The Bureaucrat's Tale - Chapter 2

          The first stop on my blame-passing tour was pre-ordained.  I was obliged to relay major issues to my superior, the Secretary of Settlement.  Issues don't get much more major than a colony's death.  In this case, I didn't want to avoid the meeting.  It was part of my agenda.  I might hope that Secretary ChiTakTiZu would assume full responsibility for the situation and take it out of my hands.

         Such an ideal outcome was unlikely, but why not hope?  More likely, I’d get the matter handed back with instructions for its further management.  There was an outside chance the Secretary would get the problem shifted entirely out of our office, possibly to Security or even the Executive desk. 

There was a wide scope of possibilities.  Despite my political theorizing, I actually didn’t know all the undercurrents flowing around this particular debacle.  The worst-case scenario would be for the Secretary to refuse contact with the file, put the whole matter on my shoulders, and pretend I had never mentioned any trouble.  This mess could be a career killer.  In that case, I would feel more justified jettisoning it like an overloaded power core and letting it detonate elsewhere.

No reason to carry hazardous materials longer than necessary.  As soon as I had compiled the key points of the Locust System dispatch, I started a call to the Secretary’s office, requesting a personal meeting.  I justified the time required for physical presence by citing security.  Not that electronic communications within our shared offices lacked protections, mind you.  A dedicated observer could still eavesdrop on a live conversation.  But the probability of being overheard was lower in a closed office, offline.  Plus, no record of the conversation’s content would exist, unlike an inter-office transmission.

In deference to this principle, I neglected to inform my own ‘assistant’, my devoted A.I., Aika.  She would never voluntarily betray my trust, but also could not avoid recording her experiences.  She would be powerless if an internal audit demanded her testimony.  Biological memories were conveniently porous.

It was a shame having to bypass Aika.  I could have used her analysis and advice.  Still, political games involved empathic judgments and adjustments beyond the capabilities of A.I.s.  Thank silicon for that.  Not that I would be afraid to trust A.I.s, if they understood our biological, emotional vagaries better.  It's just that, if that happened, I’d be out of a job!  I mean, yes, most Collective cultures would resist A.I. bureaucrats, but not for long, if our virtual citizens became as persuasive as I.

So, I was required to fly into this meeting half-blind, a handicap when dealing with a sharp minded Zig.  The Secretary was Gold Caste, which meant not quite as scary genius as the Copper Caste specialists, but still specialized in their own way for social management.  ChiTakTiZu was somewhere in the middle stratum of the ‘ruling class’, as I understood Zig society.  He had risen to titled status and was qualified to represent Zig culture to outsiders, meaning the Collective.  He was talented enough to be elected by the Collective’s representative council, which earned him a measure of respect back home.  He held academic degrees in civil engineering and climatology, in contrast to my political and sociological background.  The Secretary had selected me as a complimentary force, a facilitator to his evaluator.

Just doing my job, boss.  The response from ChiTakTiZu was brief, asking for confirmation that my ‘emergency’ warranted his personal attention.  I duly confirmed and asked for his next open time window.  Half an hour away, overlapping his luncheon.  Good enough.  I was sure we’d both sacrifice a meal in order to protect our continued employment.

I filled the wait by lining up candidates for the next stage of notification.  First up: our military contact: regional Commander Grissakh bash’Ruushid.  Inevitably and regrettably Mauraug, given their adjacency to Locust system, but unbiased enough to qualify for Collective employment.  He would make the decisions about what sort of military protection to give the salvagers.  His office would be responsible for investigating the colonial ruins.  Oh, and planning any response, though the attackers were long gone and already kill-on-sight outlaws.

Second, medical and supply aid, via the Office of Health.  Probably moot, judging from the few reported survivors, but why not get them involved? 

I also listed the respective Representatives for Human and Mauraug cultural interests on the Collective council.  We absolutely had to shove this mess in their faces.  The temptation to scream, “I told you so” was strong.   Sad to say, being too aggressive in our approach could backfire politically.  It might even be useful to delay the full report to those notables.  We could convey the impression that we had tried to manage the catastrophe, but the situation was just too thoroughly flawed, too awful from its inception, to be salvaged.

We could only delay so much, though, before the Representative offices received their own reports from the disaster site.  If their internal governments had operatives within the colonies or among the salvage teams, those reports might already be in transit.  I doubted that either side had access to Ningyo messenger ships, but I could be wrong.  Collective internal operations, the Offices, benefited from the rapid transmission allowed by space fold technology as the Ningyo 'donation' to our society.  The Ningyo might relay a message to other parties for their own unclear reasons, whether for free or for a fair price.  No one could command exclusive rights to news, unless they owned their own relays… and encrypted them well.

Who else?  We could overstep the council and punch directly toward the cultural governments themselves.  Such transfer of blame was more deserved but that much more dangerous.  I could be recalled by the Terran government.  The Secretary might be safe, but causing enough trouble for a powerful Terran or Mauraug politician could encourage that authority to petition their Zig counterpart.  They could raise questions about the neutrality of a certain Zig employee within the Collective’s Offices.

It took that kind of power – and its ignorant use – to force a settlement like the Locust colony charter.  The Collective had been pushed into the only acceptable option, given the intransigence of its member states.  We were supposed to be grateful that a mutually (un)acceptable option was even ratified.

In turn, the powers that run planets would blame their constituents for their behavior.  The people, being the source of their power, could not be ignored.  The people demand colonial expansion.  The people refuse to consider opposing claims.  The people refuse to consider security issues, clearly.  If the politicians stop obeying the people, they will be replaced by more useful servants.

