ANASHAKILA
ANASHAKILA
I opened my eyes to the stadium and its expanse of people as far as I could see. Somehow, I knew that they extended beyond as far as I could see, well into the grey haze. I felt contrary today and I turned my attention not to the events before us and instead to the upper levels of the audience.
I ascended stairs, a seeming infinity of flights, until I reached a concourse, itself overhung by another infinity of stadium tiers. I knew no one, recognizing only the presence of Humans and Vargr and Aslan and others. I had seen such crowds before, in starport terminals, in harvest festivals, at affinity rallies. There were pockets of similar peoples intent on their own destinations, some rushing, some sauntering, a few just standing in place waiting.
I found a transport line: car pods that held a few handfuls each and I randomly boarded one with no real purpose or destination. I watched through its view panels as we passed seas of sophonts ebbing to their own currents.
In that mass of people, I recognized someone, which was a surprise because faces have always meant less to me than identity cards, or uniforms and insignia of rank. More surprising was the look of recognition that the face shot back.
When the pod halted momentarily, I exited and backtracked its route, walking against the stream, forcing myself against their collective flow. There were enough taller than I to make my struggle blind, but then, the flow lessened and in a wider part of the concourse I was suddenly in front of my goal, the chancely recognized face of a Newt. We stopped and considered each other briefly, and then it was he who spoke.
“You are the agent.”
In a flash of recognition, I now said, “and you are the mining engineer.”
“I am.”
There was silence as we stood there, even as we were surrounded by millions. He made an excuse, “I must move on. My talaa,” and as he said it, I knew in my mind’s ear that he referred to an extended family line, “is assembling to observe an important generational accomplishment.”
“I understand. But surely there is a reason for this chance encounter.”
“Surely,” he replied, and he was gone.
233-449
Aboard BB Courageous Above
Anta 0204 Anashakila E6748A9-6 Pa Ph Pi
“Excuse me, sir?” This was a young spacer interrupting me.
A Marine moved to hold her back, but I waved him away.
“Yes?”
“I wanted to tell you how glad I am you decided quarantine would work. I’m glad all those people will live.” As am I.
“I think my grandmother served with you at Maaruur. She was a comm.”
“I remember that action, but I can’t say that I remember any specific crew members.”
“She came home the next year, back to the farm. She was never the same.”
“Tell me about it?” I had time.
“I, of course, didn’t know her until years afterwards. To me, she was just my quiet farmer grandmother. She was always gentle. She was always caring and dedicated. I loved going to the farm; my parents run it now. Only after she died did I ask about her service.
“Mother said when she came home, came back to the farm, she stopped selling the livestock. She just let them die of old age. She went vegan. They raised crops, did a lot of gardening. Struggled for a while.
“Mother and I had a long talk when I decided to enlist.
“Grandmother was only in the Navy four years: for her required reserve service. But she came back changed. After a few years, Other Grandmother left her. I read her service record; that she was at Maaruur. That explained a lot.”
“Like?”
“She sometimes talked about the spirits that live in the trees and the animals and the sky. About the Dakhaseri watching us. She was always trying to appease the spirits. Sometimes she walked at night in the fields and just screamed.
“I’ll follow orders, sir. But I’m glad I’m not going to have these people on my conscience.”
There was a hint of something here that I needed to know more about.
“Spacer, I want you to do a project for me. Find the crew manifests for the ships involved at Maaruur. I want to know the post-service status of all involved. A synopsis will be fine to start. Show it to me when you are done.” I dismissed her.
234-449
Aboard BB Courageous Above
Anta 0204 Anashakila E6748A9-6 Pa Ph Pi
The Sergeant-Major told me to brief the Agent on his sidearms. I took the case to him in the command suite.
“Uh, sir.” I was under arms and saluted.
He returned it looking up from a control tablet. “Yes?”
“The Sergeant Major sent you your sidearms.”
“Fine. Put them on the table.”
“I should really brief you on them.”
He put down his work and gave me his full attention. “What are these?”
I opened the case while talking, “This first one is an Ay Snap-13: that’s Ay Ess Enn Pee dash 13; that stands for Advanced Snub Pistol, the thirteen is the tech level.
“We call it a staple gun because,” I held it out to show him, “it looks like one.” I rattled off the standard book information that we all memorized, “It’s meant for close stuff, to a maximum of fifty meters. Lightweight: about half a kilo.”
He asked, “How much does this thing cost?” while hefting it in his hand.
“Lance Corporal Dinsha lost one three missions ago and it cost him half a year’s pay; but Lance Corporals don’t make that much. So maybe a couple thousand credits.”
As he hefted it, I showed the control points. “Trigger. Grip safety: it won’t fire unless you hold it firmly. Thumb safety: up is on, so swipe it down to make it active.”
