The Tar'van Diaries: Chapters 11 and 12

Eleven

She had been running for hours.  She had never been a runner - okay, she had been a runner once, but she'd been a teenager once, too, and that was when she had been a runner.  That had been many years ago.

Despite having not been a runner in decades she knew she had covered at least ten miles.  She actually felt a little proud of that, never mind that there probably weren't any members of her family left to brag to.  She was proud of herself.  It wasn't a marathon, but it wasn't insignificant either.  She hadn't stopped once.

She had survived the end of the world thus far.  That alone put her in a small group, about eighty percent of the world hadn't survived.  Six billion people, gone.  And of course they weren't just gone, the dead had died at such a rate that briefly the world's vulture and other carrion eater populations had skyrocketed.  Raccoons had become a dominant force in some cities and according to rumor, had formed small bands that would hunt and eat rats, since the readier food supply of dead humans had tapered off.  She wondered what the future might be like with predatory raccoons in it.

She hoped she would get to find out.  Raccoons liked to eat shellfish, among other things.  It would be amusing to see an Ordan running for his life, chased by hungry, determined raccoons.

How many Ordans are there?  How many raccoons would it take to kill them all?

I wonder if their disruptors kill raccoons?

That would be pretty handy, if an animal generally regarded as cute and never worse than an occasional nuisance turned out to be Earth's homegrown answer to the Ordan invasion.  Fight crabs with raccoons!  It would be funny if the whole situation weren't so awful.

There were more alligators to be found in Florida these days, and she had had to give more than a few a wide berth as she jogged on the road.  She didn't see any more crocodiles, however.

In over two hours, she hadn't seen a single car.  Fortunately there was a full moon so she was able to see everything clearly, even the murkily dark gators.  A couple of the smaller ones made halfhearted lunges in her direction as she passed, but once they got more than about four feet long, they seemed to understand that the running biped was too alert to be a good meal. 

She knew better than to get too near any body of water.  The road was arrow straight, running alongside a canal for much of its length.  Highway 78, the canal had no name that she could tell, sometimes the side of the road fell into a deep ditch, filled with water and choked with weeds.  The thrumming of bullfrogs and the trill of spring peepers was incessant.  Occasionally she saw the glimmer of eyes away from the road: gold for frogs, red for gators.

She spent an hour jogging, Highway 78 eventually running into the 27 and she turned to continue going east, until she saw lights.  Several lights.

Not streetlights.  Those hadn't been on anywhere she'd seen them, and there hadn't been many along 78 in the first place.  But as she approached a clot of buildings and houses, she could see she was finally approaching a town.  Not the aggregation of residences that had been the mobile home park a couple of miles ago, but an actual town: Moore Haven.

And one of these buildings had power.  Power and lights.  Where there was power, there were probably people.  A low, green-topped sign at the front of the complex read, "Moore Haven Correctional Facility."  Across the street, behind her, another sign proclaimed the Glades County Sherriff's Office.

She knocked at the gate.  Someone responded immediately.  The voice seemed to come from a security kiosk beside the gate.

"Yeah?"  A deep voice, very Southern. 

"Can I come in?"

"Sure."  The gate started to clatter open, but she took a step back. 

"Is it...safe?"  She couldn't make out a face, but a medium-large shadow stepped between her and the lights, and was leaning on the gate to heave it open.

"Sure.  I guess.  As safe as anything is anymore, I guess."

 She stepped through.  "What are you doing here?"

"Prison got wiped out when the crabs landed.  First day.  Frikken crabs touched down over Miami, just started scannin back and forth across the peninsula like a big dot matrix printer, back and forth, 'memba those?  'Round about Boca Raton, they started goin clean across, back and forth.  Moore Haven got hit in like the first or second pass.  Kept that up until they got north of Orlando, then they stuck to the coast, east coast mostly.  Sent a detachment over to Pensacola to take out the Marine base when the jarheads started shootin back, then they started doing north-south passes all along the Gulf coast.  Dang, listen to me ramble."  He had shoved the gate shut again and dropped the latch back into its catch, but she saw that no lock was attached to it.  His face was coming into faint focus as they approached the light.