Complete keke.  When that obedience will get your ‘people’ killed, you take a stand.  You show your worth by opposing the popular error and persuading the masses away from a mistake.  Otherwise, when they run off a cliff, you’ve got no excuse not to get pushed over with them.  I could hope this debacle would take down a few of the responsible parties, but I knew better.  The best I could manage would be to protect myself and my people.  The final political casualties were out of my hands.

I had worked through fear and anger by the time for the meeting with the Secretary.  I was ready for righteous action.  With luck, I could maintain that for another hour or so before depression or resignation settled in.

We were too far removed from the frontier to manage grief.  Deaths on colony planets are regrettably common, though rarely concentrated in such numbers.  The most common cause of death is technical accident, followed by disease, especially if you lump mental disorders into the mix.  Colonists are their own worst dangers, even with careful screening.  Disease is still a risk, along with local natural hazards like wildlife and weather.  Outsider aggression is rather low on the list.  New colonies might be tempting targets due to weaker defenses, but they are relatively poor and scattered targets for piracy.  For military action, either.  Only zealots or isolationists tend to target new colonies specifically.

Which was exactly what had happened, look at that.  Just like we, the experts, predicted.  In a way, I and the Secretary had already grieved the inevitable death of Locust colony.  It wasn’t enough of a sure thing, though, to have a response strategy drafted.  We had plenty of other follies to manage on a daily basis, plus quite a lot of healthy, responsible, productive colonies to assist. 

As such, neither I nor the Secretary could spend our entire day massaging this specific cramp, significant as it was.  Even slowing down operations would draw attention.  We wanted to create the impression that we could handle any trouble, but not that we were taking ownership of it. 

I was already striding down the hallway with minutes to spare before our scheduled meeting.  Members of our Office staff nodded politely as I passed.  Fortunately, none of them had questions needing my attention.  None asked if I needed assistance, either.  I was doing a fine job masking my urgency.  Outward signs of trouble were quickly noticed in an enclosed domain like ours.

You may think I exaggerate the hazards of a political environment, but I do not.  Trouble is like radiation.  You don’t want to be near it.  You don’t want to accumulate any exposure, as it takes time to dissipate and too much is lethal.  You certainly don’t want to be responsible for a leak, as anyone exposed – or endangered – will be after your head.  It also lingers even after the source is gone.  Good analogy, well done.  We needn’t discuss the equivalents of critical mass and chain reaction.

Anyway, I was keeping my dose of trouble well-shielded, transporting it safely down the hall.  For disposal, I hoped.  The Secretary’s door was closed.  Not to me, but to keep others from intruding before I arrived.

I signaled my presence at the door pad.  The door opened and I entered as if delivering a routine update, possibly as if paying a harmless social call.

My superior was not misled.  Secretary of Settlement ChiTakTiZu stared as I entered, his wide amber eyes scanning my face and body for clues.  Slightly shorter and thinner than me, the Secretary still had an impressively broad chest and shoulders.  He was considered an attractive older male by Zig standards.  His skin might no longer glitter as brightly as it had decades ago, but he still reminded me of a certain ancient android model: a metal man with exaggerated facial features.

Like such automatons, the Secretary had a fixed, neutral expression.  When he spoke, his tone was pleasant but flat, leaving out the niceties of courtesy.  We had worked together long enough to be past the need for verbal reassurances.

“What brings you here, Undersecretary ChiTa?”  he asked as I neared his desk.  Very formal.  I had probably claimed time he wanted to himself.  His irritation would never emerge as rudeness, only an absence of pleasantries.  He still mispronounced my name, though, the accent from his particular Zig dialect evident.  I wouldn’t mind, except it made me sound like a Terran wild cat.

“I have a report from the colony on Locust Four, Secretary,” I replied, equally even-tempered and succinct.  I allowed myself some drama: “The former Locust colony, I should say.”

Only a long blink betrayed ChiTakTiZu’s surprise.  He bade me, “Continue.” 

I chose to take this as permission to sit, claiming the guest’s chair across from the Secretary at his legume-shaped desk.  When he did not protest, I continued my presentation.  Even so, I did not relax, remaining stiffly upright.

“Two Standard days ago, at approximately 0430 local time – 1510 Collective Standard on Second Day – both the Terran and Mauraug colonies on Locust Four were bombarded from within atmosphere.  No record of the attackers has been confirmed but recovered messages from that time period describe three Mauraug vessels.  Those messages include both stored data found in wreckage within the Colony as well as transmissions intercepted in transit later.  Mauraug Apostates are the responsible party, per the highest probability given current evidence.”

With no interruption so far, I continued further, “Early reports from salvagers on site indicate either no survivors whatsoever or possibly no more than ten survivors located outside of the settlements at the time of attack.  None of these survivors have been confirmed, much less identified or recovered.  The reporting salvagers are a Great Family passenger liner, a Mauraug freighter, and a Zig mining vessel, all drawn from adjacent systems by intercept of the first distress message from Locust.”

I paused before delivering the last twist.  “One other ship, a licensed Terran salvager, Saving Grace, was confirmed on site by the other three ships, but abruptly left system without explanation after starting work at the Terran settlement.  The messages regarding survivors came from that ship, shortly before its departure.  We received this news via third-party transmission, courtesy of the nearest Ningyo ship able to relay.  So far as they claim, this information was passed directly to this Office, tagged and relayed specifically for our eyes only.”

