Providence - Max Barry Page 0,30
here?” Jackson said.
He hesitated. “No, let the ship do its thing.”
“There are no soldiers?” Anders said.
“Maybe we’re reading it wrong,” Jackson said. “Wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened.”
“When was that?” Gilly said, and at station, Talia smacked her forehead, because how could he not recognize the Fornina Sirius reference?
“What are the workers doing?” she said, before Jackson could begin having flashbacks.
“Just shuttling between the hives. Building, I guess.”
“Building what?”
“The hives. Making them bigger. They basically vomit up material and spread it around.”
“So hives are barf balls,” Anders said. “Floating balls of barf.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like it,” Jackson said. “Where are the soldiers?”
“These have been encountered before,” said Gilly. “The theory is they’re constructed by workers first, then populated by soldiers later.”
“I know the theory,” Jackson said.
“Poor little workers,” Talia said, to change the subject. Jackson was testy today, for some reason.
“Pardon me?”
“I just mean they’re noncombatants.”
She listened to Jackson choking on her own tongue for a few moments. “No salamander is a noncombatant. They’re all the enemy.”
“What’s your opinion, Intel?” Talia said. She suspected she could put him and Jackson on the same side here. “Shooting workers: yes or no?”
“Of course. It’s not even a question.”
“Even the civilian gets it,” Jackson said. “Every salamander deserves to die.”
“Wel-l-l-l,” said Gilly. “I wouldn’t frame it quite that way. We’re in a war and one species is going to win. We have to make sure it’s us. It doesn’t really matter whether they deserve it.”
“Trust me, they deserve it,” Jackson said.
“I’m just saying, that’s not relevant to the question of whether we should be killing them.”
“If you want, I can point you to a whole bunch of file footage on what they did to us at Fornina Sirius,” Jackson said. “Or Moniris Outer. Or Coral Beach. If you need some help figuring out who the bad guys are.”
“Right . . .” Gilly said, and Talia could hear him struggling against his desire to force his point through Jackson’s skull. “But—”
“Desats are dipping,” Talia said. They were not. “Do you see that, Intel?”
“Uh . . . not really.”
“Pulse in five,” Anders said. “Four, three, two. Pulsing.”
“Scanning,” Jackson said. “Confirmed, all hostiles down. Hives destroyed.”
“Thrilling,” Anders said. “Can we go?”
“It’s not over,” Gilly warned. “We’ll get closer and pulse again to destroy any chemical residue that could be functioning as a memory store.”
“Well, excuse me if I don’t stick around for that part.”
“Stay put, Weapons,” said Jackson. “Engagement is ongoing.”
“But there are no hostiles.”
“Do I need to repeat myself?” There was silence. “Weapons?” They could all see that Anders had gone dark on ping. “Okey-dokey,” Jackson said, after a long pause. Talia felt the weight of her disappointment as a physical force.
“Anyway, to return to what we were talking about,” said Gilly, “it doesn’t matter whether they’re workers. It wouldn’t matter if they were children. They’re essentially all component parts of a single life-form that wants to destroy us.”
“Now you’re speaking my language,” Jackson said. “Life, if you want to close out, that’s fine by me. I don’t know how long this part will take.”
This meant: Go find Anders. “Roger that,” she said.
* * *
—
She didn’t find him that day, or the next, and the engagement after that Anders didn’t turn up at all. She sent him a message, LAST CHANCE, to which he didn’t respond. She was literally on her way to find Gilly to have him force Anders out of dark when Anders started gasping in her ear. It was just her and Anders, a private channel.
“Beanfield,” he said. “I fucked up.”
He was two decks down, almost directly below. She came off a ladder and found him curled in a ball in a corridor. “What’s happening?” There was blood everywhere: on his hands, his shirt, the floor.