"God." 

"Yeah.  Pretty awful when we got here, the inmates here weren't terrible people.  Medium security, minimum security.  Little stuff, guys makin bad decisions.  They were pretty much all gonna go home soon enough.  They never had a chance.  Hey, name's Jim."

"Hi, Jim."

"How ya doin?  Y'okay?  Bin runnin."

"Yeah.  All night, so far."

"Okay.  C'mon in."  He stepped back and the gate clattered shut behind them.

"If the inmates are all dead, why shut the gate?"

Jim chuckled to himself.  "Habit, I guess.  Before the landin I was a sheriff's deputy, office right across the street there, you saw it, and I don't think I could leave this gate open on a dare.  After you're on the job long enough, there's some things you just don't do.  Leaving the prison gate open is one of em."

"How did you not get hit when the Ordans carpeted the place?"

"North end a th' county.  Pickin up a D&D - sorry, that's 'drunk and disorderly' - up to Buckhead, up at the top'a th' lake.  Was about halfway back here when the most godawful noise come over th' radio.  Get back here, everybody's just lied down an died.  Damnedest thing I ever saw.  An I guess on the next pass they were north of here.  Got lucky, they just missed me."  He paused at the door before entering, looking out at the moonlit expanse.  "Not sure what kinda luck you'd call it, though."

Inside the prison was spotlessly clean.  The whole structure wasn't lit up, but several rooms were lit.  People went to and fro on errands she couldn't immediately make out.  Jim cracked open a door and stepped in, turned on a small desk lamp that showed the blinds in the office were drawn, and the name on the door showed: JAMES TAYLOR.

"A few folks have trickled in over the years and we've just made the place into a kind of apartment building, I guess.  Can't really call it a shelter, shelter's whatcha call it when you're gonna go somewhere else after the crisis ends, whatever the crisis is.  This?  This might be home, now.”

"Who knows how this is going to end."

"Aw, don't say that.  It's gonna end, and they're gonna be gone."  He seemed to have contradicted the tenor of his earlier statement, but he didn't remark on it and she didn't point it out.

"You think so?"

"I know so." Jim's big, dark face was supremely relaxed.  In the light she could see him clearly: a large black man so weathered under years of Florida sun the darkness of his skin almost didn't even register.  "Ya just gotta have faith, hon."

In other days she might have quietly resented the casual familiarity of the "hon," but not today, not from this man.  "I'm really tired.  I haven't run like that in forever."

"Where'dja run from, iffn ya don't mind me askin?"  He waved her to a chair and she slumped into it.

"I don't know.  I was coming straight down the 78, I think I've covered about ten, maybe twelve miles?"

"Middle a nowhere, then."

"I passed a concrete plant."

"Yup.  Quikcrete's out that way.  Or they was.  Yeah, you ran past a whole bunch of not much.  Farms and fields.  That's pretty much it.  If you'd gone the other direction, go about the same distance you woulda found yourself in LaBelle.  Bigger town than here."

"More people?"

"Once upon a time, but not last I heard.  They started gettin big again and the crabs sent another buncha their damn little shuttles, scannin back and forth ova tha place.  As of last month LaBelle's dead as the moon.  Somebody mighta moved back in, I dunno."  He sat back in his desk chair.  "Gotta stay small.  Get too many in one place, the crabs notice.  They send some ships after a crowd."

"How big a crowd does it take?"

"Tough to say.  At first contact Moore Haven didn't have but about fifteen hunnerd people in it, and it looks like the crabs took their scan clean across the peninsula to include it.  Last month LaBelle had got back up to a couple hunnerd and the crabs came.  So it doesn't take a big bunch a people for them to send a ship after it.  We're at about forty folks right now, and that's about all I want."

"Thirty-nine, Jim, including your friend," came a voice from down the hall.

"Thank you, Irene!" he called, but not too loudly.  "Irene Jackson, she got ears on her like radar dishes."

