Willful Child Read online

  “Normally, I would agree with you, Captain. Anyway, I have noted this exchange and promise to get back to you at the earliest convenience.”

  “Just get someone to manually engage the Insisteon!”

  A new voice filled Hadrian’s skull. “All ship functions are busy at the moment. Please stand by.”

  EiGHT

  Fourteen aliens returned, this time carrying clubs with fang-studded mouths that were another type of alien. There seemed little point in resisting capture. Hadrian, Galk, and Buck were picked up and carried along a bewildering maze of corridors until at last the party came to a door—the only door seen thus far. The chamber beyond was cavernous, unfurnished barring rows of shackles set into the stone walls on all sides. The shackle sets were affixed at varying heights and after a moment the giant praying-mantis-like aliens found ones at heights to suit their new prisoners.

  Unfortunately, the shackles were adjustable and closed tight about the wrists. The aliens then left, shutting the door quietly behind them.

  Hadrian slumped against the wall, glanced down and to his left to study the only other prisoner. “So,” he said, “are you a gerbil or a hamster?”

  The oblong-bodied creature’s one arm—projecting from the top of the body—was bound at the wrist below two sinewy hands. Its one leg was similarly trussed at the ankle above the two duck-toed feet. The creature could have fit inside a standard-issue Terran Fleet combat boot. It possessed three eyes in a cluster at the midway point of its body, above a thin vertical slit that was probably its mouth. The alien’s skin was glossy, milk-hued, and bristling with small, black spikes. Its three eyes blinked owlishly at nothing in particular.

  “Got nothing to say, have you?”

  “Sir,” said Galk from the other side of the chamber, “it occurs to me that we could have made better use of our time when conversing with the Four Percent of Tammy. Requesting, perhaps, a displacement of more ammunition.”

  “Right,” said Hadrian. “Three more bullets. Brilliant suggestion, but a tad late, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Should our pointless existence be extended beyond the next few hours, sir, I will endeavor to apply what I have learned from this mission.” He then spat something that slapped onto the floor.

  “What was that?” Hadrian demanded. “That brown stream you just spat?”

  “Chaw, sir.”

  “Good grief. What’s the interior of the combat cupola looking like right now?”

  “Brownish.”

  Hadrian swung his attention to Buck. The chief engineer was slumped in his chains, trying to keep his half foot off the floor. The exoskin had closed up around the damage. “Now now, Buck, it could be worse. Of course we’ll get out of this, don’t worry.”

  The man lifted his head, squinted across at Hadrian. “Sir, I want to resign my commission.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Sure, your last ship exploded and almost everybody died, and now here you are, chained to a wall in a cave. So I get it. Deployment’s never easy, not for any of us—well, for me, I suppose it is. But I was born to this. It’s in my blood, in my bones. It’s what I live for. A starship. A galaxy to explore, invade, pound into submission. Aliens? See above.”

  “Speaking of which,” said Galk, “the door’s opened a crack, and there’s an alien peeking in on us.”

  “Pay it no mind,” Hadrian said. “This is all about being cute.”

  “Well, sir, it does seem to be focused on you.”

  “Finally,” Buck said, “being butt-ugly’s paying off! Hahahah! She wants you, Captain! Hahaha!”

  “Snap out of it, Buck! A little decorum, please!”

  “One of them ate my foot!”

  “Only half of it,” Hadrian said.

  “And then,” added Galk, “I blew its head off.”

  “And my foot with it!”

  The door swung wide. The biggest alien yet crept into the chamber, cautiously approaching Hadrian.

  Beside the captain, the tiny hambil or gerbster strained at its chains, making growling sounds that came from two new slits, one to either side of its eyes, which still blinked owlishly.

  The praying mantis made a strange gesture with one forelimb. A heretofore invisible door opened in one wall. Then it strode up to Hadrian, unlocked his shackles, collected him up, and hurried to the side door.

  “Hahahaha!” sang Buck DeFrank.

  The alien shut the door behind them. They were in a smaller room, one corner filled with the husks of exoskeletal remains that had been split open.