“The barrel is short, what, ten millimeters?”
“Five, sir. The feed puts the little slivers in place. The battery and coils force them out at half the speed of light.”
“Really?” he asked.
“No, sir. That’s what we tell recruits. It’s about a thousand meters per second.”
“Did you know my mandate lets me kill anyone I want?”
I stopped; afraid I had overstepped. “No, sir.”
“It’s true. But I usually don’t kill in groups of less than a hundred, so you’re safe.
“What’s this other one?”
I decided to just make the presentation and get out of there.
“Sir, this is your non-lethal option. Yellow handle, smooth grip.
“The AshPeeJay dash twelve. It shoots a barbed, self-contained electric thing.”
“Thing?”
“Sorry, capsule. A barbed, self-contained electric capsule that ‘inflicts debilitating pain and incapacitating shock’ to most targets in the Human size range. It also works against most devices if you hit it right.”
“There’s ten capsules in the magazine.”
I really wanted to be done. “Is there anything else, sir?”
“No, sergeant. Thank you for your briefing.”
I saluted and really didn’t wait for it to be returned. I also forgot to get the receipt signed. If necessary, I would forfeit half a year’s pay.
236-449
Aboard AF Kadalesh in the outer system of
Anta 0204 Anashakila E6748A9-6 Pa Ph Pi
With Anashakila interdicted, the squadron set about establishing secure patrols throughout the system. A picket reported an anomaly in a gas giant ring, and because the administrative tasks were well-handled by ship’s crew, I traveled with a fast courier to look it over.
“The picket picked this up on routine scans. When sensors said it was not natural, they reported it as an exception, and we were notified.”
As I examined the images on a central display screen, I asked natural questions. “Has anyone been up close?”
“No, Agent. We’re not sure what they are. The picket captain made his report and left it to us.”
“Are they all the same?”
“They sense as similar, two hundred meters across, spherical, density is about four times water, so it’s more than just ice, consistent with rock, not enough for FeNi.
“It’s not large enough to be spherical by its own gravity, so it has to have been shaped by some process. The picket originally mistook it for a ship. It’s big enough to be a Lioness.”
“Any signals from it?”
“No, Agent. Entirely passive.”
“I want to look closer.” A gig took us almost to it and we leapt the final gap in suits.
As I drifted closer, I saw that it was an assemblage of smaller puffy sacs, slack balls each roughly spherical—about a double armslength across—and joined into a mass. I twisted and touched feet first with a thump. Native gravity here was miniscule, perhaps a newton or two. I knew to be careful; an unintentional move could send me drifting away.
The surface was striated with divisions between its many-colored sacs. Here and there, the darkness of a pit, a missing sac. I drifted to one pit, close enough to see that it descended deeper into the interior.
One of my companions cut a sac’s membrane and it expelled a glitter of crystals in an expanding cloud. “Metal flakes, sir!”
“Take a sample.” I noted that the sacs had different colors and shades. “Are they all the same?”
There followed a series of exhales as several were cut. “No, Agent. This one’s a powder. That other one was a gas.”
“Take samples.”
A now-flaccid gas sac revealed a cavity and below that another layer of sacs. I hauled myself in, and as I did, my foot ruptured a gas sac below; I held tight to the membrane as the exhaling greenish gas rushed past me. My suitlight showed another layer of sacs below that. I did not want to climb deeper.
I made the leap back to the gig and watched the remainder of the operation on screens from an acceleration couch. After about two hours, we returned to our ship.
There were seven of these balls, each as big as a battleship. Tests on samples revealed elemental gases, or solid flakes, or granules. They found no liquids, at least in the outer layers.
In conclusion, I said, “This can’t be natural, can it?”
The tech said, “Define natural.”
“Not intelligent. This has to be some sort of asteroid miners or ring harvesters who go through the system breaking down minerals into their constituent elements.”
“What? with a bio-based technology.”
“That makes sense, doesn’t it? One of the megacorporations setting up a mining operation with geneered spacers.”
“Conceivably. Or some natural species, maybe not even intelligent. Like bees making honey.”
The techs created a report. I classified it penultimate and directed it be forwarded to the archives. When I returned to Courageous, I ordered the balls be tipped into the gas giant. They were a complication this interdicted system didn’t need.
253-449
Aboard BBF Courageous Above
Anta 0204 Anashakila E6748A9-6 Pa Ph Pi Pz Amber
“Tell me your findings.”
“Agent.” Today there was a stiffness, subordinate to superior. “The squadron at Maaruur had six capitals, fourteen others, and a total of 3,442 officers and crew. That was 68 years ago. My Grandmother was not an outlier. Almost all Reservists in the crew left the service as soon as their obligation expired. There were significantly higher rates of suicide, self-harm, charitable behaviors, and depression.” There was more, but it all led to the same conclusion.