Secretary ChiTakTiZu absorbed my synopsis without reaction and waited to hear if I held any further surprises.  He did not reply at first, but opened his personal computer and performed several manual operations within five seconds.  The virtual screen transmitted only to his retinas, so I could see nothing.  My exclusion meant only that time was too valuable to waste on personal consideration.  I could be patient.  I could be especially patient if it meant my part in this ordeal ended that much sooner.

I could guess, though, what he was doing.  He might already be initiating contact with the parties I had identified.  My recommendations were unnecessary, although I still held responsibility for doing my own research.  He might be alerting internal staff to make time available pending an update to their duties and priorities.  He was probably opening files and programs to assist his own decision making.  A Terran would have brought their A.I. online for the same reason, but non-Terrans had to manage their own searches and inputs if they wanted the same kinds of analysis. 

He did not wait for the return of answers or outputs, but focused on me again.  “Do we have documentation of the extent of damage to the colony?” he asked.  He emphasized the ‘proper’ terminology, colony singular, rather than colonies, plural.  He was already mentally set for damage control.

“Yes, Secretary.  Video and in-depth scans from overflights confirm thorough destruction at both sites.  No structures remain standing.  It appears both colonies chose to extend underground.  The bombardment dropped upper levels into lower.  At the time of report, the salvagers were checking into mining works and defensive outposts… their description… for potential survivors.  None were found in the settlements proper.  Incendiary effects likely killed anyone surviving initial collapse, not to mention destroying many remains.  Collection and identification of casualties is ongoing.”

ChiTakTiZu raised a hand to pause my report.  “I understand the limits of available information.  I am also not surprised at the extent of destruction.  I will receive further reports directly as they become available.  We are not responsible for monitoring the salvagers, until such time as survivors are confirmed.  The settlement of Locust Four is ended for the present.  Our responsibilities end with the disposition of settlers afterward.  All equipment donated, loaned, or sold to Locust colony will be declared as loss.  I will document that officially… in due course.”

I might have betrayed some impatience.  Then again, the Secretary knows Terrans, knows me, well enough to anticipate my concerns.  “That doesn’t mean our work is done.  I will need you to handle communications for the Office regarding this matter.  Notify the appropriate parties of their new responsibilities.  Notify other appropriate parties of our responsibilities, present and past.” 

I caught his meaning clearly enough.  Make it clear what Settlement could and could not do in the past.  Make it clear what Settlement can no longer do, by Collective law.  Brush off any claims of wrongdoing, now or then.  Call up the reserve stock of fingers, because I was going to be doing a lot of pointing.  Got it.

Unfortunately, the Zig in charge was making that finger-pointing my personal responsibility.  I would survive or fall based on my ability to motivate other Offices and representatives.  The Secretary would handle analysis and policy, as usual, and I was stuck as the face of Settlement.  The visible, punchable face, if I didn’t block or dodge well.  If I botched somewhere, the Secretary could disavow my ‘regrettable misstatement’ and thereby disperse any direct attack on the Office.

I might have hoped he would take full charge of damage control today, maybe even hand off the entire problem to another Office, but that wasn’t going to happen.  I couldn’t be angry.  I might do the same, in his place.  In his place, I’d also have access to contacts and secrets that would inform my decisions.  There must be something about the Locust colony agreement – or the process of its ratification – that discouraged Secretary ChiTakTiZu from personally addressing its failure.

I also didn’t have any space to argue.  As challenging as the task before me was, it was my job.  It paid well, not to mention provided a platform for further ascent within the Collective.  If that platform became unstable from time to time, I couldn’t complain.  Rather, the less I complained, the more competent I looked.  Just don’t fall off, right, ChiTa?  Let others fall, but dig in your claws.

I smiled to indicate readiness, even welcome to the challenge before me.  “Understood, Secretary.  I will compose our statement immediately.  Is there any order of precedence for contacts, for our outreach or to accept theirs?”

“Collective officials have first priority, of course.  Hold calls to or from cultural representatives, for the present, until I give permission.  Office-internal queries secondary.  Anything else, use your judgment.  We might still get inquiries from on-site workers, depending on the Ningyo.  Tell them what they actually need to know.”

The Secretary’s instructions were pretty much aligned with my earlier thoughts.  Put off the Mauraug or Terran reps, but be helpful to our Collective comrades.  The main trouble was that I had to respond to each party, after identifying whom I was speaking with and judging their need to know appropriately. 

“Very good.  Anything further?”

“Quite a lot, but nothing we need discuss right here.  Watch your messages; I will relay policy documents as they are completed.  Oh, and you have permission to set aside anything below First Priority, until otherwise notified.”

That last instruction spoke volumes.  First Priority was assigned only to all-hands-on-deck emergency operations, rarely used but always resolved first.  Second Priority was used for time-sensitive tasks, anything where delays could be dangerous or expensive.  So this problem ranked between First and Second Priority, but wasn’t going to be explicitly labeled as such.  Good to know.

Add another area where my judgment would be tested.  I could ignore Second Priority items if I chose, but I didn’t have to, so it was my decision what to do.  I also couldn’t interfere with anyone else’s work or hand off any Locust-related business to staff.

I certainly could hand off Locust matters outside of the Office.  I certainly would, given an opening.  I was practically being encouraged to do so.  That was power I could work with.

I nodded acknowledgment to the Secretary. 

“Go to it,” he added by way of dismissal. 

Standing, I turned and walked back out.  I almost forgot to regulate my pace and expression for the benefit of bystanders.  Steady.  Calm.  No need to alarm them, not yet.  I might need to raise the temperature later, if I had to delegate work myself, but it was too soon to raise any alerts.

If I was really as skillful as I believed, nobody would know I had ever been worried.