"I heard that."

"Toldja," Jim snickered. 

"What kind of people are here?"  She yawned hugely.

"Families, a few singles.  Coupla moms 'n' kids. Listen, you're dead on your feet, let's find you a room and you can get some rest.  You're pretty safe here.  Talk more in the mornin."

Her "room" turned out to be one of the prison's cells.

"I really don't want to stay in here."

"Well, this is what we got.  It was a prison, openin up walls to make nicer living spaces isn't really easy in a place like this.  If you really want you can have a bunk in one of the barracks, but there's kids in 'n' outta there all night.  This is a designated quiet hall, so you should be able to get some sleep."

"Do the doors lock?"  The room looked like a large closet with a toilet in it.

"You know, I dunno.  Haven't locked em in a long time."  He wandered back to his office and came back with a ring of keys and tested the lock on the door.  "Sure does.  Would you feel safer if the door was locked?"

"I would be locked in?"

"Well, yeah.  Prison.  The locks are for keepin folks in, not out."

"I've been locked up enough with the crabs.  Could you leave it unlocked, please?"

"Sure enough.  Hey, this bein the minsec wing - sorry, that's 'minimum security' wing - you got your own light switch.  They's ya throne right there, sink, they's extra TP in the cabinet right there..."

"You still have toilet paper?"

"Well, yeah."

"Oh my God."

"Tell you what, I'm just gonna step out now an I'll see ya in the mornin."

"Good night, Jim."

"G'night, Miss."

She slept the deep, silent sleep of a small child, and when she woke it was with a blink and a small start, suddenly awake, and then blinked again at the shaft of hard light lancing through the chinks and gaps of the blinds in the window.

It felt as if no time had passed.  What kind of sleep did they call that, alpha?  No, that was dream sleep.  Delta?  She barely even remembered getting into bed, but clearly she had made it, stripped to her underwear with her clothes folded on the counter next to the sink.  She didn't remember folding her clothes at all.

In a bed.  After months of waking on the almost yielding surface of the paddock's floor, with no covers and no pillows, she had a mattress, two pillows and sheets and even a light blanket. She sat up and threw the covers off her legs, stumbled over to the toilet and used it again, almost too sleepy - but not quite - to revel in the luxury of an actual toilet and, once she was finished, actual toilet paper.  The facilities aboard the Ordan cruiser were not as nice as a conventional toilet.

After running much of the previous night, her feet tingled and stung when she put them, bare, on the concrete floor.  She spent a few minutes stretching out the tightness that had set in after lying down so soon after so much exercise.

When she went to turn the door handle, it didn't open.

Twelve

"You know, it fills me with pride on a very deep and primitive level that there are groups of people out there that are so damned dangerous and difficult to exterminate, that the interstellar invaders have decided the only safe way to kill them is by meteoric bombardment."

Tar'van didn't shrug. His anatomy wasn’t designed for it, though he somehow managed to convey the impression.  "Approaching one group in particular at closures of less than ten kilometers has proven to carry at least fifty percent probability of direct engagement, with probability of Ordan success in such engagements initially no better than seventy-five percent in the first minute, degrading by approximately twelve percent every minute thereafter.  Any engagement lasting over five minutes is almost certain to end in complete loss of the entire Ordan contingent.  Meteoric bombardment to eradicate all life in the area carries the least risk to Ordan personnel and equipment.  It is the smart move, as humans would say.  That group is on the landmass you call Africa.  Another group, similarly dangerous, is in northern Europe.  I have been told the area is called Finland.  No such extremely dangerous large groups are in operation in North America, but we have been warned to be very wary of any group of eight or more humans in North America, especially what you call Canada."

"You seem to have a fair amount of tactical data on hand, Tar'van.  Why is that?"

"Standard pre-mission briefing.  Established forbidden areas must be avoided to prevent unnecessary losses.  Basic opponent behavioral profiles are part of the briefing.  I can indicate it on a map."

A map was found and held up for the supine Ordan to observe, and he directed the man's pointer until it was resting on the west coast of Africa.  "That band has been operating in this region since the human extermination project began."

