody else’s.”

  She stood up and began to pace, her brow furrowed.

  Philippe watched her as she walked. “Did they find a new portal?” she asked her pacing feet. “One that the Hosts don’t know about? One that just happens to lead here from their planet? No. Not unless they are the luckiest sons of bitches alive.

  “They must have some new technology—better engines, something that lets them travel faster than light.” She pivoted on a foot, and smacked one hand into the other. “They want to attack the Hosts, to show them who’s boss. They develop this technology, but they need intelligence, information about the defenses and maybe the exact location of the planet. So they make a couple of runs at that first.”

  “But that didn’t work,” said Philippe.

  “As far as we know,” said George. “They might have tried something else that we don’t know about that did work.”

  “Or maybe not,” said Shanti, still pacing. “Intelligence is never perfect. Maybe they got tired of waiting.”

  “Maybe there’s something political going on at home,” said Philippe.

  Shanti stopped suddenly, pointed at Philippe, then dropped her hand and resumed pacing.

  “Right, like an election or something where the politicians wanted them to rush in and attack now, and damn the intel,” she said. “And why not attack as soon as the ships are ready? Even if this attack doesn’t come off, if the Cyclopes have a faster-than-light drive and the Hosts don’t, the Cyclopes are in an excellent tactical position. They can reach the Hosts however they want, but the Hosts can only reach them one way, through the portal. That’s good choke point—I bet the Cyclopes have incredible defenses around their portal now.”

  “If that’s the case,” said George, “why not make some small attacks first? Probe the defenses or send surveillance?”

  “Surprise,” said Shanti, smacking one hand against the other.

  “They don’t want the other aliens to know and intervene?” ventured Philippe.

  “No, that doesn’t make sense,” said Shanti. “They shut down the portal—they’ve cut the Hosts off from the other aliens.”

  “Unless they didn’t know that was going to happen,” said George.

  Shanti stopped pacing and stared at him.

  “How would they test a portal-closing weapon anyway?
” the doctor continued. “The Hosts monitor all the portals that open to the diplomatic station, and the portal to the Cyclopes planet has never closed, right? The Hosts are certainly acting like something like this has never happened before.”

  “I’m certain they would have mentioned it if it had,” said Philippe. “They’re very attached to the portals, and they watch them obsessively.”

  “The only other explanation is that the Cyclopes found a bunch of new portals that don’t lead to the Hosts’ diplomatic station, and then used them to test and develop a portal-closer,” said George. “They’d have to be very lucky to have done that. I think it’s more likely that they closed the portal by accident. Maybe these new engines have that effect.”

  “Wouldn’t they know?” asked Shanti.

  “Only if they tested them near their portal,” George replied. “And I can think of a million reasons not to test a technology designed to fight the Hosts anywhere near a portal that leads directly to the Host station.”

  “We certainly wouldn’t,” said Philippe. “And the Cyclopes are if anything more paranoid than we are.”

  Shanti nodded. “It makes sense.” She paused for a moment, thinking. “Assuming the Cyclopes closed the portal in the first place.”

  “It’s a hell of a coincidence if they didn’t,” said George. “But I suppose we don’t know for sure.”

  “We don’t know much of anything,” Shanti replied, ruefully. She sat down and sighed. “But, boy, Max sure seemed to think you knew something, right, Philippe? About the portal, and about that prophecy? What’s that all about, anyway?”

  Philippe thought for a moment. Her question was more rhetorical than anything else—she was trying to commiserate, not trying to get an answer.

  But he might be able to find answers. And considering the circumstances, it would be immoral of him not to try.

  He took a deep breath.

  And he told them. Everything.

  It was amazing how liberating it was—Philippe felt a growing thrill of exhilaration as he talked, as he told the whole truth. It was a shame that he hadn’t felt this way in so long. The truth will set you free, he thought as he spoke, feeling the full power of those words.

  And then he was done.

  Shanti and George did not look nearly as elated as he felt. Shanti got on her feet and walked quickly to the far side of the room. Then she walked back and stood in front of the doctor.

  Her voice was low, but furious. “He told you all that, and you didn’t say shit to me?”

  “He didn’t tell me all that,” George replied.

  “I edited,” said Philippe, eager to defend George.

  “Edited?” Shanti snapped, whipping around to him. “That’s one word for it.”

