Alessandro finally noticed how sick she was getting in the mornings and her changes in appetite. He stood outside and waited until she'd finished retching, handed her a glass of water before very quietly saying, "You're either pregnant, or very ill."
All Jen could do at that point was sip her water and nod. "I'm pregnant."
They were standing at the top of the stairs at this point. "How long have you know?" he asked.
"Since the invasion. I wasn't sure before then."
"What the bloody hell de ye mean, woman, not tellin' me!" His roar was enough to shake the furniture. Jennifer took her hands down from her ears where they'd muffled the noise and, despite cringing inside from the realization that the observers downstairs could probably hear every word through two floors of town house, gave back as good as she got.
"If you're going to act like a Neanderthal—which you are—no wonder I didn't tell you that we're going to be parents!" Not "I'm pregnant" as if he had nothing to do with it. Nor "You are going to be a father" as if she had nothing to do with it, but "We are now and will be parents."
He had his mouth open to go on when she said the magic word "parents" and stopped.
"Would it be easier if I were ill, the way you were worried about?" She continued. She took hold of the newel post for support—it was Damnfine wood that he'd been so proud of when they'd built the place. Her mouth was full of the sourness of bile and she just wanted to sit down.
He shook his head, wordlessly, before turning away, hands clenching and unclenching. Jennifer hoped he'd turn back, hold her, but he stood there, his broad back as unapproachable as a brick wall. That was a low blow. Maybe I shouldn't have said that.
It hurt that even though it was dangerous and a bad time to be pregnant he couldn't be happy with her. " 'Sandro, it wasn't just me who wanted children." Why was he blaming her? They'd agreed to try and had been hoping, before the aliens came. "I admit I didn't suggest we stop trying when the news broke, but neither did you."
He didn't turn, didn't say anything. After a long moment she turned away from him and started down the stairs. "I've said what I need to say. I'm going downstairs to have a cup of tea—the grassy stuff the medic recommended, don't worry. This nausea is lasting a bit longer than it should, but everything's okay, if you're interested. And if you have anything to say to me, I'll be in the kitchen trying to keep dry toast down."
Alessandro listened to her footsteps as she went down, unable to make himself turn around. I should have said something. I should have done something. Now it's not just us in danger, but a child too. I'm such a hypocrite. I can do anything to fight, but present me with more to fight for and I'm suddenly frightened with the responsibility. I'd risk everything, but I still feel like I've been blindsided. I just forgot. And I've been blind. She's already showing. I just didn't see.
He just couldn't face her. Especially not with what he'd planned. He couldn't just wait around any longer for Van Felsen's caution. He'd spoken to Wismer and Narejko and planned a raid for day after tomorrow. It was time to show the Baldies that humans weren't going to just lie down and be walked on.
I'm going to do it and I can't tell her why I'm so upset. I'll have a good excuse to be out of the house for a couple of nights. He walked out to the back balcony and went down the outside stairs. He could see Jennifer at the breakfast bar, looking into the living room and squashed a sudden impulse to go apologize. He turned and went out the back gate, determined to do what he had to, but feeling shitty. It'll be for her and our child. I'm going to be a father. And I want it to grow up on a free world, not an occupied one.
She heard the back gate slam, put her head down on the counter, and cried.
Ankaht was not attending the Service. In the new High City, Urkhot, the holodah'kri communed with Illudor and the selnarm flow of his and the assembled clusters would be pouring out of the new Temple, built from the specific section of ship that had been designed for it.
A human might have said that it was a spiral, somewhat like a nautilus from Old Earth, or rather more like a horn shell, since the building did rise into a cone shape. It was based on a sea creature from Old Ardu, a Threem. Like a Threem shell it was a polished creamy color that was slightly iridescent making it stand out from the reddish sandy colors of most of the rest of the city.
Ankaht was being antisocial and Thutmus had been concerned that she did not wish to participate in the Communing. She sat in a selnarm-isolation room in her house. Everyone had one, because no matter how much group care was essential, the individual also needed attention.