"Looks like about Senegal or Gambia."  The other human however, behind Tar'van, shook his head.

"Ask me later."

Tar'van continued, "The humans in that group have access to extraordinary firepower.  The most heavily shielded striker in one strike group was destroyed by a single shot, and subsequent fighting brought down three more strikers in less than two minutes.  The group had no aircraft that were reported, and according to reports they suffered no losses.  A second, much larger mission was sent to eradicate the group and was again met by the large weapon, but one striker in that group of ten was able to escape with significant damage and reported that at least two human fighters had been killed."

"What about using the disruptor?"

"The engagement mostly took place outside the disruptor's range.  By the time the strikers had moved into disruptor range, most of the contingent had been destroyed or disabled, and even the surviving striker's disruptor was destroyed before it could engage the opponents.  The pilot had to resort to extreme low altitude flight to evade further engagement, as his weapons were disabled and drive system had been affected."

"Lucky bastard."

"Yes."

"Hmm.  How many strike craft are aboard each cruiser, Tar'van?"

"I am converting to your units.  Two hundred and eight."

"What was life like on the Ordan homeworld?"

Tar'van fell silent for a moment.  "The air is drier.  There is less surface water.  The days are a little shorter, and the gravity is approximately twenty-five percent lighter.  Many of us find spending much time on this planet very fatiguing.  The temperature is warmer, though significant portions of your planet are too cold for Ordans."

"How did you come to be selected for this mission?  What was the selection process?"

"My number was called."

"What, a random drawing?  Like pulling names out of a hat?"

"Ordans do not use hats."

"Try to focus, Tar'van."

"Not a random drawing, a  non-random locale.  Regions of certain landmasses were deemed to need population reduction, so Ordans living in those areas were selected to populate the expedition.  I was living in one of the first to be called."

"How do you feel about that?"

"I should have moved the season before the announcement.  Earth is proving to be bad for my health."

"I daresay you're getting funnier, Tar'van."

"Maybe if I'm entertaining no one will try to cut off any more parts."  He waggled his head.  "I don't have any to spare."

"It's always been my impression that humor is a pretty complex concept.  I'm frankly kind of surprised that you're able to express any.  I didn't see, shoot, I still don't see much emotional range in your kind.  I'm not sure exactly how you're doing it."

"Monkey see, monkey do?  No, wait, do as the monkey do.  Does."

The human had to stop and laugh for a long time.  The entire room picked up on it.  When he had mastered himself again, the interviewer wiped his eyes.  "Okay, that was really quite good."

Tar'van said nothing.

"All right.  Getting back to the point, how do you feel about being shipped away from your home to Earth?"

"I do not like it here.  I want to go home."

"What's compelling you to keep working toward the stated Ordan goal of human extermination?"

"Orders.  The orders shall be obeyed.  When the mission is complete, I may be able to gain passage back home.  If the Tar is sent home, I will go with it.  I will probably not be permitted to transfer to another ship, but the possibility exists.  I have hope."

"Tar?"

"Yes.  My ship is the cruiser Tar."

"Does that somehow tie in with your name?"

"The phrase 'tie in' is not clear to me.  My name is a designation.  I am a Tar.  Other Ordans serving aboard the cruiser Tar, are Tars.  I am Tar'van, a designation that does not translate easily into any human words I know.  I am a gatherer of information that is about behavior, societies and cultures..."

"Anthropologist."

"I do not know this word."

"Now you do.  It means what you just said."

"Very well.  An anthropologist aboard the cruiser Tar seeking insights that will improve the human extermination project."

"What can you tell us about the cruiser?"

"The cruiser is kept in a semi somnolent state, like an Ordan regeneration cycle.  The cruiser is not permitted full wakefulness.  They are not intelligent but are very strong willed and not biddable unless kept subdued by means of the disruptor system."

"The cruiser is a life form?"

"Yes."

The human leaned back and exchanged a wide eyed look with the man at the machine bench.  "Holy moley."