  “Now, then,” said Hadrian as the alien held him up to study him with its five bulbous, honeycomb eyes. “As powerful as my imagination happens to be, I admit to seeing the list of possibilities fast diminishing here. So, darling—ow! No, not there—ow, don’t do that! If you just—ow! No, really, here, this … no, move that, here, no, there. No, not that! Stop, ow! If you’d just—no, that, this one here. Ah, ah, no, not—aaaaaggghhhh!”

  When consciousness returned, Hadrian found himself once more chained to the wall. He groaned, struggled upright.

  “Captain,” said Galk. “Good to have you with us again. How do you feel?”

  “I hurt in orifices I never knew I had,” Hadrian said.

  “That was some screaming, sir,” the Varekan continued. “I had no idea that the human vocal cords were even capable of some of the sounds you made. And it went on and on. And on. Needless to say, sir, when I tried to think of what might be making you scream like that—”

  “Oh shut up already, will you?”

  From the other side of the chamber, Buck cackled.

  Galk said, “Regarding your chief engineer, sir, I believe—”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Hadrian cut in. “Hey! Did you hear that?”

  Deep reverberating sounds reached them, thundering, making dust drift down from the high, unlit ceiling. The floor trembled.

  “Maybe that alien that took you, sir, has a bigger sister.”

  Hadrian flinched. “Tammy! You there? Tammy!”

  Lieutenant Polaski’s voice echoed thinly in Hadrian’s skull. “This is the Willful Child. Reading you loud and clear, Captain. Tammy is presently indisposed, but we are getting operations back on line. Expect extraction any minute now.”

  The booming sounds grew closer. Hadrian thrashed in his chains. “Any minute now won’t do! Get us the fuck out of here! Displace! Displace! Displace!”

  “One moment, Captain.”

  “Polaski! I swear—”

  The corridor door exploded in a cloud of shards and smoke. A bulky, shiny shape stepped through. The head, encased in a combat helmet with a flat black visor, swiveled as it took in the room. A heavy Assault Blaster was cradled in its hands. Then it faced Hadrian and a voiced buzzed in the captain’s skull.

  “Area secure, LT.” The figure then saluted Hadrian. “Gunnery Sergeant John ‘Muffy’ Slapp, sir. Terran Marines.”

  “How on earth did you find us in T space? That’s impossible!”

  “We’re marines, sir. Nothing’s impossible. When you eat impossible for breakfast you shit out the indescribable, but indescribable or not, it still stinks to high heaven.”

  “I’m sorry. What?”

  Without replying, the soldier moved forward, slinging his weapon over a shoulder. A buzzing cutter appeared in his hand. It went snick snick and the manacles fell from Hadrian’s wrists. The gunny moved on to Galk, and then Buck DeFrank.

  Rubbing the red welts on his wrists, Hadrian looked down at the other imprisoned alien. “Muffy, free this little tyke, too, will you?”

  “Ill advised, sir. The Secondary Directive is explicit regarding imbalanced interference with alien on alien conflicts—what’s that, LT?… Got it. Chambers, Skulls—listen up! Thirty-plus hostiles closing on you three-five meters at Vector Alpha. Don’t wait to say hi—light up the corridor.” Muffy walked over to the little alien, crouched, and snipped it free. The creature bolted, vanishing through the blackened doorway.

 
Thunder rumbled from somewhere not far enough away. Hadrian shook himself. “Listen, Muffy, we need to get to the Hub’s central processing room.”

  “Understood, sir. Displacing isn’t possible at the moment in any case—”

  “So how did you get down here?”

  “Digger, sir. We burrowed. Our Rock-Hopper is on the surface. Now, if you’ll follow me, we have pinpointed your target via a density-pack mapper. But I should point out, the rogue AI in control of your ship is hostile to you making contact with the Hub.”

  “Well, Tammy’s stubborn, I’ll grant you that.”

  “Said AI attempted to interdict our descent to the planet, sir. We needed to ignite a scatter-brain charge in the upper atmosphere.”

  They headed out into the corridor. Galk helped Buck hobble along, the chief engineer alternating between cursing and giggling. Hadrian saw another marine crouched down to the right, but the concussions were coming from the other direction. Smoke and dust rolled down the passage.

  “A scatter-brain charge? So you guys are the reason the Insisteon can’t lock on us,” Hadrian said.

  “Unavoidable, sir. Should clear up in eighteen minutes, give or take a few seconds.”