To be honest the selnarm flow of this whole generation disturbed her and she struggled with it in this meditation room almost daily. But the holodah'kri's selnarm distressed her as well. It was obvious what his opinion was.
The room mercifully stifled the wave of emotion flowing out from the Temple, the extreme ecstasy and conviction of rightness that Admiral Torhok and his Destoshaz so easily turned to martial action. The Circle of Sleepers was a kernel of stillness compared to that. Her problem as senior was to try and make that stillness spread. (Implacability.) This selnarm from the Wanderers, the Shiplings, even though they were now technically landed, reminded her of lives lived during the Great Wars period on Old Ardu. This selnarm sought glory and violence. It was indifferent to suffering—of any sentient creature—and it encouraged a willingness to duel and defend an honor that was as far as she was concerned as much a fiction as any cultural convention.
And Urkhot was siding with Admiral Torhok on the ruling council. The two of them had pulled all the extremists to their camp and the very few moderates on Ankaht's side were wavering. She had to prepare herself to go into Council after the Communing since that was always seen as the best time to begin any kind of meeting or negotiation. (Negative anticipation, determination.)
She laid one hand on the new statue before her, a piece that would have horrified most of the rest of her own kind. She had seen it in a park in the griarfeksh city and it spoke to her. (Hope for joy.) It was so smooth featured that in the abstract it could have been either griarfeksh or Arduan: featureless head, bipedal figure with pointed limbs, dancing, eloquent it its movement caught in time. A glossy carved rock on a pleasingly rough piece of the same material. It gave her calm in the midst of this chaos, and hope that the griarfeksh problem had some kind of resolution other than that of extermination.
In another selnarm-insulated room, the lights set comfortingly low, two heads of clusters conferred. "I'm not sure I'm going to want to present this report to the admiral (Distress, discomfort.)," Hurnefer, Senior Cluster Linguist—newly appointed out of his training as a biologist—said plaintively. "There is a regular structure to the language but it seems to violate its own rules so often that it is absolutely incomprehensible." His tentacles writhed along with his distress, coiling shut and open as he contemplated facing the admiral who was (Insisting.) increasingly intolerant of their efforts.
(Calm.) Tornat, Secondary Cluster, soothed. "He must understand that we can only interpret what is absolutely comprehensible. At least we are making headway with their written language."
"But that . . . even if you discount the evidence of other languages in the same species—possibly hundreds along with this English . . ." He actually paused, too agitated to continue for a moment. "Words that have identical spellings and completely different pronunciations—tough, cough, dough, plough—and whole families of phoneme clusters like it!" (Confusion, irritation.) "How can anything comprehensible come of such structures?"
Tornat was silent before mentally calling up his section of the report. "If one sticks to written only, and simple commands, there is less confusion; all very machinelike and only appropriate for data transmission. It is only when one delves into the masses of material they carefully preserve in their machines and in their libraries, town halls, and universities—all of which seem to translate as variations on knowledge storage places, mass confusion reigns."
He was flushed a dusty color. (Anger, irritation, dismay.) "A warlike Deity glorifying the hideous destruction of cities, called the 'Deity who Loves.' A word which is supposedly 'affection, attraction' but which is also given meanings of destruction, violence, jealousy, and a willingness to kill. Any emotion, or feelings of any sort, any kind of selnarm is either absent or totally contradictory or incomprehensible gibberish!"
Hurnefer rose and turned away, reducing pressure on his fellow linguist, who returned the favor, until the increasing spiral of selnarm distress dissipated. It was Hurnefer who finally turned back. "We must continue, of course. We can only report the truth and if the admiral (Unreasonable action.) blames us for these griarfeksh's impenetrability then that is as it will be."
(Acceptance, resignation.) "You're correct. You may as well send it and we can go back to (Futility.) climbing the wall of language. Have you managed to collect any specimens for direct observation?"
