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mc776"How are they treating you there, my love?"
"There's a lot of sand. Broken-Name and Born-Of-Death--I mean, Orgoth and Gunnerbot--have been trying to work out an air blaster that could reach me, but Orgoth's been sweeping up as much as he could."
"I will have our men jettison some ballast--"
"No, mother! We are doing well enough. The corrosion is not nearly as bad as you might think under these circumstances. I would prefer that we stay with this three-week schedule and be fully equipped for all necessary repairs."
Ayumi frowned at the reminder of the time frame. The swirling, vaguely choïkopithecenimorphous woad-blue avatar rendered on the screen before her showed no sign of distress. She should know: she programmed her daughter--no, her child now--herself to show what she would need; but she worried, as was natural.
At least the worst of it was over. The Phlogistroni, however damaged, was secure with the Ellobius and its crew; the criminal Robertson who had hijacked her had received his just desserts, perishing at the knife-claws of these curious telepathic shrimp creatures in this dying uncharted world.
Ayumi, Ai, Orgoth and Gunnerbot were still trying to untangle what Robertson had done to Ai to override her--their, she corrected herself mentally--ordinary control over the ship. There did not seem to be any lasting damage: Ai was still a bit disoriented from the forced time-loop and waking from that into the middle of a close-range starship battle.
She was not particularly concerned about the trauma of space combat. Ai was built from the ground up to be an agile, calculating starfighter; both of them had fought through much worse. True, they were highly emotional when she first contacted them in the aftermath, but it was predominantly anger directed at Robertson's stupid tactics, missing out on the first half of the fight, and the embarrassment of having to be rescued by Mother's henchmen. It was a hot, quick-burning anger that found some expression in levelling a quarter hectare of surrounding forest and the zombie shrimp-people swarming out of it with their lasers - a grudgeless, masculine anger that helped set her a little more at ease with their newfound identity.
"I am sorry, my child, that I cannot be with you."
"It is forgiven, mother." The swirling shape darkened and paused briefly. "Mother, Gunnerbot has a piece of him that Jae took into the forest. The Children of the Worthless are able to telepathically commune with him through it. Could the lawyers have you sign and testify using something like that?"
"No, I have already asked them. No understanding of the magickal transference of real presence could sway them. They only accept what is the letter of the law no matter what the reality allows otherwise - men of law are not men, they are worse than beasts!" (Again the thought of simply incorporating more of these subsidiaries and delegating more of the legal work tempted her; this year she already had 754 new lawsuits with her named as a personal defendant on 17 star systems, down from 18 this time last year.) "But I should not burden you with such trifles, my child. Tell me more about our guests - our hosts."
"Maggot and Star are lovely. They've been so helpful since we got them to understand we meant their people no harm. Orgoth tried to reprogram the Trashpanda turrets to recognize the villagers' clothing and body paint, but he still doesn't trust them so Gunnerbot and I are taking turns keeping watch ourselves."
Ayumi had to force herself to relax after Ai mentioned weapons and watches.
She remembered Gunnerbot relaying the first battle the Ellobius crew fought against the Naked. They were, as far as she was made to understand, some sort of fundamentalist cult: believing in some sort of primal perfection that the monstrous "Worthless" their kind descended from had been working towards, they persecuted everyone they believed was a deviant from that state, and tried to stay as close to it themselves without giving up their consciousness and sapience (as if such a thing could even be accomplished were it desired).
The Naked had conquered much of the surrounding territory in recent years. The Federation of Not-Entirely-Worthless Villages had been in talks with some terrible ancient thing that had been controlling an infestation of Worthless from deep inside the abominable city ruins around the time Robertson had arrived. Notwithstanding Chief Meditator Weeping-At-The-City-Gates' misgivings and warnings, the people were overjoyed to receive the Ellobius crew's help - the terrible slayers from the stars whose fire had burned twenty thousand Worthless in their own city in one night.
On two occasions Chief Battle-Virgin Undead-Dragon-Under-The-Black-Star overrode the Meditator's directions and ordered Dan and Cris to fire (and chainsword) at will. Which they gleefully did, to Jae's consternation and Gunnerbot's and Weeping-At-The-City-Gates' dismay, after they got close enough to hear the Naked's battle-chant:
"No coloureds."