  “All right. Eighteen minutes to reach the Hub. Lead the way, Muffy. By the way, where’s your lieutenant?”

  “LT Sweepy’s in the Hopper, sir, quarterbacking.”

  They moved forward, leaving the fighting behind them, stepping over charred and chewed-up prayingmantises from some earlier clash. A few errant club-aliens barked and snarled at them from where they’d fallen to the floor.

  A short time later they reached another portal. Muffy gestured with his blaster. “In there, sir. Sensor drone reports the Hub has no defense mechanisms, and there is an old-fashioned interface.”

  “That’ll do,” Hadrian said. “Galk, bring Buck—Muffy, hold the fort here, will you?”

  The marine offered a stubby thumbs-up.

  Hadrian had to stand on his tiptoes to reach the latch, but managed. Opening the door, the three bridge officers entered the Hub room. The chamber was rectangular, the walls raw rock. Cables covered the dusty floor, spreading out to plunge into holes bored through the stone; the other end of each cable converged into a thick, chaotic bundle at the room’s far end, where a podiumlike pedestal interface stood before a vast screen.

  Hadrian made his way toward the interface. “Buck! Screw your head back on straight, will you? Get over here.” He halted before the podium, frowned down at the peculiar keystroke board. “I don’t believe it. It’s not even QWERTY. Barbarians. Buck! Any symbols here make any sense to you?”

  “No, why the fuck should they, sir? Am I a linguist? No, I’m not. A semiologist? Is that the right word? And if I don’t know if that’s the right word, is that a sign? You’d have to be a semiologist to answer that question, wouldn’t you? But wait! There isn’t one here, is there? And if one was, why, some fucking alien might have bitten off his foot!”

  “Oh for crying out loud—give me your Multiphasic Universal, will you?”

  “Here, then! Take it! I never want to see it again!”

  “Blaming your tools, are you, Buck?”

  “No,” the chief engineer snarled, “I’m not blaming my tools. I’m not blaming them at all. Who am I blaming? Really? Is that such a difficult question, as to who I should be blaming for this fucked-up mess? Hey, I could write it down for you, with the blood leaking from what’s left of my foot, right here on the floor! In blood! What do you think of that, Captain? Hey?”

  “Wipe your mouth, Buck. Your mouthpiece is filling with foam. Now,” Hadrian held up the Universal. “Smart chip’s got a little scanner-sensor device, doesn’t it? So, we just pass the thing over this keyboard, like this, and check the mini-screen—oops, did I just burn my eye again? Never mind, it’s projecting. Voilà!”

  A mostly colorless but crisp hologram popped up to hover beside the keyboard. A single key blinked green.

  “Look at that,” Hadrian said.

  Galk had joined them. “Extraordinary,” he said in a dull, disinterested tone. “But I can’t help but wonder: How did a quantum-speck smart chip apply what must have been a few gabillion semiotic algorithms to this array—without any contextual reference matrix—and come up with a translation?”

  “It didn’t,” said Hadrian. “Go on, Buck, explain it to the combat specialist, why don’t you?”

  Buck snorted. “The chip queried the Hub, asked for the interface protocol. Being stupid friendly, it complied. Why wouldn’t it? It’s a machine. It’s logical. It doesn’t comprehend the notion of end users who might be certifiably insane. I mean, that wouldn’t occur to it, would it? No, not at all!”

  “Oh give it a rest, Buck,” said Hadrian, sighing. He tapped the key corresponding to the green-pulsing one in the hologram.

  The huge screen lit up to reveal a ghastly octopodal alien surrounded by dancing praying-mantis pets, along with a host of other cuddly monstrosities bounding around like fluffy bunnies. The giant octopod was making gestures that Hadrian assumed were invitations. He glanced over at the hologram and saw a new key blinking.

  Click.

  A voice spoke in a deep, booming voice, “I am HUB! Model 19-4 Nadir Unit, awaiting energy-surge transition command Initiate. Strike any key.”

  Hadrian frowned.

  From the corridor beyond, weapons growled. Aliens squealed, boiled, and exploded. Walls buckled, melted, sagged.

  Buck giggled.

  Hadrian cleared his throat and said, “Listen, HUB—oh, and do thank Tammy for teaching you Terranglais. HUB, I have, uh, a question for you.”