Hurnefer flushed again. (Anger, irritation.) "A few. They appear to be older individuals out of the knowledge storage places. Young males and females have a universally aggressive response to attempted collection and we know already not to go near the young, even the ones apparently isolated in clusters of unwanted or neglected, as are clusters of very old." (Grieved aggression.)
"Even in the buildings were they are prolonging the agony of this life with heroic measures—utmost cruelty—I cannot comprehend what these individuals must have done to be punished in this way. . . ." He paused again, speechless. "What crimes did they do to be kept in this life, in such agony?" He closed all three eyes for a moment, shocked into complete immobility.
Tornat nodded. "They respond as though these members of society were precious as opposed to unwanted, yet if we leave them alone they ignore these individuals, save for what appears to be routine maintenance."
"Only the completely unwanted, single individuals—homeless ones, clusterless ones—are apparently acceptable for us to seize. (Condescending disgust.) Those individuals unfortunately appear to be even more damaged than other members of the group. . . . (Skin twitching visceral disgust.) They also smell bad."
(Compassion.) "We have managed to acquire two of these kinds of facilities," he continued. "But we've had to start shooting any single individuals that approach us voluntarily. They either attempt to communicate at high volume, waving various objects in one hand and a book in the other, or they have brought explosive material strapped to their bodies, immolated themselves, and taken the facility with them."
For a long moment the two cluster heads shared mutual confusion and discomfiture before Tornat tactfully changed the subject so they did not have to turn away to destress. "Have you lost any of your team to planetary shock?"
(Worry.) "Yes, four of my group." Hurnefer was almost a normal color at this point, tapping both claws on the table. "Filtenat had an episode right in our work. It was most distressing having to shut out his panicky selnarm until the mental-health officials came and isolated him." He'd screamed that it was all over him, clawing at himself, apparently trying to get the planet off his skin, but that was too distressing to convey, so it was left unsaid.
Filtenat had actually been one of the fortunate ones who could be taken back up into microgravity and a controlled environment. One of the others in Hurnefer's group had chosen to go on to the next life by trying to defy gravity off one of the taller buildings.
"And you?"
Tornat knotted his tentacles together, stilling his unnatural restlessness. (Reassurance.) "Only two. The number is dropping as people adjust to being here. It will feel like home to the next generation."
"Except for those who refuse to come down." (Concern.)
(Ripple of irony, humor.) "Then we will be two kinds of people, spacegoing and planet loving. As our lives unfold."
(Resolution.) Hurnefer tapped a control and sent a thought to the computer. It packed the report and sent it forward to the attention of the admiral's office. "Done."
"Shall we go soak ourselves in hot water before we go back to it?"
"Yes. (Anticipated relief.) We should let everyone have a short period of relaxation."
"Sir," the corporal's whisper was a bare thread in his ear-mike. Alessandro was flattened under a ground vehicle, a private truck that happened to be parked on the hill above the school, giving him a perfect line of sight. He inched forward slightly to get an absolutely clear view of the perimeter the Baldies had laid around the boarding school. The truck had been parked less than an hour ago and the cooling power plant covered his own body heat in case they happened to be using bio-scanners.
The streetlights glowed yellow in the summer haze, turning the night into a smoky-looking yellowish darkness, the pavement under his chest only now beginning to give up the day's heat. Oil and dust filled his nose making him want to sneeze, and the breeze just starting up made it worse, but it would help cover their movements.
The bushes and trees rustled, the shadows shimmering on the pavement, making flickering patterns of light and dark, never the same twice. It was as good as chaff for sensors, and he was glad he wasn't defending an urban area. Almost as glad that they were.
He clicked his teeth together to ensure he had a good connection. "Corporal."
"We're in position and deploying the grenades."
"Good."
Wismer and Narejko had proved adept at rewiring children's toys. Each of the three of them had half a dozen remote-control vehicles of some kind, modified to carry charges, their receivers powerful enough to accept a signal from a distance vastly expanded from their original construction.