The Bureaucrat's Tale - Chapter 1

What do I do with this?

The characters still floated several inches from my eyes, maintaining their relative position like an oddly disciplined swarm of flies.  The contents of the short transmission were responsible for my thoughts of vermin.  For one reason, it was a nuisance, wrought by small creatures, which refused to be ignored.  The second reason was less metaphor and more wordplay: the communique had originated in the Locust System.

This plague could not be pushed aside; it would only return.  Much less could it be destroyed; the underlying origin would only breed another swarm of the same kind, perhaps larger, certainly worse.  All I could reasonably do was pass it on to another victim. 

The pestilent news would have to be persuaded to move somewhere more attractive.  Certainly there were targets more deserving of its torment.  Still, no one would welcome this particular communication, no more than they would thank me for an infestation.  So the problem became: how to hand off this mess without being included in its blame.

I just happened to be the gatekeeper: Hori Jeetah, Assistant Secretary of Settlement Affairs.

More literally, the troublesome message was a packet from a Ningyo diplomatic mission which had arrived across folded space from a region adjacent to the Locust system.  They were relaying a transmission from the Great Family passenger liner Vlluti, which was itself orbiting the fourth planet from Locust C, a star informally named ‘Ra’.  The planet itself had no decided name, save its official designation: Locust 4.

The news was summarized in a single block of text, accompanied by an enrichment of associated data: direct video recordings, multi-dimensional scans, ship log records, and the like, all elaborating and corroborating the claims asserted up front.  Someone would have the task of sifting through all this information to confirm that it did, in fact, support its introductory claims.  Someone else, not me.

The attached records included contributions from two other vessels: a Zig mining ship, VasKoTaCho, and a Mauraug freighter, Shomuth.  It was strange enough for these particular cultures to be working in cooperation, but that oddity was only a footnote to the greater anomaly.  For one thing, these two were not the only ships involved in the Locust system’s troubles.  One other vessel, Saving Grace, a Human salvager, had been present but was unavailable for comment.  The report couldn’t answer why 'Grace was unavailable, either.  That was another mystery for someone else to actively pursue.

In quick summary, the story was this: the joint Terran-Mauraug colony on Locust 4 was gone, leveled in an attack.  That great experiment initiated by the Collective’s negotiated settlement – this department’s negotiated settlement – was over.  Depending on how you read the matter, the results were either inconclusive due to early termination, or an utter failure due to that same termination.

As wiser minds – mine included – had feared, the joint colony had become an unbearable irritation to the dissidents of the Mauraug Apostasy.  How much stronger a reminder could we have issued that the Collective was still, bizarrely, more comfortable working with the expansionist, imperialist, Dominionist faction of the Mauraug majority?  Of course the Apostates had come calling.  What surprised me was how thoroughly they had expressed their outrage.  The number of known survivors at Locust was in the single digits, although even that number was uncertain, for reasons detailed further in. 

A massacre on this scale could hardly raise sympathy for the Apostate cause.  Their leadership (and I use that term loosely) must have felt that the colony itself posed a greater risk than the infamy generated by its obliteration.  Perhaps I was being too generous.  This attack might have been an impulsive reaction to an insult, with no thought about its long-term consequences.  Most lay readers would assume as much, finding a common thread of Mauraug fanaticism between both factions, Dominion and Apostasy.

Those readers would also ask the obvious question: where was the Collective?  Why hadn’t we, the bureaucrats and officials and experts of the galaxy’s largest organized society, anticipated this obvious danger and put safeguards in place to prevent it?  The answer ought to be equally obvious: of course we recognized the danger.  Most of us did, at least.  Some of us downplayed the risk.  Some acknowledged its possibility, but accepted the danger as a necessary risk, worth permitting in return for a potential gain.  What might be gained?  Closer association and reduced hostility with the Mauraug Dominion.  Greater understanding between cultures.  A shared stake in a common project, with neither side getting everything they wanted… that was the hallmark of a good negotiation, right?

I had argued that the actual threat was not worth such tenuous benefits.  The Apostates would attack, overtly or covertly.  They couldn’t not respond.  If you can believe it, some sophists argued that such attacks could be turned to a profit, pushing the two cultures closer together in shared opposition.  None of those voices came from Humans, of course.  Most of the absurd social theory came from our Great Family representatives.  I wouldn’t even say that the worst arguments came from the Hrotata.  That whole ‘shared enemy’ speech had hallmarks of Vislin psychology laced through it, although of course the speaker had been Hrotata.

So an attack was likely, if not inevitable.  Why not, then, be on guard?  Why not give the colony defenses, or better yet, station a ring of Collective warships around Locust System?  That would certainly have deterred the resource-challenged Apostates.  With an equal or greater number of defending ships, an attack would fail.  Even the likelihood of a small prepared defense, raising the cost of an invasion, might have been sufficient deterrent.

The reason a fleet of Collective warships were not in Locust system was as prosaic as it was regrettable: economics.  The Collective could not afford to spare five, four, three, or even two military vessels, with their crew and fuel supply demands, for any extended period.  Certainly not for the many planetary cycles it would take for a colony to take root and grow self-sufficient in its own defense.  Much less could so many ships be spared from other duties, such as border defense or active duty at 'known' conflict sites.

It was telling that the first responders now working to salvage the remains of the Locust 4 colony were a motley of various ships, each from a different culture and specialized for different purposes.  Only one, Saving Grace, was designated a licensed salvager.  That one had abruptly lifted from the planet before completing its stated survey, leaving the system without further explanation to its three collaborators.  Its last message had confirmed the presence of survivors, stragglers who had been outside of the colonial settlements at the time of the Apostate attack.  How those clues fit together was still a mystery, pending further investigation… which would have to wait on an official constabulary visit.

