Seeing the Elephant, Chapter Nine
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: This belongs to Henson and Co or to David Drake. Rating: K Time: The future.
Author's note: This is a crossover between the universes of Farscape and Hammer's Slammers. Seeing the Elephant was an American Civil War term for seeing combat.
Previously on Farscape...
John and Aeryn have saved a group of surrendering Peacekeeper techs and now can enjoy the fruits of their labors. Of course, they will. Won't they?
And now on Farscape...
After a few days we were transferred from the tactical headquarters of Hammer's Slammers to the main headquarters of the Hurate's World Protective Force, which was located in a K'hiff town of ten thousand or so, and that now hosted a few thousand humans as well. The humans were staff types that bought food from the locals, rented land for military facilities, and took care of the thousand and one logistical tasks involved in keeping thousands of combat soldiers supplied. The humans seemed to have lost their interest in us, so John and I spent long mornings in bed getting to know each other better. At night we took in what passed for entertainment. There were a couple of restaurants, a type of facility I had little experience with and which John insisted we try. He also found a place that played something called dance music. I found I could easily adopt my combat moves to dancing and also found I enjoyed dancing. Of course I enjoyed being with John, no matter what.
Our friends had kept a lower profile, but we could hardly have kept Chiana away from anything that might be fun. D'Argo, somewhat unwillingly, went out when Chiana did. He found that the humans of this era, with a thousand years more history, had seen so many aliens that one more new one excited no comment. Jool found herself unable to contain her curiosity about the civilization that had sprung from John's planet. Luckily, many human males were happy to answer questions for a beautiful alien scientist. We also managed to find out a lot more about the human end of the galaxy.
One afternoon while out shopping, I heard someone call my name. It took a microt to realize the voice had spoken in Sebacean.
Her hair was worn loose now and she was wearing a human uniform of some sort. I nodded to her.
"Officer Sun? I'm Officer Aida Borzon, the pilot you captured?" She was at the position of attention, and she was also plainly uncomfortable.
"I'm not Officer Sun any more. I haven't been a Peacekeeper for a very long time."
She nodded and ran her tongue over her lips. "I'm not a Peacekeeper now either, I suppose. That's what I'd like to talk to you about," she stopped for just a microt and then added "Aeryn?"
"I suppose it's just starting to hit home that you're not a Peacekeeper anymore?" I waited a microt, too, and added, "Aida."
She just looked confused, as if she could hardly stand to consider that possibility. I wondered if I had been so impossibly dense about the obvious. A microt's thought decided me that I had.
"If I could talk to you for a few microts? It's just that the humans are so frelling impossible to understand!"
I laughed, but quickly stopped when I saw her face. "I'm not laughing at you, Aida. I'm just remembering how many frelling times I've said the same thing. And still do."
A lanky red-headed human male stuck his head out from behind a tent and called to Borzon. "Aida? Lunch is in half an hour. We need to eat then so we can take the "Busted Flush" over to maintenance. Otherwise the freaking ordnance weenies will never fix the damned right side mount."
Borzon smiled at the male. I noticed that he wore a uniform that seemed to be identical to hers. Then she tried her English out. "Okay, Ed-dee. Talk friend." She gestured to me and was obviously frustrated with her inability to communicate anything more than the simplest concepts.
"I'm Aeryn Crichton." I said to the human. "I'm a Sebacean married to a human, John Crichton. I'm afraid Aida is having trouble adjusting to things. Would you mind if I talk to her for a while? I should probably translate for the two of you later."
The human happily agreed and I suggested that I take Borzon to a local food stall so she wouldn't miss lunch. The food stall was a collection of mismatched tables and chairs covered by a canvas canopy and run by a K'hiff who had managed to learn to cook some things that John thought slightly resembled human delicacies. I ordered for the two of us and then stared at Borzon. She blushed and stared at the table.
"I imagine you're having trouble understanding one particular human?" I began. "The one we just talked to?"
She kept her eyes down, but nodded.
"If I'm going to be any help, Borzon, you're going to have to say something sooner or later."
She managed to get her head up and look at me. "I will never understand them."
I smiled. "Me, too. There's nothing else like humans in the Universe."
Once she started talking, though, Borzon seemingly couldn't stop. "They took us here after we were captured. We were put to work with humans and K'hiffs loading their trucks. We only handled bulk food, or other things we couldn't sabotage or use as a weapon. Our guards were mainly K'hiff. I expected we'd be beaten or something, but they never did. Most of the Peacekeeper prisoners were techs and used to taking orders, I guess."
We were momentarily interrupted by the arrival of the food. Borzon continued to talk around mouthfuls of food.
"When we were done for the day, they gave us some kind of food in a little plastic bag and a blanket and groundsheet. I sat down behind a truck away from the other prisoners and for the first time I had a chance to think about what had happened to me. There I was, a prisoner of the humans, with no future as a Peacekeeper and only the life of a slave ahead of me. If I had any life ahead of me, that is." She stopped and resumed staring down, so that I couldn't see her eyes. I waited for her to decide to talk. Finally, she did. "I was crying."
I reached over and took her hand. She stiffened for a microt. "I've cried a few times since I stopped being a Peacekeeper. It's not the worst thing."
She went on. "Ed-dee found me. He made some stupid joke about crying when he was given military food, too."
I nodded. Yes, he was a human all right.
"Ed-dee took my arm and led me away. I assumed he was going to punish me. He didn't. He took me to where his unit was eating. The.." She stopped and carefully formed the human word. "mess. He got me a plate of food and something to drink. The humans seemed to know that I was an alien, but didn't seem to mind my presence."