"Yes."

"How does the cruiser's propulsion system work?"

"The cruiser's own propulsion is a light sail and magnetic sail combination.  We have added light pressure drives to augment the creature's acceleration.   If we had not done that they may not have reached this planet before life support and stasis support systems began to fail."

"More's the pity.  What do the animals live on?  What do they eat?"

"That is not known to us.  They were provided but no instructions on their upkeep were conveyed with them."

"Provided?"

"Yes.  The cruisers were gathered from their native environment and parked in orbit around Ord, ready for use."

"Who provided them?"

“The progenitors.  They are the ones who give the orders.”

The human sat back.  “I think we need to take a break.”  He looked back to the other man at the table.  “What do we need to do?  Are you hungry, Tar’van?”

“I could eat.  I like bread, though the last time I had any it did not end well.”

“We’ll find you some food you can eat, and you will be assisted.”  Two other people came to wheel Tar’van away.

“Well.  That was enlightening,” the computer operator said.

“Some.  It seems to me these people are only barely people.  They do what they’re told, exactly what they’re told, and don’t question the orders.  In the face of the difficult resistance we’re hitting them with, they keep at it because there’s no room in the orders to consider a different objective.”

“One would think that upon finding the planet already inhabited, the colonial force would divert to a secondary objective.”

“Yeah.  I mean, Mars is right there.  We have next to no presence on Mars, and these guys already have significant technology for landing there, beginning terraforming, all that stuff.  Their follow-on forces are three hundred years away, shoot, in three hundred years even we could maybe have Mars terraformed.  These guys already have the horsepower to seed it with every big chunk of ice they could pry out of Europa, and there you’d have an atmosphere and water ready to go in just a few decades.  Lighter gravity, too. Why not just do that?”

“No room in the orders, like you said.  And no volition in the operatives, so they just go where they’re sent.”

“In fact, now I think of it, if they were going to terraform Mars now would be the time.”

“Think?”

“Yeah.  They’ve already eliminated the majority of our military forces and I think it’s a strong bet that their first waves killed off virtually every person who could facilitate a rocket launch.  Maybe Blue Origin could scrape enough people together, they were off in some forsaken hinterland of Texas, but everybody else?  They were here, or Huntsville, or DC, or Baikonur.  Wenchang, in China.  Populations are too big in those places, they would have sent strikers to mow ‘em down.  The operational intelligence, the experience required to get a rocket launched just doesn’t exist anymore.  We’d have to do some hard studying to figure it out.  We’d probably blow ourselves up if we tried.  I know all the stuff is written down in all the manuals and whatnot, but we have no idea what order to even read them in.  We just don’t know anymore.  And even then we don't have multipurpose craft like their strikers.  Just rockets that go up to orbit.  No maneuvering or anything that can adapt on the fly like their little ships.

“So now, when we don’t have much hope of sending retaliatory strikes against them, now would be the time to step away from Earth and go colonize Mars.  They’ve still got most of their ships and if I understand this downloading thing right, they haven’t lost any operational intelligence.  All the minds they started with, they still have.  For what those minds are worth.  I’m not too impressed, frankly.”

“I’m kinda impressed, they’ve killed us off pretty well.”

“Well, shit, if you give a monkey a gun you stand a chance of getting killed, technology can be dangerous regardless of how advanced the mind is that’s using it.”  He stood up.  “Go colonize Mars, get things underway there, and that’s a nice big planetary base from which they can launch endless assaults until this planet’s just dead.  And they haven’t done that.  I mean, shoot, they haven’t even established bases on the moon!  What the hell, man.”

“Are they picking up rocks from the moon to do their, what’d he call it, meteoric bombardment?”

“Hell if I know.  After they fall from the sky one meteor looks like any other to me.  If their orders tell them to utilize asteroids to provide rocks, then probably they skirt right around the moon to go and follow their precious orders.  That’s my guess.”

“Any way to check up on that?”

“Dunno.  Tar’van’s kinda open with the info, I reckon we could ask him.”