The Garments of Caean

In a second or two the flame jet had lunged through the hull and was busy devouring the interior of the ship. But by then the hull was blotting out everything, expanding and descending on him with terrifying swiftness. For a moment the metal monster seemed almost friendly. He imagined it as a righteous Sovyan weapon that was crushing an evil cyborg – the cyborg being himself – then it was all over.

The harvester ship had come down like an avenging fist on Alexei Verednyev, with such determined force that it broke its own back in the process and lay crippled on the plain. Amara, watching from within the Callan, viewed the whole affair with satisfaction.

‘We should have thought of this ourselves,’ Estru said. ‘It’s this business of body image again. Alexei’s mind lacks a human body image. So the Prossim suits couldn’t get to him.’

‘They would have eventually,’ Peder told them. ‘If put to it those suits can control the nervous system of animals and even insects.’

‘And to think you wanted to leave Verednyev behind in the Sovyan Rings, Estru!’ Amara crowed. ‘Sometimes I think I’m the only one around here who makes the right decisions. By the way, remind me to put in a good word for Mast when we get back to Ziode. Where’s he got to?’

Mast had returned to the section to explain his ploy, but had left again following the death of the Sovyan. ‘Probably gone to sulk,’ Estru said. ‘He was quite friendly with Verednyev.’

‘Really? Well, you can’t expect a layman to have any objectivity.’ Amara was manipulating the screen controls, searching the great carpet of soot that had once been the Prossim plant’s garment beds. There were still a few garments left here and there, mostly charred or partly burned, passed over by the main force of the flamethrower’s flood. Those remnants would have to be cleared up.

Suddenly she switched off the screen and turned to face Estru and those of her team who were still in the room. Her face recovered its former grimness.

‘The most immediate peril has been averted, but the Prossim intelligence remains as a continuing threat,’ she declared. ‘It will not relinquish its ambitions. Sooner or later it will find another Frachonard, or it will continue to extend its control by means of lesser garments. Now, we have two options. We can make our way back to one of the Caeanic capitals, preferably Verrage, apprise the government there of what Prossim really is. Personally, I rule that out immediately. They would never trust us. They would be insulted by what would seem to be foreign criticism of their life-style.

‘Or we can return to Ziode and inform the Directorate of the facts, leaving the decision to them. I have little doubt as to what that decision will be. They will order an expeditionary force to this part of Tzist to annihilate this planet utterly.’

‘The Caeanics simply aren’t going to accept such an action on our part. There will be war,’ the staff chief said.

She nodded solemnly. ‘That’s so. But we have to face up to it. The Prossim flora must be wiped out. There isn’t any alternative – and we can’t trust the Caeanics to do it for us.’

She leaned back against a table, gripping its edges with her hands. ‘As a matter of fact I doubt very much if Captain Wilce would permit us to go for the first option. The Caeanics would be too likely to impound the Callan and kill us all just to suppress our story. But on an issue as important as this I’m prepared to record the feeling of the department. Who’s for going straight to Ziode?’

Slowly, aware that they were voting for war with Caean, they all raised their hands in the air.

The last people were coming back into the ship, trudging over the soot beds. It was time to be lifting off; Caeanic harvesters no doubt arrived here with regularity.

Amara’s team had taken cuttings of the Prossim plant to be conveyed, under sterilized biokiller seal, for study in Ziode; and they had gathered up the remaining pathetic scraps of the garment crop, also for study. Peder stood on the lip of the exit bay port, looking out over the scene for the last time. He wore plain garments given him by Estru. Though pale and shattered in spirit he had recovered his composure and was no longer mentally unbalanced. He even managed to nod in friendly fashion to Estru when he joined him at the port.

Together they shared the view. In one direction a rim of green could be discerned where the unburnt Prossim began again. The wrecked freighter was slumped in the middle of the dead area like a slaughtered mammoth, black dust piling up against it in the breeze.

Estru sighed, shaking his head, then chuckled cynically. ‘You know, I’m wondering if they’re going to believe any of this back in Ziode. How many other intelligences of this type do you think there are? It’s odd we haven’t come across any before.’