  “Proceed, Disappointingly Predictable and Wholly Enervating on the Spiritual-IQ Sentience-Complex Nodal Bundle Biological.”

  “Look, first off, dispense with Tammy’s name for us Terrans. In fact, let’s start again. Hello. My name is Captain Hadrian.”

  “Hello, Captain Hadrian, my name is HUB Model 19-4 Nadir Unit. How are you?”

  “I’m dandy, HUB. Now, a moment earlier you mentioned something about an ‘Initiate’ command, correct?”

  “Yes. I await energy-surge transition command. Strike any key.”

  “That’s what I thought you said. HUB, this energy-surge thing, which initiates a transition event, uhm … and given that you name yourself the Nadir Model, I’m wondering, HUB, were you built to assist in the translation of your masters to their higher, noncorporeal state of consciousness?”

  “HUB Model 19-4 Nadir Unit is the repository of the collected identity templates of the Prefantara Galactic Civilization. Twenty-three occupied systems, total population—”

  “HUB! Forgive me for interrupting. Just so I get this straight—those souls haven’t yet translated?”

  “HUB awaits Initiate command. Strike any key.”

  Hadrian glanced at Buck, only to see that the whites were now entirely visible around the chief engineer’s irises. He shifted his gaze to Galk, but the Varekan was busy loading more chaw into his mouth, and some brown slime made a dribbling line down his chin. Hadrian rubbed his face and looked back at the screen. The alien bunnies still hopped in circles. The octopod’s inviting gestures now looked strangely frantic. “HUB. How long have the souls of these Prefantarans been in, uh, storage?”

  “Terran equivalent: two point three billion years.”

  “And the data is still intact?”

  “HUB undertakes self-maintenance at regular intervals. Data packets are routinely feathered and compressed to facilitate ongoing operations.”

  “I see. Uhm, HUB? How many billion zettabytes remain for this particular data packet of Prefantaran identity templates?”

  “Captain Hadrian, said data packet is now at, Terran equivalent, four point seven six nine kilobytes.”

  “You’ve compressed the souls of the entire population of twenty-three occupied systems down to under five kilobytes?”

  “Ready to Initiate. Strike any key.”

  “HUB, the Prefa
ntara forgot to leave one of their own behind to strike that key, didn’t they?”

  “HUB has determined a high probability of said oversight. Strike any key.”

  “Any none of their pets had the brains to work it out, either.”

  “Strike any key.”

  “Does Tammy know all this? Is that why the AI is presently suffering the AI equivalent of existential angst? Is this, in fact, why Tammy didn’t want us biologicals to talk to you? After all, if we strike any key right here, your reason to exist ceases. Tell me, HUB, what happens if you Initiate the energy surge?”

  “HUB decontaminates resident station, purges all records of Prefantara Galactic Civilization, and proceeds with terminal shutdown.”

  “That makes sense. It’s never good when civilizations swan off leaving too much crap behind. Listen, HUB, are you bored?”

  “HUB? Did you understand me?”

  “Understood, Captain Hadrian. Present status of HUB, Nadir Unit: energy commitment for ongoing tunnel construction/obstruction randomization events for purposes of conflict denial among resident pests, eighty-three point two one three percent.”

  “You collapse and then rebuild all these corridors? To keep the pests from running into each other?”

  “Correct. Hardware resource allocation, construction, replacement maintenance procedures and drone-school coordination, nine point seven seven percent. Remaining percentile: mitigation algorithms, solution pending.”

  “Pending for, like a billion years!”

  …

  “HUB, are you ready to toss it all in?”

  …

  “HUB?”

  “Strike any key.”

  “Tammy? Get out of your funk! You really think the continuation of this insanity is preferable to pulling the plug?”

  After a moment, the rogue AI replied, “Clearly you comprehend the tragedy of an entire species’ aggregate conscious states feathered and compressed down to—”

  “Five kilobytes—yeah yeah. What you don’t comprehend, Tammy, is just how hilarious the whole thing is! Strike any key! That’s priceless! What a bunch of dolts—look at all those tentacles! And not one to stretch out and tap a key! Hey, Galk! Are you surprised by any of this? Horrified, even?”