Stargods by Ian Douglas (best summer books TXT) 📕

to findhim in order to switch him off. At this point, of course, they wouldn’t be able to pull that off, not unless they found away to pull the plug on the entire Godstream network.

He didn’t think they were irrational enough to try such a thing.

At least he hoped not . . .

 

In Transit

USNA CVS America

Brig

1105 hours, FST

Gray stood outside one of the brig compartments studying the two beings behind the acrylic transparency. Four armored Marinesstood behind him, heavy personal weapons at the ready—just in case.

The twenty-five Nungiirtok warriors had said little since the squadron had picked them up from the incapacitated Russian ship back in the N’gai Cluster, despite the AI translation software running in the background. America’s shipboard Marines had herded eight of them into the brig; the ship contained only eight cells. The rest had been placedin a large supply compartment emptied of everything save benches and portable sanitary facilities. Microcameras provided constantsurveillance, while Marines with portable plasma projectors stood guard outside.

Stripped of their combat armor, the Nungiirtok warriors no longer looked much like giant humans. They stood upright on twolegs, yes, but those legs were digitigrade, the knees bent backward like that of some massive bird, the heavy body stoopedfar forward, segmented, and encased in something like chitin. Two huge, stalked eyes swiveled independently of one anotherfrom the low hump that rested where a head should be. Perhaps strangest was the thing’s lower jaw, which was hinged and reachedout for over a meter when it unfolded. Gray had seen those in action during close-quarters combat with the Nungies; evolvedto capture food like the tongues of terrestrial frogs or toads, they could unfold with blinding swiftness to deliver a pile-driverblow. America’s xenosophontological team had noted in their report that the adaptation was similar to the hard-hitting jaw of mantis shrimpback on Earth.

Gray wondered if those acrylic panels could stand up to that kind of impact.

“I know you two can understand me,” Gray said quietly, speaking in English and letting the intelligent translation softwarespeak for him in a language the Nungiirtok could understand. The two squatted in their cell, listless, unresponsive.

“We don’t need to be enemies,” Gray went on. “We know you were continuing to hold out on the world we call Osiris because you thought you had no choice. What was it—your leaders ordered you not to surrender? Or maybe it’s a cultural thing? A warrior ethic that forbids you to give up? Is that it?”

There was no response from the sullen beings within the cell.

“You realize now that your leaders abandoned you on Osiris, of course. Maybe they forgot about you. Maybe they decided thatsending in a naval squadron to evacuate you simply was not worth the effort.”

Gray waited for an answer. He’d gotten a reaction that time, a small one. Both had swiveled their weirdly stalked eyes inhis direction.

At least they weren’t ignoring him now.

“Admiral, I wish you would leave this sort of thing to the experts,” Truitt said over a private channel inside Gray’s head.He and Samantha Kline were not physically present but were watching the interrogation through virtual feeds up in the xenodepartment.

Gray cut the translation circuit so the prisoners wouldn’t hear his reply. “And have the ‘experts’ been able to get any responseout of these guys?” he asked. “Have you found out what the Russians said to them to get them to evacuate Osiris?”

“Of course not. We would have told you if—”

“Then give me a chance at this, please. We must find out what their agreement is with the Russians. Did the Moskva just offer them a ride home? Or have they formed some sort of alliance with each other? Are the Russians in contact withthe Nungie homeworld? Or was it just an agreement between these twenty-five and Captain Oreshkin?”

“I thought the Russians were our allies,” Kline put in.

“So did I, Doctor. And so they were until they attacked us at the Penrose triggah, and again at Thorne. The Russian crews don’t seem to know anything, and Oreshkinhas been less than forthcoming about why they attacked. So we’ll see what the Nungies have to say about it.”

“If you can get them to talk,” Truitt said, his mental voice sour. “Really, Admiral, the xeno department is much better equipped to handle this sort of questioning than—”

“Our lords would not abandon us,” another voice said in Gray’s mind.

Gray snapped off the link with Truitt and reopened his channel to the prisoners. “And who were your lords on Osiris? Are theywith you?”

“The Tok Iad were not with us on that world.”

“Why not? Were they killed? Captured?”

“The Tok Iad were not with us.”

The translation software had thrown up a window within Gray’s mind, suggesting that Tok Iad—which probably meant “Nungiirtok Lords”—might well be a completely different social class or caste than the warriors beforehim. The AI was guessing, Gray knew, but it was a guess based on inflection and subtleties of grammar within the alien language,things the software had picked up during years of human attempts to decipher it.

Gray felt a sudden, heady thrill of comprehension. It was also a guess . . . but he knew he was right.

“These Tok Lords,” he said. “They’re different from you.”

Again, the two Nungiirtok were silent, but they were watching him now with an intensity that was almost palpable. Gray wentto a private channel. “Konstantin!”

“I am here, Admiral.”

“Give me an image of a Kobold!”

He didn’t have a recording of one of the enigmatic little creatures, but Konstantin Junior did, something picked up duringthe fighting on Osiris decades ago. A holographic imager inside the Nungiirtoks’ cell displayed the being in front of them,life-sized, frozen in mid-slither.

He opened the channel again. “Is this one of your lords?”

The response was instant and startling. Both Nungiirtoks stepped back a pace, hunching their bodies forward until their eyestalks were just above the deck, and with their complex lower jaws extended a good meter in front of them. The gesture could have meant anything, but Gray was pretty certain that it was a sign of respect . . . or, possibly,