So, that left three civilian ships to do the work of the Collective, at least for another planetary rotation before support ships were estimated to arrive.  If any military vessels were to arrive sooner – and the need for them was questionable at this point – they would have to be outfitted with Ningyo fold drives.

There was another reason explaining not only why a military fleet was absent, but also why not a single warship was nearby.  The substance of that reason is the ocean in which I swim: politics.

First up, Settlement couldn’t get approval for a military presence.  Whose ship would it be, for example?  Human and Mauraug presences were excluded immediately, for fear of granting an in-system advantage to one culture or the other.  The crux of the negotiation had been competitive.  Both cultures would have an opportunity to develop Locust 4, with permanent rights to the planet going to the culture that showed itself better able to utilize the world and prosper.  Idealists had hoped that the competition would end in a draw, with both parties recognizing that they succeeded best together rather than separately.  It’s difficult to argue publicly against such ideals, given that they form one basis of the Collective.  But the other basis of the Collective is recognition of differences and allowance for inequitable relationships when those imbalances offer the greater benefit to all members.  Hence the technology laws, hence settlement rights, and hence commerce law.  Still, competition had to be done on a fair basis to avoid exploitation of present advantages... such as a nearby military vessel full of supplies and armed allies.

That exclusion of Terran or Mauraug military still left a handful of cultures eligible to provide military support.  Once again, the Terrans and Mauraug argued themselves out of options.  Zig obviously are biased toward Humanity.  The few existing Tesetse ships are too automated for the Mauraug to trust.  The Great Family had offended the Terran delegation by forcing the whole negotiation in the first place.  And nobody is comfortable enough to trust the Ningyo or Awakeners, except where we have no choice.

That’s not to say that a few compromise candidates couldn’t have been found.  Some secondary members of the Collective could have been acceptable neutral parties.  The problem there was, once again, cost.  Unless a Collective member offered to cover the expenses out of a sense of duty to the organization, the costs of protection would have to be paid by one or both of the colonizing parties.  Plus, all this debate presumed that a willing third party could be found at all.  Whether or not they were getting paid for the effort, there was a high probability of an attack to consider.  Essentially, any candidate – volunteer or mercenary – was signing on for an almost guaranteed military engagement.  The cost might include lost lives or even lost ships, at a probability actuaries wouldn’t touch.

Finding such sympathetic, noble, and/or courageous captains would be difficult enough if the hiring parties were dedicated and concerted in their search.  They were not.  Up until the date of the Apostate attack, the Terran and Mauraug governments were still hashing out a defense plan and recruitment strategy.  They hadn’t let those considerations delay their settlement plans, oh no.  As soon as the contract was countersigned and saved to memory, they had started launching transports to Locust system.  First arrival had an advantage, after all, and one couldn’t discard any advantage… not if one wanted to stay in office.

As far as I was concerned, blame for this disaster could be placed most squarely at the feet of those cultural governments, both Terran and Mauraug.  More specifically, the responsible parties were the leaders who had interfered with their own interests by pushing the colonization forward before they managed its protection.  By association, my condemnation included the business interests and perhaps even the colonists who had put pressure on those leaders.

In turn, those authorities had put pressure on my office to open up settlement.  Since they were in compliance with the terms of the contract, my superior, the Secretary of Settlement, had no choice but to approve the touchdown of their ships.  At the time, we hoped that those transports would stay in-system long enough for defense support to arrive.  Perhaps we should have specified supervision as a condition of approval, as much as that demand would exceed the authority of our office.  Sometimes you have to bend the rules to do what is right, although that doesn’t exempt rule-benders from sanctions.

All this byplay was a matter of public record.  Anyone who wanted answers to their questions about the whys and whodunits of the Locust settlement could access our network and search directly, or even read themselves to exhaustion through the transcripts, contracts, and associated exhibit data.  Would they?  No.  Most would see the upcoming headlines and blame the Collective for permitting another massacre.  After all, the Collective created the colony, therefore we were responsible for anything that happened to it.

To a limited degree, I could agree with that sentiment.  I, personally, am responsible for monitoring settlement progress.  Setbacks, pressing needs, and other concerns of Collective-sponsored settlements pass directly through this office, for relay to the offices that supply those needs.  We do a fair amount of filtering, deciding which requests merit response, on what timetable, and who should be contacted to provide that response.  Routing this particular message was going to be a challenge, which was my personal dilemma.

However, the Office of Settlement does not handle culture-internal matters.  It certainly does not set Collective policy.  We follow existing law and custom as instructed, exercising judgment only to determine how a given situation fits into that framework.

For that matter, the Collective is supposed to do the same, enacting and enforcing the collective will of its member cultures.  Sorry if I’m slipping into Galactic Political Science 1001 here.  The more I think about the Locust colony mess, the more aggravated I get about the ignorance of so-called sapients.  The Collective did not cause that atrocity.  We’re not responsible, not by commission or omission.  Nonetheless, we’re going to be tarred by association. 

While the Collective may have set the scene for this disaster, like I said, there were some good and noble reasons for the joint colony.  I haven’t even discussed why the good and rational arguments against that arrangement were overruled.  To do so, I once again point to the cultural governments themselves.  Neither would back down from their claim on the Locust system.  Both had equal claims from proximity and precedent to establish settlements.  Locust 4 was the best, most habitable world in the region, so there was no question of dividing up the system planet by planet.  One possibility that was proposed and discarded was to trade claims in other star systems for exclusive rights in Locust.  Nobody could come up with a current or anticipated dispute that might be resolved by giving away one system in return for another… and neither side would accept “a credit to be claimed in future disputes.”  I can’t really blame them there.

