John Ringo: Yellow Eyes

The inspector ignored Hector completely, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing a folded paper. From light filtering through the thick parchment-colored sheet Hector thought he saw an official seal affixed to the bottom. The inspector began to read from the sheet.

“ Señora Digna Adame-Miranda de Miranda-Montenegro,” he used her full, formal name, “in accordance with the recent Public Law for the Defense of the Republic of Panama, you are hereby summoned and required to report to the Public Force Medical Facilities at Ancon Hill, Panama City, Republic of Panama for duty.”

The inspector then turned to an aghast Hector and, smiling, continued. “Oh, and you too, Señor Miranda. Would you like me to read you your conscription notice?”

Even a very junior Darhel rated a great deal of protocol, so powerful were they within the Galactic Federation. The one seated opposite the Undersecretary of State for Extraterrestrial Affairs was very junior indeed within Darhel circles. Even so, the alien had been greeted with deference bordering on, perhaps even crossing over to, obsequiousness. It would have been nauseating to see to anyone not a diplomat born and trained.

“We wish to remind you,” stated the elven-faced Darhel in a flat-toned hiss through needle-sharp teeth, “how long thisss department of your government hasss been a client of oursss.”

“The Department of State is fully aware of the close and cordial relations we have enjoyed since 1932,” the undersecretary answered, noncommittally.

It was, of course, extremely unwise for any Darhel to become agitated. Thus, this one kept a calm demeanor as he asked, “Then why thisss regrettable disssregard of our adviccce and guidanccce? Why thisss wassstage of effort on the part of your military forcesss on what isss, at mossst a sssecondary area, thisss unimportant isthmusss? Don’t your people realizzze how much we need the defenssse you can provide? Important considerationsss are at ssstake.” Briefly the Darhel let his true feelings show through, “Marginsss are being called; contractsss are being placcced in jeopardy!”

The undersecretary sighed. “Yes, we know this, my lord. We so advised the President. Unfortunately we were overruled.”

Intolerable , thought the Darhel. Intolerable that these people insist on the illusion that they are entitled to their own interests and priorities. Why can’t they be more pliable, more realistic? Why do they persist in refusing to think and act the way their cousins in Europe do?

The undersecretary picked at a bit of off-color lint on his suit lapel. For a moment the Darhel wondered if the motion was some kind of unspoken signal, some sort of body language for which his briefings had not prepared him.

In fact, the motion meant nothing in itself, though Foreign Service personnel did have an ingrained fetish about neatness, a physical manifestation of the unstated but thoroughly understood diplomatic preference for form over substance: What matter the shit we eat or the shit we serve up, so long as the niceties are observed.

Though it was the Darhel’s turn to speak, the undersecretary realized it was waiting for him to speak.

“We cannot stop it, lord, we can only delay it or perhaps sabotage it. There are many ways to sabotage, some quite subtle, you know.”

They were subtle, the things one felt when one was aboard a ship tunneling through hyperspace, seeking a new home.

Perhaps it is that I have never before been aboard a spaceborne ship of the People, thought Guanamarioch. Or perhaps it is leaving the only home I have ever known. I am not alone in my feelings, I know. The other Kessentai seem, almost all of them, equally ill at ease. The chiefs say it is a result of the energies expended when we force our way through the void. Perhaps this is so.

The ships of the People were bare, a human might have called them “Spartan.” In the inner core, near the great machines that controlled the immolation of the antimatter that gave power, the normals slept, stacked into the hibernation chambers like sardines in a can. Farther out from the core were the barrackslike quarters of the God Kings, the galleys and messes, and the ship’s small assembly hall. Beyond those, hard against the ship’s hull, were the command and weapons stations.

Nowhere was there any consideration given to comfort. Indeed, how could there have been, when the ships were not designed for the People at all but, rather, for the beings that had raised them from the muck, the Aldenat’.

Guanamarioch saw the hand of the Aldenat’ in everything the ships were. From the low ceilings, to the cramped quarters, to the oddly twisting corridors; all told of a very physically and mentally different sort of people from the Po’oslena’ar. Only in their drive system — a Posleen design, so said the Scrolls of the Knowers — was there a trace of the People. And that was hidden from view.

And then too, thought Guanamarioch, perhaps it is nothing to do with energies, or leaving home. Perhaps I hate being on this damned ship because I just don’t fit into it.

Shrugging, the Kessentai placed a claw over the panel that controlled the door to his barracks. The pentagonal panel moved aside, silently, and he ducked low to pass into the corridor. Even bending low, his crest scraped uncomfortably along the top of the door.

Behind him, the door closed automatically. He had to shuffle his hindquarters, pivoting on his forelimbs, to aim his body down the corridor in the direction he wished to go. This direction was towards the galleys, where waste product was reprocessed back into thresh. This processed thresh tasted precisely like nothing, which was perhaps better than tasting like what it was processed from. It had no taste, no smell, no appealing color and no texture. It was a mush.

Entering the mess, Guanamarioch took a bowl from a stack of them standing by the door. Then he took it to a tank holding freshly reprocessed thresh and held it under the automatic spigot. Sensing the bowl being held in position, the machine duly began to pump out a fixed quantity of the dull gray gruel.

He knew the machines were Aldenat’ designed. Moreover, he knew they pumped out precisely the same formula of thresh they had for the last several hundred thousand years, at least. This, too, was an Aldenat’ recipe.

Sinking his muzzle into the mush, Guanamarioch wondered what kind of beings could deliberately design their food machines to feed themselves on such a bland swill.

Were they addicted to sameness? Did their desire for peace, order and stability extend even to a hatred of decent flavors ?

The hold of the ship was dark and infinitely cold. It could have been heated. Moreover, it would have been, had it held a cargo to which heat or cold mattered. Indeed, on the Profitable Merger ’s last voyage it had been heated, minimally, as the ship had carried some fifteen thousand Indowy. These had been sold by their clan into Darhel bondage for no more than the price of their passage away from the Posleen onslaught. Both sides had considered the deal a bargain.

For the Darhel it was even more of a bargain. While the hold had been heated, just barely enough to support life, the provision of light had been considered an unjustifiable, even frivolous, waste. The Indowy made their long voyage to servitude in complete blackness.