In the midst of the destruction knelt Garth, his teeth bared and his sides heaving. His eyes bulged and rolled in his head like those of a mad-thing.
Ten
Seeking an audience with the Empress in her putrid throne room, the Parent knew trepidation. She had not yet had the pleasure of bringing bad news to the infant monarch, but somehow she sensed such tidings would not be met with grace.
“Your majesty?” she asked.
“Oh, is that you Parent? How tiresome.”
“Yes, Empress. It is I, your faithful servant.”
“Well, you’ve taken much too long. I’ve built up a painful appetite. Do you know these hests and trachs have been trying to feed me preserved meats for hours? Did you put them up to this insult?”
“No mistress. I’m sure they were only trying to do their best to satisfy your needs for sustenance.”
“In that regard they’ve failed utterly. I suppose I should feel happy to see you, as you’ve no doubt brought me something edible for my churning digesters. Let’s have it now. Where are the food-creatures?”
“There is a problem in that regard-”
The Empress made a sudden, astounding loud slapping sound by beating her thickest tentacle on the deck. A few human bones cracked under the weight of it, as it grown to a tremendous girth, being now nearly as thick as a tree trunk. Human clothing, discarded teeth and other debris were blasted loose to roll and rattle around the chamber.
“I suspected it from the moment you arrived!” the Empress blared. “You’ve killed the food-creatures, haven’t you? You’ve come here to offer me dead, limp food! After every admonishment, after every assurance that the meat would be delivered walking and wriggling, I’m to be denied this simple, basic pleasure. Is this not true? I demand a full confession.”
The Parent shook with emotion. “No, what you describe has not occurred. The food-creatures are alive-at least, most of them are.”
“Well then? What could possibly be the matter?”
“The shrade did manage to gain entry into their stronghold, mistress, but-”
“Am I to endure a detailed operational report? Did the shrade succeed, or not?”
“No, not exactly.”
The Empress fell silent, saying nothing. This was a new response, one the Parent had never experienced before. The Empress almost always had a lot to say, no matter what the situation. The Parent was not quite sure what to make of it, but she pressed ahead. Perhaps she could at least finish her report without further outbursts.
“The shrade infiltrated the stronghold, but it was discovered and destroyed before it could open the primary portal and allow us entry. We’ve sent in more shrades, but they’ve discovered that the pipes used by the first are now sealed.”
The Parent paused, but still the Empress was quiet. She did not thrash, screech or shout admonishments. She simply stared with a half-dozen displeased eyes.
“That is all there is to it, mistress,” the Parent finished uncertainly. “We are working to formulate a new plan. Possibly, if we brought the ship’s most powerful weapons-grade lasers to the portal, it could be burnt through.”
“What are the odds of success on this secondary approach?”
“Not good, mistress. We’ve calculated the number of joules of power required, and it is prohibitive. Even if we did gain access that way, the heat from the energy released would have cooked the humans to ash before a hole had opened in the inner hull of sufficient size to allow entry-even for a shrade.”
“Failure,” said the Empress suddenly. “Total, abject failure. I’ve never encountered it before-although I’d expected to upon occasion in the future. After all, I’m still quite young. You are a failure, my Parent. You are not of good genetic stock. Something went wrong in your birthing. Perhaps it was the stress and radiation involved in your hasty departure from the Kale system-which, as I think back upon it, was a failed campaign unto itself.”
The Parent was stunned to hear this indictment. In the Skaintz species, there was no greater insult than to call into question the nature of a being’s genetics. To suggest they were an inferior copy of the original, that they were a mutant of sorts, a failed experiment, was to declare that creature worse than useless. The Skaintz depended upon precise copying of genetic codes from old to young. Being creatures of careful design and built-in instinct, they had to very nearly be clones in order to maintain their viability as a dominant life form.
The Parent wanted to retort with a slew of unwise comments. She was compelled to obedience, however. It was in her breeding. Not knowing how to respond, she shuffled her fronds idly. She burned to accuse the Empress of being a mutant in her own right, a slovenly thing that did little of use other than eat. She wanted to point out that the Empress was condemning herself as flawed if she accused her own Parent of being badly replicated. How could something horribly malformed give birth to perfection?
She kept quiet, however, as the Empress went on. “You will have to be replaced, of course. I hereby order you to gestate a new Parent within your birth-chambers. After that, I will not even permit your carcass to be devoured-an infection so grotesque as your person must be excised thoroughly. I will tolerate no further half- measures.”
“What are you suggesting, mistress?”
“Is it not clear? You will produce your replacement. Afterward, your inferior corpse will be placed in an airlock and jettisoned into space.”
“But I can’t create a new Parent-I don’t have a nife commander to breed with.”
“Then make one and breed with it forthwith, if that’s not too much for your sorry egg sacs to manage!”
Dejected and depressed, the Parent slid away from the monster she’d created. Her body sagged and scraped over the cold deck of the ship. How could she have been so foolish as to give birth to such an ingrate? The Parent believed that if she was truly of bad genetic make-up, the greatest evidence of this was the Empress herself.
Once she was away from the thing in the throne room, she attempted to think clearly. What was she going to do now?
She wandered in the lower decks, reviewing the Skaintz who were all busily working on the required preparations to assault their destination world. There were ranks of killbeasts, who all stood proudly as she passed. They did not sense her mood, not being empathetic creatures. When she reached the culus and shrade teams, she found their practices at flying, regurgitation and slipping unnoticed amongst the hold full of cargo uplifting. Her forces were the best, no matter what the Empress suggested.
Wending her way to her birthing room, which still resided in the lifeboat pod, she pondered the blackened hulls of the lifeboats. She had instructed hests and arls to inspect them, and after mild repairs and modifications, they’d been declared serviceable. They would be inferior to fresh-grown Imperial battlecraft, but they would work in a pinch.
Pausing in front of the least-damaged vehicles, the Parent pondered them. Perhaps, she might yet avoid her fate. If the Empress were given new hope of fresh meats, she might change her mind about requiring a replacement.
The Parent demanded the attention of the nearest arl, a life form designed to be a master pilot of small craft. It was vaguely man-shaped, but with a head like an octopus and hands like two smaller octopi.
“Is this craft serviceable?” she demanded.
“There are many inferior design elements,” the arl told her. “I’d not enjoy driving one of these.”
“But it could be done? You could do it?”
“Yes, of course,” the arl said, standing stiffly. Arls had an easily injured sense of pride and disliked any suggestion of incompetence directed toward their abilities.
“I have a special mission, to be performed by only the best of my pilots. Are you the best?”
The arl seemed to swell up at her words. “There is none better!”