As it was a telepathic imprint the Naked did not specifically intend these words, but to every person present who spoke English that was how it crystallized in their minds, and it was how Gunnerbot relayed it to Ai, Ayumi and Orgoth.
It had a different effect on each of those that received it:
Ayumi herself was nursing a particular righteous indignation at it. Not just as a proud Terran, but a proud American, confound it! All of the Americas - she was black, she was white, she was Asian, her mother was sure they had Tsawwassen somewhere way back - her very blood lived out at least thrice over those bad times before the Containment ended. And these crustacean hillbillies thought they had the answer!
And what shrieking cacophony of an answer! Gunnerbot had shown her the footage: the incessant rage-howls; the broken images; the walls covered in shit; the relentless anthropophagy; that hideous chattering cloacal mouth their women used to devour their men's genitals in order to reproduce, and that gleefully outraged infanticide that followed. To think that this was what these idiots thought was the right fulfilment of all that humanity could be, and sought to exterminate their hosts for repenting of it!
How dare they. And how dare that Tyrant, that Old One, whatever that monster under the city was, for enabling them!
The Tyrant...
"Mother, are you all right? You've just been sitting there glaring at nothing for ten seconds."
She was no longer glaring. "My love, I am quite all right. In fact, I have an idea. Get Gunnerbot on the line - the two of you need to tell me everything you know about Monsieur Hébert."
"There's a lot of sand. Broken-Name and Born-Of-Death--I mean, Orgoth and Gunnerbot--have been trying to work out an air blaster that could reach me, but Orgoth's been sweeping up as much as he could."
"I will have our men jettison some ballast--"
"No, mother! We are doing well enough. The corrosion is not nearly as bad as you might think under these circumstances. I would prefer that we stay with this three-week schedule and be fully equipped for all necessary repairs."
Ayumi frowned at the reminder of the time frame. The swirling, vaguely choïkopithecenimorphous woad-blue avatar rendered on the screen before her showed no sign of distress. She should know: she programmed her daughter--no, her child now--herself to show what she would need; but she worried, as was natural.
At least the worst of it was over. The Phlogistroni, however damaged, was secure with the Ellobius and its crew; the criminal Robertson who had hijacked her had received his just desserts, perishing at the knife-claws of these curious telepathic shrimp creatures in this dying uncharted world.
Ayumi, Ai, Orgoth and Gunnerbot were still trying to untangle what Robertson had done to Ai to override her--their, she corrected herself mentally--ordinary control over the ship. There did not seem to be any lasting damage: Ai was still a bit disoriented from the forced time-loop and waking from that into the middle of a close-range starship battle.
She was not particularly concerned about the trauma of space combat. Ai was built from the ground up to be an agile, calculating starfighter; both of them had fought through much worse. True, they were highly emotional when she first contacted them in the aftermath, but it was predominantly anger directed at Robertson's stupid tactics, missing out on the first half of the fight, and the embarrassment of having to be rescued by Mother's henchmen. It was a hot, quick-burning anger that found some expression in levelling a quarter hectare of surrounding forest and the zombie shrimp-people swarming out of it with their lasers - a grudgeless, masculine anger that helped set her a little more at ease with their newfound identity.
"I am sorry, my child, that I cannot be with you."
"It is forgiven, mother." The swirling shape darkened and paused briefly. "Mother, Gunnerbot has a piece of him that Jae took into the forest. The Children of the Worthless are able to telepathically commune with him through it. Could the lawyers have you sign and testify using something like that?"
"No, I have already asked them. No understanding of the magickal transference of real presence could sway them. They only accept what is the letter of the law no matter what the reality allows otherwise - men of law are not men, they are worse than beasts!" (Again the thought of simply incorporating more of these subsidiaries and delegating more of the legal work tempted her; this year she already had 754 new lawsuits with her named as a personal defendant on 17 star systems, down from 18 this time last year.) "But I should not burden you with such trifles, my child. Tell me more about our guests - our hosts."
"Maggot and Star are lovely. They've been so helpful since we got them to understand we meant their people no harm. Orgoth tried to reprogram the Trashpanda turrets to recognize the villagers' clothing and body paint, but he still doesn't trust them so Gunnerbot and I are taking turns keeping watch ourselves."