  “Shanti, please,” said George, adopting what Philippe now recognized as his professional persona—the calm, confident medical professional who could surely fix your problem.

  He turned to Philippe, allowing a hint of a concern to creep into his expression. Damn, he’s good, thought Philippe.

  “I wish you had told me all this sooner, Philippe,” George said. “I’m not upset with you, and I’m not judging you, but this is worrying to me. It’s not that you saw something that wasn’t there; it’s that you’re allowing a hallucination to govern your decision making.”

  Philippe tried to match George’s sensible demeanor—the more rational he seemed, the more likely it was that they would believe him. He had a professional persona, too.

  “I don’t think it is a hallucination, George,” he said, calmly. “Patch saw the alien, too, he told me about it. I thought that was just coincidence, but—did you tell him, or anyone, about my problems?”

  “I maintained your confidentiality,” George said, as though that point were inconsequential.

  “No shit!” Shanti burst out. Her composure was nonexistent. “Yes or no, George—did he go back to Earth on your orders?”

  George gave her an exasperated look. “It was my recommendation that Philippe take a vacation, yes.”

  “Your medical recommendation,” Shanti replied. “And you didn’t tell me—I thought it was just a normal vacation. You asshole.”

  “He didn’t tell you that he wanted me to go back to Earth?” asked Philippe.

  “Fuck, no,” said Shanti. “I thought you were going on holiday, not a fucking rest cure.”

  “He’s one of my patients, not one of your soldiers, Shanti,” said George, firmly.

  She opened her mouth to reply, but Philippe interrupted. “If George didn’t tell anyone, then why did Patch see my Host when he was on Earth? He was—” He paused for a moment, but then realized that everyone present knew quite well how Patch usually spent his leave. “He was flying, and he saw a golden, glowing Host who was very anxious and who repeatedly asked him about me—how I was, how I was feeling, if I was OK. The Host wanted Patch to tell him why I was dreaming the things I was dreaming.

  “And he was able to tell Patch about one of the nightmares I’d had. I hadn’t told anyone about it, not in that kind of detail. But Patch knew all about it, about his birthday party that went wrong and the torture. And the Host wanted to know why all that was in my mind, why I kept seeing such horrible things.”

  “He wanted to know about Guantánamo,” Shanti interrupted, quietly.

  Philippe paused, not quite believing his ears. He looked up at her.

  “He wanted—?” he asked, gently.

  “He wanted to know about Guantánamo,” Shanti repeated. She was glaring at him with an equal mixture of astonishment and irritation.

  “What?” said George.

  Shanti turned to George. “I saw him, too. In a dream—several dreams, actually. I saw a gold Host who wanted to know all about Philippe and his nightmares. He described the dreams to me, and one was of Patch’s birthday party, which got interrupted by General Jesus’ thugs, who tortured him.”

  Shanti and George stared at each other for a moment.

  “I’m not crazy,” she snapped. “I have an implant.”

  “When did you see him?” Philippe asked.

  Shanti was still talking to George. “I dreamed about him, OK? I wasn’t flying, I’m not crazy, I didn’t fucking hallucinate. It was when I was on Titan and on Earth before Arne got sick. The Host was trying to figure Trang out—or I was trying to figure Trang out, something like that. So it was a lot of questions about Guantánamo and stress disorders, that sort of shit. He said that Trang was seeing people getting tortured, and that it was happening over and over.”

  “And then we got back to the station and you never dreamed about him again, right?” asked Philippe. Shanti stared at him for a moment, and then nodded. “That’s because he was back with me. He can’t stay with one person when he goes through the portal; he has to go to someone else. So right now, he should be with one of you. We’ve got to find him and talk to him—he might know something.”

  Shanti walked to the far end of the room. George was shaking his head.

  “What do you think?” she asked, not turning around.

  “About what?” George replied, his composure slipping. “Chasing after something you saw in a dream and he hallucinated? Seeking advice from a delusion? Oh, I think that’s a great idea.”

  Shanti turned to George and stared at him for a moment.

  “I don’t like it either,” she said. “But I saw what I saw.”

  “Come on, George,” said Philippe, almost begging. “They’re aliens. They’re mysterious. We don’t know what they can do.”

  Shanti shrugged. “They could be telepathic or something. You can’t say it’s impossible.”