The neighborhood had been warned that something would happen. Everyone knew that the aliens had captured the school and would take the children and teachers away somewhere. Most of the houses were already vacated, though there were some people who swore they'd take their chances. For a moment 'Sandro wished he had Van Felsen's sanction on his actions so he could make them leave, but working on the sly like this . . . well, what would happen, happened.
Earlier they'd made a personal call from a mobile com to one of the teachers. It seemed that the aliens hadn't yet realized what the tiny devices were. So everyone in the school was warned and ready to act.
Alessandro sent the first of his "toys" out under the row of parked vehicles, keeping its motion random to avoid setting off detectors. After all, they couldn't keep shooting up the neighborhood for every squirrel. His toy, his concussion grenade on treads, stopped and started, turning like a stray dog, or a near-racoon. If he hadn't had it in his sight and known what to look for he'd have lost it in the first few seconds of it trundling into the shadow under a parked vehicle. It zipped across a walkway and into the school gardens.
As the first toy cleared the bushes, he stopped it and sent in the second, third, and fourth, scattering them through the Bell lilacs. The Baldies had good sensors and caught something from one of 'Sandro's team. Five meters down the school's approach drive, the lights of one of the alien's assault vehicles snapped on, spearing into the bushes, sending harsh, eye-searing light into the trees. All around the building, other vehicles came online, turning the playing field into an alien surface, making playground equipment all but unrecognizable in the glare and stark black shadows.
"All still," 'Sandro said quietly.
"Ya." Narejko and Wismer's answers avoided the sibilant hiss a proper "yes" would have created. Silence as they waited out the alarm. No aliens made the mistake of stepping out of their armor, but scanned the surroundings from their protection. Distantly, 'Sandro could hear one of the younger children crying inside the building, being hushed.
Some of the neighbors had helpfully left their house systems turned on, so lights and vid systems and music came on at the usual times, hopefully further confusing the aliens' scanners.
The alarm had helpfully pointed out where all the armored vehicles were and he'd carefully noted their positions. "Ten minutes," he said quietly into his throat mike. "One, take the two at the front. Two, east and north side."
"Ya. Ya."
The surreal vision of a school being advanced on by a small army of remote-control toys made Alessandro want to shake his head in disbelief, but he continued to click out directions to those cannibalized tanks and sports vehicles, each with its deadly load.
It took another handful of minutes to maneuver their mobile grenades into position. 'Sandro was sweating by the time the tone in his ear gave him a two-minute warning. The vehicle he was after was in the open, giving him no cover to get his second explosive into position. He stopped the track next to a downed teeter-totter seat but even as he did the aliens spotted it and vaporized the toy and the grenade it carried and the seesaw it was hiding behind. It began to move but 'Sandro detonated the second grenade that had just made it underneath.
The alien vehicle was engulfed in the expanding fireball and tumbled, flipped over twice before snapping off an old neo-maple, coming to rest on the shattered remains of its roof. Matching concussions on the north and east sides lit up the night, turning it into a shrieking mass of shrapnel and smoke and setting the grass and bushes on fire.
'Sandro squinted against the glare, glad of his earplugs as the massive shockwaves made the vehicle over him shudder, burned the surrounding vegetation and scorched the surfaces off the closest houses. There was a profound silence full of the ticking of overheated metal cooling, and the last pieces of debris that had been blown high into the air hitting the ground.
There were shots inside the school, where teachers turned from meek captives into killers, defending the kids, swinging improvised weapons. He didn't want to think what that took, for civilians to fight hand to hand like that. But they had assured him they would, and apparently they were. He reminded himself that the division between civilian and military was one of choice. Lots of my buddies have this idea that the civs they came from are somehow stripped of their guts. Force a war on people and everybody becomes a grenade with the pin pulled. Just threaten their kids or their parents.