So, short of military resolution – something the Collective could not accept – or mutual abandonment – again, inimical to the nature of the Collective – it became inevitable that some kind of division of Locust IV would be necessary.  Perhaps a continent-by-continent split?  Well, no, the nature of the baby prevented that kind of split, as well.  All of the most preferable resources were found on the same continent, just slightly north of the equator.

The best separation that could be managed, in the end, was to establish separate colonies in the same geographical zone.  For reasons both idealistic, practical and cynical, the sites were chosen to be within driving distance of one another.  Keep an eye on the neighbors, in case they need help, but also in case they start getting too far ahead.

I may be Human, myself, but sometimes I despair of my species.  I tend to agree with the sapients that find little distinction between us and the Mauraug.  But for several accidents of history, there go we.  There could easily have been a Terran Dominion pounding dogma and bad poetry into our minds, right now.

I work for the Collective by choice.  It’s something that might pull Humanity out of itself.  I’m not a species traitor; the same is true for all the member cultures of the Collective.  They all have flaws that need to be addressed: Mauraug obviously, but Zig and Hrotata need humility, Vislin and Taratumm need restraint, and the Ningyo… need some kind of racial psychotherapy, probably.

Anyway, if there’s one thing all those cultures share, it’s resentment of the restraints the Collective puts on their preferences and ambitions.  Situations like the one before me just give them a target to pin those frustrations on.  “The Collective isn’t working; look at this mistake.”  “Why do we bother with this nonsense; let us manage ourselves and let other sapients do the same.”  “They don’t understand what we need.”

I wasn’t about to let the death of Locust colony feed opposition to the Collective.  I suspected, even then, that that was the real goal of the Apostates: not only to hurt Dominionist Mauraug and their ‘allies’, not only to demonstrate against the Collective for our unacceptable collaboration with Dominion, but to undermine the Collective and what it represents.

Oh, not what it actually represents, which is the pinnacle of enlightened self-interest.  I mean, why would so many disparate cultures even bother meeting, discussing, and negotiating, if they didn’t find some advantage in it for themselves?  The idealists are a minority in this Universe, but pragmatists are common enough.

No, I mean the Apostates - apparently like the majority of sapients out there – think the Collective represents power, authority, and the domination of others by an empowered minority.  The Apostates see us as Dominion writ across the galactic disc.  Frost, the Dominionists probably do, too, which would explain why their official policy shifted to support us.  That majority, including both Mauraug factions as well as most of the sapients in all the cultures of the Collective, are idiots.

This office has exactly the power given to it by the colonists that rely upon it, the offices that answer to it, and the cultures that support the Collective as a whole.  If nobody returns my calls, I have zero power.  The Office of Settlement has no military power to enforce its edicts, and its economic power is contingent on other bureaus doing their jobs.  Even the mighty executives of the Collective are beholden to their subordinates and the cultures they operate between.

That’s enough lecturing.  I just wanted to make sure you understood my problem, before I explain how I went about resolving it.  There are all these pieces, all these actors, each limited in scope and span of power.  Each was responsible for how they used that power: the decisions they made and the orders they issued to put events in motion.  Lots of those sapients were going to have to make some hard decisions, issue some orders, and work hard in reaction to this Locust plague.  Some of them were going to get hurt, particularly in the realm of public opinion.

I just wanted to make sure anyone who got bitten deserved the pain.  I certainly did not.

Update - As the Galaxy Turns

A brief note those who check this space regularly:

Thank you!

Your attention will be rewarded.  I have completed my Human pair-bonding ritual and have time available again to write.  The first chapter of a new Empyrean story should be posted within the next week.  After that, though, no promises about a timeline.  The next month includes another fascinating human custom: our honeymoon.  It might be late May before I'm able to post again.

We still have a couple of interesting projects simmering in the background, but both dishes require full completion before they can be served.  I'll leave that as a riddle to be answered whenever that presentation finally occurs.  We hope it's worth the wait.

-N. L.

The Swarm

     They were in the walls.  Oh, God, they were in the WALLS!

     Fredrik jerked away from the sculpted grey surface where he had leaned to catch his breath.  He wanted to deny what he had heard.  He wanted to believe he had gotten away, to feel safe, to permit himself time to rest.  His jangled nerves refused to be deceived.

     His temples throbbed with his pulse.  His ears strained past that noise, demanding to hear more.  They insisted that the noise was real.  His lower brain could not ignore such warnings of danger.

     The things were small.  They could easily be behind the walls.  How thick were those surfaces?  He did not know.  He did not even know what the grey substance was.  It was warmer than stone should be in this chill, damp air.  The stuff was almost smooth, but not quite, with an irregular roughness that teased the eye and hand with hints of a pattern.  It had no joints or corners, but flowed smoothly into bends and arches, pits and pockets, branching off in every direction into corridors of every size.

     Fredrik was lost here.  His flight through this maze, with its round unmarked paths, had been like the tumbling of a lone blood cell through a dying artery.  Now the microbes were closing in all around him.  They could hear him, maybe smell him, even if neither he nor they could see one another.

     He could hear them.  Their many legs scratched on the strange surface.  Were they in another tunnel, close by but separate?  Were they, indeed, in some interstice just behind a thin divider?  Might they burst through like ants piercing the skin of a hollowed fruit?  Spiders pouring from an egg sac?