  They were silent for a moment.

  “There’s one way to find out,” Shanti said. “Put me to sleep.”

  “What?” asked George.

  “That’s how I’ll see him, right?” she said. “Just get my suit to dope me up, and I’ll dream about him.”

  “I am not going to sedate you,” said Georg
e. “In case you’ve missed what’s going on, we’re in kind of a tight situation here, and we need everyone to be alert and awake.”

  Shanti thought for a moment. “You can knock me out and then wake me up again—I’ll have a hangover, but it shouldn’t be too bad. If he’s crazy, then we’ll know for sure. And if he’s not crazy, it might help.”

  George sighed. He shook his head, and then sighed again. He seemed to come to some sort of decision, and shrugged.

  He turned to Philippe. “You say you can see him when you meditate?”

  Philippe nodded.

  George looked at Shanti. “I’ll hypnotize you,” he said. “That will put you—”

  “—in a deeply relaxed state,” Shanti finished. “That’s a great idea—you do me, then I’ll do you, so we’ll know for sure.”

  “You know how to hypnotize people?” asked Philippe.

  “Yeah, it was part of the whole survivalist thing I grew up with,” she said. “It was supposed to be for pain management, but we mainly used it to make people wet themselves.”

  “That’s always fun,” said George.

  “Where do you want to do it?”

  The doctor stood up from the platform and gestured at it. “What’s wrong with here?”

  “Just, uh, just be sure not to put your feet on it,” Philippe said, anxiously. “It might be a dining platform, and they have a big taboo about that.”

  George and Shanti looked at each other for a moment.

  “Trang?” said George. “Would you mind waiting outside?”

  “Do you think that’s OK?” Philippe asked. “Or maybe they want us all to stay in here?”

  “I don’t think the door’s locked,” Shanti replied.

  Philippe tried the door, and sure enough, it slid open. He stepped out into the hallway, and then looked back at Shanti and George, who were staring at him blankly.

  I’m probably not a very relaxing sight for either of them right now, he thought, and quietly closed the door behind him.

  The hallway was empty; the doors leading to it were all closed. Their room wasn’t under guard, which Philippe hoped was a promising sign.

  Nonetheless, their reception on the defense station had been decidedly chilly, and Philippe decided he should stay by the door and not go wandering about. Most of the Hosts they had seen here had not been priests, so presumably they had no translation devices, and Max had not left the portable translator with the humans.

  More fundamentally, it had been hard to miss the difference in attitude between the Hosts here and the Hosts on the diplomatic station when they arrived. On the diplomatic station, even the Hosts without translators would thrum and look friendly; here they were all much more guarded, and some were obviously made uncomfortable by the humans. It seemed likely that the Host population at large was not quite as enthusiastic about aliens as, say, Ptuk-Ptik or Max.

  It was also entirely possible that the Hosts suspected the three of them of having links to the attack simply by virtue of their being aliens—especially aliens who had shown up at the wrong place at the wrong time. Philippe suspected that their guest quarters could quite easily become their prison cell.

  If our positions were reversed, he thought, any Hosts visiting Earth would fare very poorly.

  Philippe sat down on the floor by the door and waited. The walls here were slightly soft, like on the diplomatic station, and the one behind him gave just a bit as Philippe leaned against it. He pushed with his fingers into the floor and decided that it was a tiny bit soft as well. He put his hands to his face, rubbing it through his protective hood. They needed some kind of help, some kind of guidance, from Creepy or anyone, really.

  His thoughts were interrupted when another door onto the hallway opened and a Host came out. He looked quizzically at Philippe, who waved. The Host hastily walked away without saying anything audible.

  A few minutes later, two Hosts appeared at the end of the hall, hurrying toward Philippe. “Human diplomat,” said one of them.

  “Max!” said Philippe, standing up. It was Max and the merchant’s nephew.

  “You are well?” asked the nephew.

  “We were told you were suffering,” said Max.

  “No, no, I am fine, I am quite well,” said Philippe, a little puzzled.

  “You were on the ground,” said the nephew. “We were told that you were seen on the ground and flailing in agony.”

  “We thought perhaps you had fallen,” said Max.

  “No, I was just sitting, resting,” said Philippe. “I was on the ground, but I was just resting.”

