Invasion

there were hundreds of other Priests who wanted to be High Priest themselves. One of them would have used it against him, or the Inquisitors would have taken action; they couldn’t allow such open breaking of the rules, not by a High Priest. Femala’s existence and nature was hardly a secret either; it wasn’t something that could be covered up, so why had he been allowed to keep her? The only reason that made sense was that there was no such law!

And yet…it happened. Free, now, from restrictions, she wondered at her own society. The humans had so much and her own people so little, when it should have been the other way around. She knew how to extract wealth from asteroids, gas giants and comets; the Takaina should have been able to give each of their people a life-style they could only dream about, and yet…they didn’t. All resources were bent towards the task of expanding and spreading the faith across the universe. In time, Guiding Star or a replacement built on Earth would continue onwards, leaving a massive settlement behind. Earth would become part of the Theocracy…but for how long? What effect would it have on her society if this, the knowledge of how another race acted, became common knowledge?

They kept us down, she thought, and felt her delight at making the connection turn to rage. She hadn’t seen it because she had had nothing to compare it to. She hadn’t been part of society because society had shunned her…and even the one who had saved her hadn’t been able to give her what she needed. She’d been held down by her own society…and, she saw now, the same was true of all of them. The males went to become warriors, where they died, or priests, where they became part of the system, while the females were held down by the self-perpetrating clans. How could they escape when they were trapped in chains that held their minds?

Humans had escaped, in part of their history, and others had remained trapped. It was possible to escape, but how could she spread the word to the rest of her people? How could she get them to believe and change when there was no way that they would listen to a sterile female who was a prisoner? Everyone knew that someone who had been a prisoner could no longer be completely trusted…and she was honest enough with herself to admit that her mind might not be what it had been. The High Priest wouldn’t be able to spare her this time, even if he wanted to spare her; she would be burned alive by the Inquisitors.

And why had he spared her anyway? The humans had attributed it to unsavoury motives, but while the Takaina males had sex for enjoyment as well as procreation, they wouldn’t have it with a sterile female, one who was unable to join them fully in the act. Or was that, too, a part of their conditioning? The humans seemed to believe all kinds of silly things about sex and there was no reason, on the face of it, while the Takaina could not be the same. What possible use had he had for her?

She was still mulling over that question when the human, Paul James, was shown into her quarters. She’d grown to like him, along with the other humans, even though she wasn’t sure of his duties. A person who had been in charge of preparing for an alien invasion should be able to do more than the Takaina had faced, but if the humans had had the idea that an alien invasion should consist of massive flying saucers with impossible beam weapons and even more impossible force shields, they probably hadn’t been able to come up with a proper defence. Amazing special effects, though; the Takaina had never come up with anything like them.

“Hi,” she said, suddenly aware of her manners. He was, technically speaking, senior in the clan to her, although that had required some mental adjustment as well. No male was normally of any position within the clan. That was a female role. “How have you been?”

She was starting to recognise some human emotions, but the look on his face was beyond her. “Washington has been destroyed,” he said, grimly. The liquid that had appeared in one eye couldn’t be healthy. “Your people took out an entire city.”

“Mass slaughter is forbidden by the Truth,” Femala protested, honestly shocked. The High Priest had to have gone mad. The only justification for such slaughter was to prevent the spread of heresy. Earth, being largely unaware of the Truth, didn’t count as a legitimate target. “What happened?”

He explained, bit by bit. “The High Priest had to be more than a little worried about your sudden willingness to use nukes,” Femala said, when he had finished. “How many of your people were killed?”

“No one is sure, yet,” Paul admitted. “The preliminary figures are high, but they’re always high; all we know for sure is that there were several million people under the footprint of the nuke when it went off. Why did they hit Washington, of all places?”

“Your capital doesn’t mean much to them,” Femala said. Now she understood the system that she had been a slave to her entire life, she felt little in the way of loyalty towards it. “The intention was to settle your world and bring your people into line with their own.”

“We don’t want that to happen,” Paul said, rather dryly. It was so hard to pick out and understand human tones, but Femala was getting better at it. “We want to stop it.”

So did Femala – now. She needed the humans to awaken her own people. “It won’t be easy to stop,” she said. “They’ll have started the settlement by now – or they will soon start it, and that will bring lots of their people down to the planet. How is the shuttle-building program coming along?”

Paul started. “How did you know about that?”

Femala explained, unable to keep her disappointment out of her voice. The human probably didn’t notice. Why else would anyone ask her about them? She might have been a victim all her life, without even the very human consolation of knowing that she had been a victim, but she was far from stupid. The humans had to be working on ways to recover control of space.

“Yes, I see,” Paul said, finally. “The building program is fine. It’s getting up into orbit that’s going to be the problem.”

Femala thought about it. Anything boosting to orbit, unless they discovered something so completely out of the box that the High Priest wouldn’t have the slightest idea it was even possible, would be very hot. The orbiting sensors would detect the rocket flame and react at once. Missiles and spacecraft would be shot down as soon as they were identified as such. It wouldn’t be easy to build enough craft to get some into orbit in the face of such firepower…and failing to retake control of space would be fatal in the long run. She could help them build thousands of shuttles, if that was what they wanted from her, but it wouldn’t solve the overall problem.

She tossed it around in her mind. They couldn’t get into orbit, therefore they would lose…and that was unacceptable. She couldn’t allow the opportunity to pass, and yet, unless they could get into orbit, it would pass. They needed to clear space of hostile ships first, but even with the most powerful ground-based weapons, it wasn't going to be easy. In fact, it was probably going to be impossible. Unless…

“I want to make a deal,” she said. “I have, I think, a way of getting you into orbit, something that will give you a chance at victory. In exchange, I want something.”

Paul looked at her, his human face unreadable. “What do you want?”

“I want you to help me educate the remainder of my people,” she said, and explained her epiphany. She wanted, she needed, to share it with her fellows, male and female alike, and give the dissidents something to rally around. They could bring down the Theocracy, at least in one tiny system. “Will you help me?”

Paul leaned forward. “How do you intend to get us into orbit?”

Femala smiled and explained.

***

“Do you think we can trust her?”

Doctor Jones shrugged. “Intellectually, she’s probably the smartest person in this base and certainly among the captives,” he said. “The various Redshirts are comparable to us, but she is very definitely the smartest…and she has practical experience that no one on Earth can match. As for trust…

“We kept a close eye on them and watched, carefully,” he continued. “As far as we can tell, her conversion seems to be genuine, hers and the other prisoners as well. It’s impossible to be sure, but I suspect that she means what she says, which doesn’t mean that either of her plans will work. It’s quite possible that we’ll run into a security check she didn’t know existed, or another trap intended to snare heretics…and that’s exactly what they’re going to regard her as being.”

“But she’s becoming human,” Paul protested. It was an interesting concept, and, if it was true, a handle on her. “Surely…”