Christopher Nuttall - A Learning Experience

“Inform my slaves,” he said. His subordinates were his slaves, as long as he remained strong. But then, slaves had to be constantly reminded of their place. “We will go to Earth.”

He watched the messenger crawl out of the compartment, then turned to look at the holographic display. Thirty starships, five of them ten kilometres long, looked an impressive force, but he knew just how many starships the Galactics could deploy. And to think he ruled one of the larger Hordes. The Galactics could have built a fleet an order of magnitude larger than his own without raising a sweat.

Go to Earth, find out what happened and back off, if necessary , he thought. He clicked his claws in irritation. It would be easier if I went alone .

But that wouldn’t be possible, he knew. No matter what orders he gave, the entire Horde now knew they’d lost three ships. They would demand some kind of retaliation, perhaps against a completely innocent target. And if he didn’t give them their retaliation, they might well try to overthrow him and take power for themselves. The Horde could not afford a major power struggle in interstellar space. Rumour had it that one Horde had managed to destroy itself through a civil war in their starships, opening them to the vacuum of space.

And if the humans were innocent…?

He snapped his claws together, then turned and walked towards the hatch. It didn’t matter, he knew. Someone had to pay. And why not a race that couldn’t fight back?

“This,” Mariko said, “is the life.”

Steve shrugged, then smiled. He had honestly never considered leaving the United States after he retired from the military, but he had to admit that Mariko was right. The unnamed island, one of thousands that made up the Maldives, was genuinely beautiful. There were shimmering white sands, patches of jungle and a couple of huts on stilts above the water, looking both primitive and modern. Inside, there were beds, a fridge and a small stockpile of microwavable food. There was no one else on the island at all.

He leaned back in his deckchair, allowing the sun to beat down on his exposed chest. It had taken weeks of nagging, from Mariko as well as Kevin, to convince him to take a holiday, but he’d definitely needed it. Relaxing, taking the time to recharge his batteries and consider the future without worrying about the present, seemed to have done him a world of good. It helped that he trusted the people he’d left in charge while he was gone, he decided. He made a mental note to insist that Kevin, Mongo and the others took holidays once he returned home.

The thought struck him, suddenly. When had the starship become home ?

He couldn’t help feeling that he’d betrayed the American Stuarts. His family had built the ranch, after all, and contributed to the town that had grown up nearby. They’d placed great stock in the ranch, relying on it to serve as a training ground for generation upon generation of Stuarts. But he’d practically walked away from the ranch, converting it into an off-world embassy and then a recruitment centre for prospective lunar settlers. He’d never even been able to consider leaving the ranch before.

But Earth felt small and oppressive compared to the boundless vastness of interstellar space.

There are cousins , he thought. Several of them had gone into hiding — or travelled to the moon — when the reporters had started sniffing around, trying to score interviews on the subject of Steve’s family life prior to joining the military. The others had sniffed at the very idea of leaving Montana, certainly leaving the state permanently. One of them could take the ranch, if Steve’s children — or Mongo’s children — didn’t want to take it for themselves. As long as it stayed in the family, Steve suspected, the ghosts of his ancestors wouldn’t care.

He made a mental note to ask his children about it, then stood and looked over towards the shimmering blue waves. There was something about the gentle lapping of water against the sand that was almost relaxing, even though it also reminded him of crawling through the marshes at night, years ago. Pushing the thought out of his head, he walked towards the water and allowed the waves to wash over his feet, slipping and sliding as the sand shifted under his weight. Bracing himself, he stepped further into the water until he could swim properly, then started to swim around the entire island. It was small enough that he could circumnavigate it in less than ten minutes.

It wasn’t a challenging swim, something he found mildly disappointing. But the island had been billed as a private resort, a place where someone would have to be very stupid or unlucky to get themselves killed. Compared to some of the training he’d done, it was pathetic. But it was fun to relax, just for a while. Maybe, he told himself, he’d swim out to sea later and see what happened out there, past the barrier reef. If worst came to worst, he still had the interface. He could signal for emergency teleport if necessary.

Mariko waved to him as he came back into view, after swimming around the hut and coming back into the lagoon. Steve sucked in his breath, then powered through the water towards where she was standing, at the very edge of the water. She looked timeless, somehow, utterly beautiful despite the straightness of her body. Steve didn’t care about the size of her breasts, or the boyish hips, merely the essence that was her . He came charging out of the water and ran towards her.

Afterwards, they returned to the hut and hunted through the fridge for something tasty. Steve hadn’t expected much from the microwave, but the pre-prepared foods were actually surprisingly nice, far better than any of the TV dinners he’d eaten on leave. It had puzzled him until Mariko pointed out that most people who visited the island would be wealthy enough to afford the best, as well as absolute privacy. Steve didn’t want to think about how much they were spending, even if it was cheap compared to the constant flow of money in and out of the lunar colony. He hadn’t been raised to spend money excessively.

He smiled at the thought. His grandmother would have sneered at the very idea of going on holiday. To her, fifty or sixty miles from the ranch was foreign territory. God alone knew what sort of infidels lived there. But then, she’d been the daughter of a soldier, married to another soldier and mother of yet more soldiers. Most of her opinions of the outside world would have been shaped by their stories of the less-pleasant parts of the planet. Wars, after all, seldom showed places to their best advantage.

“I read the guidebook,” Mariko said. She nodded towards the plastic containers. “None of this is remotely local .”

Steve wasn’t too surprised. Some people travelled to experience, but others merely went somewhere — like him — to recharge their batteries. The latter wouldn’t want strange foreign food when they could have American-style meals shipped in from the United States. Steve wasn’t too sure what to make of it. He’d eaten some strange things in Iraq — and he had to admit there was comfort in the familiar — but why go halfway around the world to eat food they could have found anywhere at home?

“Maybe we should go to Mali later,” he said. They did have a speedboat, after all, or they could simply teleport to the city-island. “See what we can find that’s more local.”

Mariko shrugged as she placed the trays in the microwave and turned it on. “I don’t think I’d like it,” she confessed. “The whole island is one giant city.”

Steve nodded in agreement. It was odd, but most of his memories of large cities were marred by war. He’d spent more time in Bagdad and Fallujah than he’d spent in Washington or New York. Why would anyone, he’d asked himself as a child, choose to live in the cities when they could live in the countryside instead? But most people, he knew now, couldn’t afford to live in the country. And , when they did, they started trying to change it to fit some ideal they’d gleaned from watching bad movies and reading junk science.