The school itself had caught fire and Alessandro brought the last two of his remotes into play as the children, herded by the adults, began to flee the building. He could see their dark shapes against the light. As planned they began to scatter in small groups into the surrounding streets. A Baldy staggered out of the building, obviously dazed, still trying to stop them. Raising a firearm.
There's enough space. Alessandro made a snap decision and one of his remote-control air toys lost power and dropped right at the Baldy's feet. There was only a fraction of a second to respond and the alien, still stunned, perhaps by a blow on the head, didn't. The explosion was much smaller than the ones that had ripped through alien armor, but it was quite big enough to reduce the Baldy to its component parts and knock down the last group of children.
They picked themselves up and kept running, thankfully all of them, that 'Sandro could see.
"Good job, guys. Fade."
"Tomorrow."
The two corporals would work their separate ways home, blending into the crowd of people fleeing the conflagration and the expected alien retaliation, just as 'Sandro would, after dropping the remote controls in the nearest recycling bin that would flash them into their component materials.
These aliens just don't know what they're up against, he thought, satisfied. We got the kids out, and they still don't know what hit them. He brushed himself off after getting out from under the vehicle and walking briskly away from the commotion behind. One alley and he was shielded by another row of buildings, one more block removed from complicity.
He opened his hand, dropped his own remotes in a bin without breaking stride and kept going; the one he hadn't needed would stay behind and go off when the Baldies closed on the area. Proximity fuses were a favorite way to play merry Hell.
It was a good idea to stay on foot since the tube would be shut down by now and he'd stay on foot till he was well away, to where he'd parked a rented vehicle. The aliens would have things shut down completely for all outgoing traffic inside the next few minutes but by then he'd be safely on the way home, apparently driving in rather than away. Not the sort of thing he would have tried with a human opponent, but the aliens were showing a number of deficits in understanding humans and he intended to exploit every one he could. Especially now.
I have to get home and apologize to Jen. Even though he wanted to slow down, he kept up his smooth pace, one designed not to draw attention to himself.If I don't, she'll think I'm a complete heel, not just trying to keep her safe. Not having an excuse not to be home for a couple of nights. He felt like a complete ass, having maintained their fight to keep her from wondering what he was doing out at night without her. But it was safer that way. Even if he'd trusted her with his life, he couldn't –in good conscience—risk the baby too.
He climbed into the vehicle and got underway already planning on eating serious crow. The alien support ships zipping overhead in the same direction ignored him.
The Arduan Council chamber on Bellerophon was in silent uproar. (Fear, anger, distrust, urge to kill, shocked response.) They were mentally divided into two defensive clusters, the selnarm shock waves triggering and retriggering a defensive response from the Destoshaz Anaht'doh Kainat and shaxzhu both but with very different focuses.
Admiral Torhok seized control of selnarm, aided by Urkhot's powerful send, and formed it into (Enraged, will to destroy.). But Ankaht and Thutmus along with Treknat, Felnarmaht and Nukurhat—who was very disturbed at disagreeing with his spiritual leader—all three lesser councilors, held firm against the tide of (Rage, will to murder.) spilling from the other eight, two priests along with Urkhot and the five Destoshaz.
"Admiral, you do not need to destroy every one of these griarfeksh on the planet." Ankaht sent her strongest (Reason, calm.). "We do not know why they refuse to stop fighting. We do not know the why of ninety percent of the things they do."
"If they keep destroying our researchers then they, not us, will be the cause of their own destruction!" Torhok's sending was an odd sensation for Ankaht and she had to think before she recognized it. The willingness to kill blended with an eagerness that took a long moment for her to recognize it. She blinked, appalled. Will to triumph over all opposition. Glory. Satisfaction for anticipated victory.
She doubted that any of the other Destoshaz even recognized it consciously. They—all of them, she realized—were reacting to it on a level so deep that it almost defied description. Her own reaction was an automatic resistance to give adulation, the admiration, respect, and almost reverence that Torhok obviously was beginning to crave.
