Small frowned. Given Long Jump’s location, five ships would be notable, ten would be extraordinary, and a hundred was impossible. He stabbed a piece of meat. “Have you been drinking? I thought you gave it up.”
“No!” Hos said emphatically. “I ain’t been drinking, and here’s proof.”
Small accepted the note, read the corn master’s barely legible scrawl, and saw that the messenger was correct.
Assuming that the orbital sensors were functioning correctly, and there was no reason to think otherwise, hundreds of alien ships had dropped into the system and more were on the way. Some, the majority from the sound of it, had adopted a long elliptical orbit around the sun, while six vessels, big honkers judging from the message, were in orbit around Long Jump. Small removed the crisp white linen from his chest, folded the napkin along the creases, and put it aside. It was important to maintain a front, to signal how unflappable he was, in spite of the inexplicably empty feeling mat claimed the bottom of his considerable gut. What was going on? A Confederate raid? Or just what the message claimed it was? Aliens out of nowhere? Neither possibility suggested an opportunity for profit.
Those thoughts were still in the process of flickering through Small’s mind when something twittered. McGurk hauled a pocket corn out of his coat and held the device to a badly misshapen ear. He listened, nodded, and turned to Small. “It’s Hawker... He claims to have one of the ships on the horn—and says Jorley Jepp wants to speak with you.”
The businessman felt his face flush red. He knew Jepp all right. Plenty of people did and would love to get their hands, tentacles, or graspers on him. A sometimes prospector, he owned a ship named the Pelican, and was eternally broke. One hundred and sixty-five thousand two-hundred and ten credits plus interest. That’s how much the slimy, no good, piece of space crap owed Small. But Jepp had disappeared more than a year back, which meant some stupid bastard was having him on. Small was about to say as much, about to rip McGurk a new asshole, when the idiot in question offered the corn set. “Here, it’s Jorely Jepp.”
In spite of the fact that his relationship with the Hoon was basically cordial, it was hardly collegial, which meant the computer never bothered to announce what the fleet was going to do next. A fact that bothered the human no end. That being the case, Jepp usually gathered information through his robots or via his own senses.
The human had lived on the Sheen ship for quite a while by then, and was used to the way air whispered through the ducts, the hull vibrated beneath his feet, and the push of die engines. So when the fleet dropped hyper, slowed, and dropped into orbit, Jepp sensed the change and sent his minions to investigate.
The Thraki robot was called “Sam,” short for “Good Samaritan” and, though small, was able to assume a variety of configurations. Some of which came in handy from time to time. The fact that it served as a translator made the machine even more useful.
Henry, the only surviving component of the good ship Pelican, was a navcomp by trade and currently trapped within a body that looked like a garbage can. Though sentient and capable of speech, the host mechanism wasn’t. That left the computer dependent on Sam.
The two robots, along with the ever-obedient Alpha, left Jepp’s self-assigned quarters, passed an example of the religious graffiti that the prospector liked to spray paint onto the ship’s bulkheads, and made for the nearest data port. Sam plugged in, sampled the flow, and found what the master was looking for. With that accomplished, it was a relatively simple matter to transmit the data to Henry, who possessed superior analytical abilities, and who if the truth be told was just plain smarter. The navcomp scanned the data, registered the machine equivalent of surprise, and checked to ensure that it had arrived at the correct conclusion. Then, certain that the information was correct, Henry experienced a profound sense of horror. What were the odds? Millions to one? That the Hoon would randomly choose that particular set of coordinates?
No, much as the AI might want to believe such a hypothesis, it couldn’t. Henry’s memory had been plundered shortly after capture. Now, for reasons known only to it, the alien intelligence had approached Long Jump. The navcomp had witnessed similar visitations during the previous year, and none of them had been pleasant. Entire civilizations had been snuffed from existence, species left near extinction, and natural resources looted to feed the fleet. Slowly, reluctantly, Henry returned with the news. Jepp listened to the report, asked to hear it again, and felt an almost overwhelming sense of joy. He’d been right! God had a plan. Why else would the Supreme Being direct the fleet to Long Jump? The very planet from which Henry and he had lifted so long ago?
The human literally danced around the compartment, chortled out loud, and slapped the robot’s alloy back. “Here’s our chance. Alpha! We’ll minister to the godless and build the flock! Praise be to the lord.”
“Praise be to the lord,” Alpha echoed dutifully.
Henry was silent.
The Hoon transferred a portion of its consciousness from one ship to another, scanned the orb below, and considered its options. Yes, it could consume the metal on the planet below, and thereby fuel the
,fleet, or, and this was more intriguing, allow the soft body to interact with its peers and take the food afterwards.
Evidence had been found suggesting that the AI’s quarry had traveled into that particular sector of space—and it wanted confirmation. If the soft bodies knew anything about the Thraki, they would tell the one called Jepp, and he would tell the Hoon. Or would he? Based on data gleaned from the biped’s navigational entity, this was the biological’s planet of origin. Perhaps he would run. No great loss, the Hoon concluded, none at all.