  “I understand,” said Max, looking relieved. “I believe you were seen by one of the soldiers, who thought you were in distress. Among the Hosts, people lay their bodies on the floor only if they are sick or injured.”

  “Were you seen by a soldier?” asked the nephew.

  “I was seen by a Host whom I did not know,” said Philippe. “He may have been a solider.”

  “It is extremely simple to determine if a Host is a soldier with certainty,” replied the nephew. “If you examine the markings on the third bodily segment, soldiers are marked very clearly as such, just as priests and merchants are.”

  Really? thought Philippe.

  “How is your planet faring against the attack?” he asked. “Has the portal reopened?”

  Max’s face fell. “It has not,” he replied. “The soldiers have put our defenses fully into action. The planet itself remains protected, although we have not yet been able to repulse the attackers. The portal has not reopened, which is a source of great concern and despair.”

  “Why is that?” asked Philippe. “Is it important to your defense?”

  “Not in a physical manner,” said the priest.

  “The defenses were largely built with the expectation that any attack would come through the portal, however,” said the nephew. “The large weapon on this station cannot be aimed elsewhere but at the portal.”

  “That design was always considered improper by the priests,” Max said.

  “Has this ever happened before?”

  Max looked shocked by the question. “Never since the portal opened,” he said. “We have never been attacked by our friends.”

  “Do you know what the Cyclopes want?” asked Philippe.

  “Dominion,” Max replied, glumly. “They want governance of the diplomatic station—which is, of course, completely improper—as well as pledges that we will send them items of value for no restitution and acknowledge their superiority in some symbolic fashion.”

  “Endless Courage and Brave Loyalty broadcast the demands. They are here on the attack ships,” said the nephew. “Cannot translate is extremely unhappy.”

  “He refers to his uncle the merchant,” said Max.

  “I apologize,” said the nephew.

  “I take absolutely no offense,” said Philippe. “I share your uncle’s distress at that news, and he has my sympathies. I, too, believed that I had established a trusting relationship with them, particularly with Brave—”

  The door opened. George was standing in the doorway, looking perplexed.

  “Oh, hello,” said Philippe.

  “I, um, I think we found him,” said George, scratching the side of his neck and closing the door behind him. “Your, ahem, your prophecy guy.”

  “He means your messiah,” said Philippe to Max.

  Max immediately brightened up. He’s excited, but he’s not surprised, Philippe realized.

  “Shanti wants to talk to your military commanders right away,” George said.

  “I will tell them,” said Max, hurrying away.

  “Well, but, uh—she needs something to draw with, too,” said George to Max’s retreating form. He turned to Philippe. “Do you think they’ll listen to her?”

  “She is a female,” said the nephew. “They may not do what she says to do, but they will listen to her as she says it.”

  Shanti opened the door and walked out. Her eyes were
half closed, and her face was without expression. There were tears on her face, and she was breathing like she’d been running.

  George jumped when he saw her, but quickly recovered. “Shanti, please tell me where you are going,” he said, his voice deep and calming.

  “To speak with the Host military command,” she replied. Philippe saw her eyelids flutter. “It’s very important.”

  “You can do that in just a little while,” said George in a soporific voice. “We’re setting that up right now, so you can relax about it and stay relaxed. What I want you to do is to take a nice, deep breath, and with that breath I want you to return to that nice, relaxed state, that nice, relaxed hypnotic state.”

  She inhaled deeply, and her eyelids stopped moving.

  “It is OK if I touch your arm?” George asked. Shanti nodded. “I’m going to lead you back into that room, and then we’ll come out again when they’re ready for you. They’ll be ready and listening in just a little while.”

  “OK,” she said. George led her back through the doorway and closed the door, still looking perplexed.

  Philippe and the nephew stood nervously outside the door until a Host came up, chirping. “He is here to take us to the commanders,” said the nephew.

  Philippe opened the door. Shanti was sitting on the platform, her arms out. Her palms were turned upward and her index fingers and thumbs were touching. “Now you’ve got Twinkle,” George was saying.

  “They’re ready for us,” Philippe said.

  “Is it OK if I touch your arm?” George asked Shanti. She nodded. “OK, I’m going to lead you over to the Host military command.”

  She stood up, and they began walking.

