SHIP OF FOOLS 2: ORIGINS
Admiral Lazar’s successful defence of the colony from the homicidal pirates had vindicated his decisions, and outwardly all was as should be. However, the ceremonial ascension had not left me without personal concerns that my hive role was unable to express- it being at least as likely that the crew would become enraged and tear my thorax from my head, as it was that they would be understood. My difficulty had arisen when the science officer had announced the discovery of star-to-star travel- for at least the second time, presumably. Apparently this involved travel to the centre of this system, to obtain access to the centre of the next. With no improvement in astronomy, the exact path to the star in this system remained as yet unclear to us. However, this curious technical difficulty was not the main source of my worry.
When a race, even a great race such as ours, has to flee for its life for (a hundred centuries), memory becomes a poison. Even with the human life form, it is not easy for them to return their minds accurately to a state of fear. Lazar had been allocated a history officer, but it was very much a despised function, left to the weakest drones. In fact were it to be widely known that he had requested a meeting with the officer in question, he might be viewed dubiously by the other Admirals, and they were the only bugs whose compound eyes could view dubiously. At least they said so, and who was to contradict them? Reflexively, Lazar picked up his kaleidoscope, the only human invention that had held any interest among the insect Fleet. It was so fascinating to see them close their eyes to squint into them! For an insect, the pleasure of the stimulation of a single visual facet was so great that the biggest of the human kaleidoscopes had to be placed off-limits, even to Admirals. As Lazar tingled with the joy of fanning, the history officer made its anti-social appearance, and promptly died of fright[the literal translation here includes an element of overstimulated pleasure but ‘jamjar’ is perhaps misleading], as so often they did. Sigh.
Lazar forced himself to ‘remember’. Before the volcanic colony there had been the terran base planet, the construction of the colony ship- before then, what? How had he led his crew to the conquest of the base in this system, without a ship- had it been dismantled since their arrival? What had defeated the human defenders, otherwise? If he had first arrived from another star to the star at the centre of this system, how had he got to the outer system without disturbing any of the human planets in-between? Why had he dismantled his ship, and why had it been so easy to reassemble once he had built a factory? It was the science officer’s fault. If it had been able to recall a technology that allowed star jumps from the inside of a system to the rim of another system, Lazar would not have this problem. Then the Fleet could have marooned him to fend for himself, using a temporary gate to return. He resolved to have the science officer’s thorax ripped from its head and fed to the infants. Perhaps They, the fear itself, had something to do with the dilemma. Not even Admirals were supposed to speculate on religious matters, but they all did- at least Lazar hoped so. Naturally the Admirals would each have their own names for Them. Lazar referred to Them as ‘The substantial Nerf’.
The Nerf had first come to mind when the cultural advisor had asked for clarification of the Admiral’s superior wisdom on the volcanic colony. Lazar would have explained that insects excelled in the production of the light construction materials that allowed for a population expansion in the atmosphere. But no. It asked whether genetic modification was the right approach as foreseen by the Admiral, first inuring the population to heat, then allowing them to breathe sulphur. Sigh. For every (ten degrees centigrade) of tolerance they could live (three[the translation is ‘aphid’ metres, perhaps *** metres]) nearer the surface. It would be considerably easier to genetically engineer an entirely new species, if there was any point in making monstrosities that could live just above an active volcano, instead of using shields. Then it decided it had invented slavery. A new technology, it proclaimed. Lazar politely enquired whether this genetic modification for further docility had also made the inhabitants more immune to the cultural effects of Stalin’s About and Cops’R’Great, but apparently this ‘new’ slavery didn’t involve biological experiments, just shipping the locals up to the orbitals to work there, instead of on the surface. The cultural advisor seemed happy with itself. The many ships that had been disappeared by the Nerf had all fallen into a kind of oblivion, too.
There were three rival factions present in the system, a competing hive of the Fleet whose thoraxes needed severing, the vile humans and their deadly enemies the notorious specialists on genetic experimentation. The cultural advisor considered the mutants to be the most likely alliance partners, also it concluded that they would have most variety in taste, because of the flavours in the blood. We discovered them first, their ship with its alien ‘name’, Circe, like a shapely leg, even down to the spines. Tension mounted on the bridge, as our sensors were unable to detect past the blind spot behind the mass of the asteroid- but wait, there were three small frigates there and a further capital, not enough to constitute a trap. I demanded of the science officer whether it had developed recurved technology sensors, to allow us to defy the normal laws of physics using phase space and therefore scan the entire gravwell. It answered in the affirmative, if a little warily and after a pause. I opened channels, only to have them open fire on us and almost all the crew changed into fat-juicy-caterpillars[no direct equivalent]. They changed back after a few seconds, it must have been a hallucination, but it proved the end for the science officer, it was a clean snip. How had the mutants been able to override our hive so completely on first contact, human minds were so alien to ours..? Was it the Nerf again? Fortunately they were outnumbered and had no equivalent to our advanced nanites, so they retreated quickly, losing a frigate. Our captives from the asteroid surface revealed that the mutants had used a form of telepathic stun, ‘swine meditation’, and we were expected to have turned into pigs. Perhaps an advantage there. The warfare officer gained pheromones, I must watch my abdomen.
With this second victory I retired to my quarters and the plans. The first scheme masquerading as a ‘Returned Armada’ seemed to be a system of toll-gates to generate income from interplanetary travel, when it was obvious to any larva that the trade ships would just use the B-phase lanes and avoid the toll. The money went to Fleet instead of us, and who keeps change for crystal and metals anyway? The venom cruisers had been degraded as well, though that might have been due to contact with mammals. But how could we fail to know how many gas giants there were in a system, and yet scan behind planets and completely through asteroid belts, plasma storms and magnetic clouds, which didn’t trouble our sensors at all? Why should there be a ‘fog of space’ and not a fog of.. fog? What had first deposited us on the terran planet? I had the haunting feeling that we were in a laboratory, under a microscope- one of the Dark Fleet vessels first taken by the substantial Nerf, being used by them for an obscure experiment in xeno relations…. If only I could ally with Them- why should I have to invent the technology of star travel?