Ayumi had to force herself to relax after Ai mentioned weapons and watches.
She remembered Gunnerbot relaying the first battle the Ellobius crew fought against the Naked. They were, as far as she was made to understand, some sort of fundamentalist cult: believing in some sort of primal perfection that the monstrous "Worthless" their kind descended from had been working towards, they persecuted everyone they believed was a deviant from that state, and tried to stay as close to it themselves without giving up their consciousness and sapience (as if such a thing could even be accomplished were it desired).
The Naked had conquered much of the surrounding territory in recent years. The Federation of Not-Entirely-Worthless Villages had been in talks with some terrible ancient thing that had been controlling an infestation of Worthless from deep inside the abominable city ruins around the time Robertson had arrived. Notwithstanding Chief Meditator Weeping-At-The-City-Gates' misgivings and warnings, the people were overjoyed to receive the Ellobius crew's help - the terrible slayers from the stars whose fire had burned twenty thousand Worthless in their own city in one night.
On two occasions Chief Battle-Virgin Undead-Dragon-Under-The-Black-Star overrode the Meditator's directions and ordered Dan and Cris to fire (and chainsword) at will. Which they gleefully did, to Jae's consternation and Gunnerbot's and Weeping-At-The-City-Gates' dismay, after they got close enough to hear the Naked's battle-chant:
"No coloureds."
As it was a telepathic imprint the Naked did not specifically intend these words, but to every person present who spoke English that was how it crystallized in their minds, and it was how Gunnerbot relayed it to Ai, Ayumi and Orgoth.
It had a different effect on each of those that received it:
- Gunnerbot UTSEllobius.1a and Ai UTSPhlogistroni.1 thought it was quite rotten of the Naked to want to deprive everyone of the wonderful gay colours that they so loved to wear.
- Orgoth the Man-Hunter AUGX'_47.326 and Jae Finkelstein, each of whom had known good friends of many different races, prosophosid or mycanthrope or choïkopithecene or synthetic or otherwise, sensed the hate and rage and desire to be rid of some ill-defined Other by any means. They understood that they were dealing with men of murderous intent.
- The people of the Villages knew from years of attacks, murders, enslavements and abuse that they were being specifically targeted. They were dealing with a hated existential threat upon which revenge cried out for satisfaction.
- Ayumi Saint-Pierre, Daniel Vook, Jean Hébert and Cristina Alvarez, native Sol-3 Terrans born and raised, taught from the cradle the horror and misery of that long dreary litany of tribal wars that murdered more of the choïkopithecene race in any given year than all the Nudibranch invasions combined, each took a second to stop shaking and continue fighting or watching the fight. For those three, it was as though an old, deep evil burned into their species' racial memory but long thought dead had suddenly risen up as one howling swarm, chanting "We will kill your whole family, then rape you and force you to eat the babies."
Ayumi herself was nursing a particular righteous indignation at it. Not just as a proud Terran, but a proud American, confound it! All of the Americas - she was black, she was white, she was Asian, her mother was sure they had Tsawwassen somewhere way back - her very blood lived out at least thrice over those bad times before the Containment ended. And these crustacean hillbillies thought they had the answer!
And what shrieking cacophony of an answer! Gunnerbot had shown her the footage: the incessant rage-howls; the broken images; the walls covered in shit; the relentless anthropophagy; that hideous chattering cloacal mouth their women used to devour their men's genitals in order to reproduce, and that gleefully outraged infanticide that followed. To think that this was what these idiots thought was the right fulfilment of all that humanity could be, and sought to exterminate their hosts for repenting of it!
How dare they. And how dare that Tyrant, that Old One, whatever that monster under the city was, for enabling them!
The Tyrant...
"Mother, are you all right? You've just been sitting there glaring at nothing for ten seconds."
She was no longer glaring. "My love, I am quite all right. In fact, I have an idea. Get Gunnerbot on the line - the two of you need to tell me everything you know about Monsieur Hébert."
(no subject)
Date: March 12th, 2018 07:06 (UTC)1. Colour: Blue
2. Emotion: Mischievous
3. Animal: Panda
4. Line: You're still my number 1