  They followed the Host, who led them through the wide corridors to a room. Despite the differences in design—the proportions were way off, and instead of there being stairs, the floor slanted upward—it was obvious to Philippe that this room served as a small auditorium. Max stood at the lowest point in the floor, facing platforms behind which stood a number of somber-looking Hosts. Philippe noted with relief that Max had placed the portable translator on the floor.

  “Do you have something she can draw with?” asked George. The portable translator chirped.

  “Yes, this drawing utensil,” said Max, holding a rather chubby-looking cylinder.

  George looked at it. “Can you please explain to her how to use it?”

  “Yes. Greetings, taller female human,” said Max.

  Shanti didn’t respond.

  “Max is talking to you, Shanti,” said George. “He’s going to call you taller female human.”

  “Oh,” she said, straightening her posture further.

  Max showed her how to use the drawing utensil—apparently if you held it at the right angle, it emitted what looked like a laser beam. That didn’t seem very helpful until Max showed that if you pointed it at the wall behind you, the wall held the mark. Point the other end, and a different colored beam erased the mark.

  “Now, we’re here in front of the Host military command,” said George. “Since you know how to draw using that device now, I want you to start your presentation, using that device to make any drawings. The Hosts are over here,” he faced her in that direction, “and the drawing board is back here.” He faced her the other way.

  “OK,” said Shanti. She turned to face the Hosts and threw up her right arm, which held the drawing device.

  “We will begin by outlining some basic principles that we believe, once fully understood, will provide important practical insight into the nature of the Cyclopes faster-than-light engine and of the portal from your home world to the diplomatic station, which recently closed.”

  Shanti’s voice had suddenly turned loud and brisk, as though she were addressing her unit but had somehow forgotten to use obscenities. Her right arm, seemingly of its own accord, began sketching furiously as she continued, her half-closed eyes not once looking at the elaborate drawing emerging on the wall behind her.

  “While disabling the Cyclopes engine at the moment lies beyond our comprehension, we believe that we have uncovered the theoretical understanding needed to reopen the portal, thus contacting the other alien species and, we hope, obtaining their assistance in this crisis. We begin with the eighteenth blossom of energy, which we have sketched out here.”

  Philippe looked at the drawing on the wall. It looked nothing like a blossom.

  Shanti continued to draw, modifying her sketch as she spoke without looking at it. She talked at a brisk clip, enunciating clearly and never much varying the tone of her voice. Philippe had never seen her look so professional, although he had no idea what she was talking about.

  Finally she said, “We’d like to mention a theory popular on Earth, called string theory. Specifically, some of the insights from the third string revolution we think will shed some light on this matter.”

  “Excuse my interruption,” said a voice in Philippe’s earplant, as a Host in the second row chirped.

  “OK,” said Shanti, in a quieter voice.

  “You said that this theory of strings was originated on your planet?”

  Shanti paused, and then regained her professional composure. “String theory was developed on Earth. It is somewhat dated, but we think you’ll see that some of the ideas have some interesting and relevant parallels to some of the ideas we’ve just presented.”

  “Where does the eighteenth blossom of energy come from?” asked the Host.

  Shanti swayed from side to side, and then stopped. “That one’s yours,” she said.

  “It once was,” said the Host. “It is an ancient theory. It was popular during the lifetime of cannot translate. Do you know of him?”

  Philippe thought he heard the Host say kre and nao, although it was hard to hear his voice over the earplant.

  “Who?” asked Shanti in a small voice.

  “Cannot translate,” said the Host, and Philippe was sure he heard kre followed by a ki and a nao. “Do you know of him or his song?”

  “No?” she asked. Her eyelids began to flutter again.

  “Shanti, I think they’re talking about that Host you saw or, um, are seeing,” said Philippe. “The gold one.”

  “He sings?” she asked.

  There was a slight rustling as apparently every Host in the room felt the need to shift his feet. The room fell silent, and Philippe realized that the atmosphere had changed from one of curious attention to something closer to awe.

  A couple of the Hosts began to thrum.

  “What should we do to reopen the portal?” asked the Host.

  Shanti paused, her eyelids relaxing again. She reached out with the drawing implement and speedily erased the image on the wall.