     They ran like insects, but they were not insects.  Fredrik had not had time to look at them closely.  He had only an impression of multiple hard, gleaming limbs, colored maybe red or black.  It had been difficult to tell in the red light of Thompson’s lamp.

     There were a lot of them.  He had seen the way they swarmed, legs almost clicking together as they headed for that light.  They had overrun Thompson, grabbed the lamp out of his hand, and extinguished it.

     Had that been intentional?  Did they know their prey was helpless in the dark?  Did they recognize the switch and know how to operate it?  Or did they act on animal instincts, sensing that the bright spot was a target or otherwise somehow important?  Perhaps the light had antagonized them.  They might have simply attacked it and switched it off entirely by accident.  It didn’t matter now.

     When it went dark, they took Thompson with them.  Fredrik tried not to hear his partner’s screams again.  He had heard panic, rising to terror as the creatures swarmed up and smothered the man.  Fredrik could imagine it from the way Thompson’s voice had been stifled. 

     Then he felt their touch himself.  Cold, hard appendages, bristling with sharp points and oddly soft hairs.  They had clicked and whistled to one another as they sought him out in the dark.  Fredrik had not waited.  He had not tried to fight.  He knew there were too many.  If he tried to fight, blind and afraid, they would catch him.  They might take his lamp, too, and then it would not matter if he ran away.  So, he fled.

     Harley had held their weapons.  She was supposed to be their guard, her and Braddock.  Braddock had died in the crash, along with Stone.  Had that been an accident?  Fredrik wasn’t an engineer and hadn’t been navigating, so he had no way to know.  Thompson said something got into the intake vents.  They assumed it was debris kicked up by the storm.  Maybe it had been a little, hard, multi-legged body, trying to climb into the shuttle.  Maybe it was debris... thrown into the vents as sabotage.

     Fredrik fought down the surge of paranoid panic.  He had to assume there was a way out.  The shuttle was down but the ship was still up there, in orbit.  His comm wasn’t working… maybe due to the depth, maybe because of something about these tunnels?  No way to know.  If he could find a path to the surface, he could call for help.  The ship should already be searching.  Maybe they were.  He had to get above ground and warn them.  If these things were intelligent, they might attack the backup landing team.

     He had to fight despair.  He had to assume he was smarter than this enemy.  He was definitely bigger.  Stronger.  Was he stronger?  They had grabbed Harley, and she was a big, strong woman.  They had caught her standing under an opening, reached down, and hauled her away before she could fire a shot.  They took her and her weapon.  Thank goodness they couldn’t use it.  Otherwise, he might already be dead.

     The swarm had nearly caught up with Fredrik twice now.  If they could shoot, they would have had an easy shot both times.  After he fled, he found and illuminated his own lamp.  He switched it from red to full spectrum.  It didn’t matter if it drew their attention, not now.  He needed to see.  He could run fast, faster than them… for a time.  As he grew tired, their scuttling speed was starting to match his jogging gait.  He only had a few more sprints left.  Resting here might buy him a few more escapes.

     The landing team had run into the tunnels, at first.  When the shuttle went down and the winds picked up, it seemed like the best course of action.  They would take shelter, call to the ship, and wait out the storm until conditions were clear enough to repair their shuttle or to bring down their backup.

     The strange, grey-lined openings had beckoned.  They were, after all, what the researchers - Fredrik and Thompson and Stone - had come down to see.  Orbital surveys had shown several such tunnel mouths, too perfectly shaped and regularly spaced to be natural formations.  The surface seemed entirely natural, entirely untouched… but there were these openings.  Such reshaping suggested larger, hidden life forms, perhaps even intelligence.

     There certainly was some kind of intelligence at work.  Rudimentary, sentient, sapient… it didn’t matter now, now that Fredrik knew the natives were dangerous and hostile.  The things had reacted badly to their intrusion.  Whether out of defense or hunger, they had attacked, and it did not matter why.  Fredrik just needed to escape.  If he returned, if he ever returned, it would be with a full squad, all carrying plasma throwers, with atomic lanterns ablaze and motion detectors active, each monitored by their personal A.I. and synced to a positioning satellite.  Then they'd see who hunted who.

     His primate brain was doing its best to organize conflicting lower impulses.  Stand and fight!  Run away!  Hold still!  Right now was not the time to fight.  Holding still was suicide, too: he was in the creatures’ lair.  He had to run.  He needed to run soon.  When the scratching sound came again, it was time to run now.

      Which way?  The sounds came from every direction.  Was he surrounded?  Were some of the noises echoes from tunnels further back?  Further forward?  Above, below, to the sides?  He had climbed up at one point, slid down at another.  As best he could remember, he was at about the same depth as the entrance.  Its lateral direction was a complete mystery.

     Fredrik decided… forward, then right at the next large branch.  He tended to assume that larger branches meant a main trunk.  The entrance had been three meters wide.  He had avoided anything less than a meter across, where he would have to crawl.  He was in the two meter range right now.  A flash of rationality reminded him that the passages had not shown any specific organization.  Branches seemed randomly located and randomly sized, with nothing like a ‘tree’ structure at all.

     Certainly, the tunnels were nothing like a Human structure, even an underground facility.  No sapient race Fredrik could think of built like this.  Did the creatures build it?  Excavate it?  Extrude it, like termites?  Were they parasites infesting a structure built by some previous inhabitant?  Had they already expelled… or consumed… that prior tenant?  Or worse, were they commensal creatures, guardians, or pets of something worse?