All this took only a fraction of a second for her to recognize; she blinked and cast a glance at her allies, also realizing that none of them understood what she did. They did not have the depth of shaxzhutok that she did and some—notably Nukurhat—were only supporting her through a vague sense of narmata gone awry and a stubborn refusal to assume that anything not understood was automatically monstrous.
"These fiends are not to be understood!" Urkhot thundered both verbally and in selnarm. (Negation, rejection.) "They should not exist! They are an insult to Illudor and our Race! Destroy them all! Cleanse the planet of their pollution, their foulness on the face of the Deity!" (Rightness, justice craved.)
Nurukhat (Resolution, determination.) said, quietly, "Holodah'kri," the title for the High Priest that meant something like Born Many Times, or Protector of the Way, "Holodah'kri, perhaps Illudor has brought us to these creatures for our own holodah?"
(Disbelief.) "You insist on questioning my judgment?" (Loathing, derision.) Under the lash of Urkhot's selnarm Nurukhat withdrew slightly physically, curling tentacles shut, tucking claws under, closing eyes, but refused to budge morally.
"Yes, Holodah'kri. I question and as my duty, continue to question. No 'kri is above the mind of all. No one alive is infallible."
(Support.) "Indeed," Thutmus broke in. "Admiral, is the race in danger? How safe are we, really?" (Neutral inquiry.)
Illudor bless, Ankaht thought and suppressed a sudden surge of affection. That was a distraction that no one here needed. The male is intelligent and thoughtful both. Illudor be thanked I have good taste.
Torhok, who had merely let his selnarm flow as a minor support to Urkhot's emotional storm, seeming more reasonable thereby, knotted his tentacles together contentedly. "The Race is as safe as I and the other Destoshaz can make it, here. I feel confident that I can hold this system against anything coming. (Fierce joy, urge to fight.) These two-eyed monsters have given us an enormous amount of information to swallow in one gulp, if we can decipher it. (Indulgent humor.) And for that, I am profoundly grateful. (Irony.) I repeat, the system is thoroughly defended, and the masses of already refined materials in the vermin's shipyards have put us ahead of schedule rebuilding the defensive ships. (Chary watchfulness.) The scientists are working on what information they can glean about the use of these 'holes' in space that the griarfeksh use and in the future I expect we will take the fight to them." (Bloodthirstiness.)
The sense of bloody destruction from the admiral, gilded with hope, sickened Ankaht and she caught a flicker of agreement from Thutmus. (Will to destroy, six for, two undecided, five against.) The selnarm consensus thankfully was holding, with the two undecided, swayed by Nurukhat's unwillingness to be steered like a Bilbuxhat by the nose, Thutmus's neutrality and the lingering, unusual taste for blood from Torhok. It was thick in her mouth and nose, in her mind at least, and she was sure it was as mentally cloying in everyone else's, though some would more have the taste for it than she.
Ankaht's selnarm rose, startling a response out of the Destoshaz 'kri faction with its strength. She seldom "out-shouted" either admiral or holodah'kri but it was necessary to remind them occasionally that she had the raw power to do it if she so chose.
(Negation, rejection of blood-hunger, tranquility, patience.) Torhok looked a bit like he'd been hit between the lower eyes with a hammer. "We take no further action until we have more information. We can all feel how split we are on the subject and will maintain until something changes the balance. Give our scientists the time they need." (Fierceness.) It will not serve to challenge the admiral directly, at this point, as much as I would dearly love to shove a claw where it would do us all the most good. She let none of her longing for a particular kind of just violence nor her own disgust at that particular joy show, but she kept it wrapped in a core of herself to be unwrapped later.
She had not practiced maatkah in several years of awake time, onboard ship, but at one point, as a meditation, she had been high-ranked. It was time to begin a more active meditation, she decided. I will need it to do what is both right and correct. (Fierceness.)