  “Since the Cyclopes faster-than-light engine essentially creates a short-lived portal, our recommended course of action is: 1. Acquire a Cyclopes ship that is powered by a faster-than-light engine. 2. Position said ship in the center of the closed portal. 3. Detonate the ship. It will require significant explosive firepower in order to bring the engine up to the appropriate energy level, but once that firepower is achieved, the portal should immediately reopen and remain stable.”

  “We obey,” said the Host.

  A few moments later the room was clear of all the Hosts except for Max. George was holding Shanti’s arm and slowly counting backwards.

  He reached one, and she blinked. “You did it,” the doctor said.

  “That was fucking weird,” she replied. “Interesting, but fucking weird.”

  “He’s gone?” asked Philippe.

  “For now,” Shanti said. “Max! I wanna see what’s going on. Can you take us to tactical?”

  “I obey,” said Max.

  “That’s what I like to hear,” Shanti replied.

  They followed Max out. Philippe increased his pace to catch up with the Host.

  “I wasn’t the chosen one after all,” he said.

  “No, I was mistaken in that belief,” said Max.


  They walked on in silence.

  “Do you think Moritz is going to be upset, still?” Philippe asked.

  “The chosen one may not be a Host, but at least the chosen one is female,” Max replied. He stopped a soldier and explained where they wanted to go; the soldier immediately changed direction, and thrumming away, took them toward what Philippe assumed was tactical.

  “I thought that you guys said that most Hosts didn’t know the prophecy,” said Philippe as they walked. “Those guys sure seemed to know it pretty well.”

  “They do not know every word of it,” said Max. “Only the priests know that, and only priests see the image. But everyone is trained to identify the chosen one.”

  They followed the soldier into a large, dark room, and Philippe gasped. On the wall were large video images of the fight, but his attention was seized by a three-dimensional graphic of the battle that took up the middle of the floor. At first Philippe thought the whole thing was some sort of projection, but he realized by watching the Host move across the floor that there were clear columns rising from the floor, each of which contained an image of a specific area of space, with different colored icons representing ships and satellites.

  Philippe looked at the walls and the displays, trying to figure out which ships belong to which side. Neither side had warships that were clear like the Host merchant vessels, however. Instead, there were ships that were angular, almost like a W, that shot missiles, and there were round ships that shot what looked like liquid fire.

  What do they burn in space? Philippe wondered.

  He thought at first that the round ships must be the Cyclopes ships, because a species that could shoot beams from its body seemed likely to build ships that also shot beams. But he asked Max, who told him that the round ships were the Hosts and the angular ships were the Cyclopes.

  One Cyclopes ship in particular dominated the wall screens. Several Host ships were picking at it with their beams of liquid fire. They were joined by several gigantic, multi-tailed versions of the little tow-pods that the Hosts had once used to grab Earth satellites when they went through the Titan portal. These ships began to grip the Cyclopes ship with their whiplike extensions, like a mob of octopi.

  The three-dimensional graphic gave another perspective: It showed a cluster of Host ships around one Cyclopes ship—and it showed the other Host ships being outflanked and punished as a result of this concentration of forces.

  There was a hubbub, and Max said, “On the screen, you can see that the Cyclopes ship has been captured.”

  And so it had been—four or five giant tow-pods had their whips about it.

  “What will they do if the Cyclopes use their faster-than-light engine?” Philippe asked.

  “We will capture a second ship,” said Max.

  But the Cyclopes were either unable or unwilling to engage the ship’s engine, and it was cut off from the other Cyclopes ships by the Hosts. The tow-pods dragged the captive ship just in front of the filigree circle that marked the now-closed portal and held it there.

  “Can they evacuate before their ship is destroyed?” asked Philippe.

  “The people in the towing ships? I do not think that will be possible,” said Max. “But they know for what their sacrifice is being made.”

  “I meant—that’s bad, too. What about the Cyclopes?”

  Max looked uncomfortable. “Even if they were to evacuate, their own ships cannot pick them up here, and the planetary defenses are activated and will automatically destroy all alien vessels that approach them.” He looked at Philippe. “It is regrettable, but this is our first space war, and we have not had the opportunity to prepare to be civilized.”

  The station began to shudder.

  “What’s that?” asked Philippe.

  “The station is preparing to fire its most powerful weapon,” said Max.

  A deep roar began from far beneath their feet.

  “Oh, shit,” muttered Shanti. “I hope I haven’t fucked my sister.”