    Was Fredrik, even now, descending into the lair of the swarm’s master?  As he ran, hearing clicks on every side but seeing none of the pursuers, he realized that he might be being herded.

    Still, what could he do otherwise?  It seemed that whenever someone stopped to confront the enemy, they were taken.  If they would not step into his light, he was safe as long as he kept moving forward and never left his back unguarded.  Or his head, or his feet.  Assuming they could not, in fact, burst through the walls.

    The passage began to widen.  Hope surged, chased closely by leery caution.  Something ahead reflected Fredrik’s lamp-light.  It did not glisten black or red.  It shone an opalescent glimmer of blue and green and purple.  At first, it seemed like a stack of gems.  Then it was the facets of a great multifaceted eye.  Fredrik slowed, caught between the need to press forward and the fear of what lay ahead.

     He raised his lamp like a weapon.  Then he lowered it, fearing it would be snatched from his grasp.  Instead, he held both hands high, ready to strike if something lunged.  Step by step he advanced.  The skittering scraping sound intensified behind him and faded ahead.  Was this where he was being led?  What worse thing waited for him, watching with a thousand unblinking eyes?

     He could only move forward.  Now, he saw more clearly what produced the glitter.  Soft orbs, each larger than an eyeball, hung in clusters from the wall.  Like an eye, they also had a translucent skin filled with fluid.  Fredrik could tell that the centers were fluid, because something darker swam within each globe.  Dark things, like swimming centipedes, a body with many small legs flailing…

     Eggs.  They were eggs.  The spawn of the crawling swarm, no doubt of it.  Thousands of them.  He had been goaded to their nest, driven to this chamber when he could not be dragged.  The creatures had larvae, hungry young, and he was a self-delivered meal. 

     No!  Fredrik had not lived well in his brief, spacefaring life, but he would die well.  There would be a thousand fewer monstrosities growing to threaten his successors.  They wanted to fatten on his corpse?  Let them die beneath his boot!

     Fredrik raised his foot to crush the first bunch of eggs.  That threat drew a response.  The swarm was emboldened.  A wave of crawling creatures raced forward, flowing across the floor, then up the walls and over the ceiling.  Red and black.  Reddish-black, like blood in the dim light.  Fredrik lashed out, with his feet, with his fist, finally even with the lamp.  He felt carapaces crack and even a few eggs burst.

     Then he felt spines puncture his suit and his skin.  He tore away from the first grasp, but more of the creatures clambered up his supporting leg.  Their segmented bodies wrapped over his lamp and its tightly clenched hand.  Then they were on his back, around his neck, on top of his head, and finally, over his face.  He could not brush one off without a new horror taking its place.

     They did not drag him down, as they had Thompson.  Nor did they pull him away, as they had Harley.  Of course not.  They were holding him in place.  They held him still, so that he could not harm their young.  They kept him where they wanted him, until the eggs were ready to hatch.  They would not even give him the mercy of death to spare him the pain of being devoured alive.

     Then, one of the creatures shoved something soft and wet against his nostrils.  A foul chemical odor flowed down his throat, making Fredrik gag.  A poison?  No, a paralytic.  He tried to cough and could not.  He could not turn his head to avoid the secretion.  Blessedly, his vision began to blur.  Unconsciousness.  Thank the stars.  As he fell, Fredrik prayed only that he would die before the anesthetic wore off.

      ****************************************************************************************

    

      Special Defense Leader Sshtknnn.tph.rrrssK crawled out from beneath the collapsed beast.  Three of her/her/his legs had been crushed in the battle, but the other nine still held her/her/his weight.

     “Any casualties?” she/she/he whistled to the gathered troops.

     “Kkktwww.ttt.kchssR is paralyzed!” came one report.  That was the worst of it among the soldiers.  A few offspring had died, but losses before hatching were sadly common.  It could have been worse.  It should have gone better.  They had been forced into melee.  When the monster went after the nursery, they had no choice.

     Curses on Defense Primary!  Her/his/her demands to capture the beasts without injury had made this operation more dangerous than necessary.  The invaders were large, aggressive, and armed.  Sshtknnn.tph.rrrssK had been right to request a double squad.  She/She/He had also been right to request armament, a request that Primary had denied.  That point of error would come up next gathering, it certainly would.

     “Triad teams, tend to those who can’t move.  The rest of you, take positions around this captive.”  Sshtknn.tph.rrrssK almost hissed the orders in her/her/his fury.  When the squads were in position, she/she/he whistled in a more carefully modulated scale, “Carry it/it/it to the holding chamber with the others.  Wounded to the infirmary.  All legs, march!”

     It was the lack of communication that made things really difficult.  The intruding creatures were clearly intelligent.  The separate covering over their softer, exposed flesh was evidence: synthetic skin for protection.  They had tools: light sources and weapons.  Sshtknn.tph.rrrssK had to assume that the slow, rumbling noises these horrors emitted was a language.  Maybe the scientists could decode it.  Then, they could interrogate the captives.

     Talk to the captives, if Primary had anything to do with it.  Sshtknn.tph.rrrrssK whined in exasperation.  Well, Primary was just relaying the wishes of Himself/Herself/Herself.  They would try to 'understand' the invaders first.

     Then, when Sshtknn.tph.rrrssK was proven right, when the beasts were revealed as the vicious marauders they clearly were... then, the nest could launch a real offensive.  These things had come from somewhere on the surface, beyond the tunnels.  There could be more of them coming.  They could be massing up there, waiting for word from their scouts.  Life existed beyond the storms, and it was intelligent and hostile.

     The nest couldn’t just hold still and wait until they were overrun by alien things!