‘What did you feel?’ he said. ‘Was it a premonition?’
‘Something like that. I felt...an expectation of failure. It was an alien feeling.’
‘You'd know,’ he said.
‘Yes. Very droll, human. I will laugh later.’
‘Is your species telepathic, then?’
‘No more or less than yours. We have certain devices that augment natural ability, but I've none installed.’
‘Oh.’
To my
surprise, I found myself accepting the human's presence. As he sat, noxious
cigarette in hand, waiting for me to resume my story, it occurred to me that
save for the uncommunicative felines in the cottage, I had not spoken to an
Earth being in many turnings. The experience was...enervating.
‘Standing
there, I was struck by an impulse to flee, escape. Perhaps traveling to one of
the primitive lands and living under an alias or using the body print to
transform myself to a wild beast. But these shameful urges were fleeting. My
commitment to the voyage had exceeded the bounds of duty. There was Uncle
Broton, for a start. He had placed great faith in me.’
‘So you
had to go with him.’
‘Oh, I
wanted to. Broton had my utmost fealty. But there was more. Odda was there, for
one. We do not observe courtship and mating rituals in the human manner, but we
do form attachments to other individuals. Odda was a nurse at the Green Miasma
and a loyal clan spy. She was what would correspond to a human 'female', though the correlation is less
than exact. I used my small influence to secure her a post where we would not
be separated.’
‘Wait. You said the crew had already been chosen by attrition.’
‘Oh, very well. 'Small influence' and a molecular dispersal accident.’
‘Grotton! You sly dog.’
‘I choose to accept that as a declaration of admiration. Otherwise I would kill you now.’
‘And who could blame you? So, despite your case of the willies, you had to go because of your uncle and your friend.’
‘And one
other, the most important reason, in
fact. I have said my blood was used in the Hiskarasa's first computation. You
do not understand what this means. You see, she was what you would call an
organic machine. She was alive, and at her moment of first awareness my blood
was her first nourishment. This was a great honor, but also a calculated
precaution. Like any animal, a Zygon ship must be tamed. The blood of an
occupant facilitates this by engendering an empathic link between the two. The
responsibility of the ship to protect the one ensures protection for all the
ship's occupants. I had to go. It was my duty. It was my honor. It was my desire.
Human, it was glorious.’
I looked
to the blue sky, imagined the veiled stars beyond. I felt a swell of emotion,
heard my voice find the cadence of saga-teller.
‘The Hiskarasa leaped into enemy space on the third revolution of the twelfth occlusion in the year of the Loyal Mollusc. Her commander was Warlord Broton, his squire was myself. Our doctor of organic crystallography was Odda. Our philosopher of science was Horto. Our attendant of cybernetic systems was Madra. Last, but of critical importance, was our nameless representative of the Trilanic Guild, responsible for maintaining the Hiskarasa's lactic systems and guarding the growth of our passenger.’
‘Oh!’ said the human, deftly spoiling the moment, ‘Who was your passenger, then? Some sort of ambassador?’
Despite my irritation, I was amused. Ambassador, indeed!
‘No, human, our passenger was not a Zygon. It was the egg of the sacred animal, the Skarasen, source of all sustenance. We evolved together, our fates intertwined until neither could subsist without the other.’
‘Like humans and cows, you mean?’
‘Are your cows armor plated cyborgs a dozen meters tall? Does the earth shake from their passage? No, human,’ I scoffed, ‘the Skarasen are not 'cows'. Cows do not eat inattentive herders.’
‘They don't stomp soldiers or destroy oil rigs, either, do they?’
‘You know much, human.’
‘I've read the word 'Skarasen' in old files. I recognized it when you said it before.’
He gestures to the loch for confirmation. I nod.
‘The Skarasen is the Loch Ness Monster, of course’
‘Of course, would you like me to arrange a meeting?’
The human chuckled.
‘Believe it or not, we've already met, years ago. A second time might be the death of me.’
How right he was.
‘Besides,’ he said, ‘I'd hate to interrupt your story. Now, can I ask a question?’
‘Certainly,’ I say.
‘This premonition of yours, the one you had on launch day. I saw you hesitate. There's more to it, isn't there? Something you've held back?’
‘You are astute, human. I'll grant you that. Yes, there is more, and it is directly related to the next part of my story. We didn't land here, you see. We crashed, and only a miracle of navigation saved us from tumbling through the vacuum forever. And it was all due to a single member of the crew.’
‘Not you, I hope.’
‘It was Broton. Know this, human - we Zygons do not seek personal glory for our own enrichment; we of the lower castes serve our Clan; the Clans unite in service to the Warlord. And the Warlords, despite their internecine conflicts and plotting, are sworn to unite in the Conclave to serve the great glory of the Zygon race itself. But Broton was different. I believe, human, that his waters were tainted. In your parlance, he was insane. His hunger for adulation was too strong.
‘He wanted to rule the world.’
‘He couldn't have been happy to be shot off into space, then?’
‘Perhaps he envisioned a triumphant return? Still more personal glory? I do not know. The important thing is that I was not the only Zygon to notice his ambition. It struck me suddenly, as I have said, but I believe others observed it long before. I suspect he was victim of a conspiracy hatched by the other Warlords. Why would he, a veteran soldier of little scientific knowledge, be chosen by the Conclave to command a research expedition on a lightly-armed vessel? Oh, he was clever enough and his rapid assimilation of knowledge was laudable, but he was decidedly unqualified for the mission. No, I believe the other Warlords plotted against him. Seeing his popularity and his desire for power, they schemed to send him far away. In a position of honor, of course, that he could not refuse.’
‘Out of sight, out of mind?’
‘Precisely!’
‘Lucky for them he never returned.’
‘Luck had nothing to do with his failure to return, human.’
He snaps his fingers. ‘You crashed! Your Conclave made sure you never returned!’
‘Correct. As blood-father to the Hiskarasa, I was attuned to her systems and moods. Our voyage was barely under way when I sensed something was very wrong. I shared my concerns with Odda and she concurred. Something, somewhere, was infecting her sense systems. We went to Broton, but he would hear nothing of it. This, his mission to glory, would suffer no setbacks, no failures. We left him, confided in the crew, and studied the problem in secret. We discovered a root system ganglia infected with sap-rot and administered the proscribed remedy. For a time, we congratulated ourselves on our clandestine triumph. But the sap-rot was tenacious. We discovered it next in the purification filter of a body print chamber, then in the power distribution nodule. Once Odda and Horto discovered the sap-rot was mutating, Broton could no longer deny our peril.
‘The ship was undeniably ill. First, she lost her voice. She could no longer sing home. Then her navigation control systems crashed. Struck blind, we slipped into the unknown.
‘We conceived a daring plan but Broton refused to approve. Granted, it was unprecedented. Our proposal was to induce deep sleep in all nonessential personnel, kill the Hiskarasa, and allow the sap-rot to die of malnourishment. When her systems were clean we would induce reanimation.
‘After heated debate, the specialists Odda and Madra were chosen to remain awake while the rest of us slept. Broton was affronted by his status as irrelevant but grudgingly complied with common sense.
‘Odda's face was the last thing I saw as I drifted into the sleep and the first thing I saw upon awakening. I immediately knew something had gone amiss. As I slept I had again provided the blood to quicken the Hiskarasa and I immediately sensed the ship's distress. But even lacking that insight, I would have known. I heard Broton raging incoherently somewhere in the ship. Instruments and debris littered the deck. Beyond the alarming mutters and moans of overloaded systems there was a pervasive absence of sound.’