An alien brought before a group of Peacekeepers who were eating would have been, to quote John, as popular as a fart in church.
Suddenly she burst out. "They are so bizarre. And so weak."
"They're not weak, they're strong." I got the same odd look I always got when I was trying to explain humans to the rest of the uncomprehending Universe. I should be used to it by now. I plowed on. "In this Universe, or Reality, or whatever it is we're in, the humans are the Lords of Creation. No one, repeat, no one, has faster than light drive except a very few races who have bought the technology from the humans. That means that all the inhabitable planets with no native inhabitants, and that's a lot around here we've found, become human colonies. There are hundreds of billions of humans scattered across tens of thousands of worlds. In our Universe we have the Scarrens and the Nebari and the Luxans and the Hynerians and all the rest to contend with. Humans have only other humans to worry about. All the non-human races in this end of the galaxy couldn't cause the humans a problem."
That had seemed to have gotten through to her. "The humans are so used to being the only thing to worry about that they don't see you as a threat, just as an odd form of human."
That did get her attention. "I am not some form of human! The very idea is absurd!"
I had to smile. I just barely managed to stifle a laugh. "There's some Interion scientists who'll say you're wrong. One of them is here, if you'd like to talk to her. I'm not sure you'd understand her, but you can try."
She had stopped eating and was staring at me. I went on. "It's not like the Peacekeepers gave them much of a fight, as you saw."
She bridled. "The fight wasn't fair. Our command carrier and cruiser were damaged by that frelling planet we hit, or that hit us. If it hadn't been for that,,,"
"You would still have been beaten eventually." I finished for her. "You've seen how much better the human's weapons are for fighting on planets. I don't know as much about their warships, but I suspect that they'll give us a horrible shock if we ever run into any. And who ever worried about a fight being fair?"
I went on. "And the humans have been fighting each other for thousands of years. They have no centralized empire like the Scarrens or Hynerians. Every frelling world is its own master and they all fight each other constantly. That's what kept you alive, I think."
"How?"
I stopped for a microt to gather my thoughts. I hadn't expected to have to talk about this to anyone except John. "As a human I once met said, "Humans have no permanent enemies and no permanent friends, just permanent interests. I'm not saying it's impossible to surrender to a human army and get massacred for your troubles. But the humans find that the smart thing to do is to treat prisoners well and send them back home when the war is over, so that when the next war starts, you can be allies with your former enemies with fewer problems."
While she was sitting there digesting that, I asked the question." So, what happened with Ed-dee?"
As I was betting myself she would, she turned bright red. But she talked. "When I was done eating, he took me back to where the prisoners were sleeping. I assumed he'd frell me. What else would a male do with a compatible female captive?"
This time she had to stifle the laugh. "You know I was wrong, I imagine?"
"Some human males would have frelled you and thought no more of it. But humans are not Peacekeepers."
"Ed-dee walked me back to my blankets and said good night. I wondered if I was especially ugly by human standards. The next day, I went back to work loading supplies. We were right next to his unit and he was there, pulling maintenance on his combat car. It's called the "Busted Flush?"
Frell! The things humans could do to language. I tried to give her a sensible reply. "It's a bad hand in a human card game, a form or entertainment or gambling. Why a human would give a name to his vehicle, or why he'd use that name is beyond me. I've only been trying to understand humans for a bit over six cycles." I was sure I'd be at that for the rest of my life, but I didn't tell that. I didn't want to discourage her.
Aida went on. "I know a little about fusion engines, so I went over to help. None of the guards minded and Ed-dee's crew didn't say anything. I spent most of the day helping them and then we went to the mess to eat again. And Ed-dee walked me back to where I was sleeping again."
She stopped. I was pretty sure how this story ended, but I asked anyway. "And?"
She shrugged. "I grabbed him, pulled him down and we frelled our brains out."
With a Peacekeeper, that would have been the end of the story. I just looked at her and smiled.
She sighed and continued. "What happened next really shocked me.'
"He talked to you." I just couldn't resist.
"How did you know?"
"I'm married to a human, remember?"
"He told me about himself. He was born on a human farming commune and was conscripted as an infantryman when he was sixteen cycles old, if you can believe that."
A Peacekeeper conscript would have been half that age or younger, but I thought that sixteen would be considered young for a human.
"He fought in a civil war on his home planet and his side lost. His family was dead or scattered and his home destroyed. The only life he knew was a soldier. A few of his comrades became bandits, but he was recruited by a mercenary company that had fought for the winning side. He's been a mercenary soldier ever since."
"Does that bother you?" Mercenaries were used by the Peacekeepers, but never trusted and never used unless absolutely necessary. And then they were gotten rid of a quickly as possible. Often in the same way my mother had once gotten rid of an unnecessary Colarta.
She shook her head. "No, I have no home and the only life I know is a soldier. I can't see myself working as a tech for the K'hiff, even assuming they'd hire me. I have no good options, and he's asked me to go with him when he leaves the planet. He has a few followers and is trying to recruit more. He hopes to have a small unit of his own."
I saw this coming from a metra away, too. She hadn't. "But there's something else that concerns you."
This time she turned red, stared at the floor and didn't say a word. I finally had to continue the conversation. "You're afraid that the human will form an emotional attachment to you and that you'll become attached to him. That's known as love, by the way. And then you'll be just like that horrible, traitorous trelk, Aeryn Sun, with a human husband and children. Right?"
Her head shot up and she stared at me. "No! No, not that. I mean I do worry about being…"She looked around, as if she thought she'd find an inoffensive word for it somewhere.
"You worry about being in love." I finished for her. "Well, don't worry about it. I can assure you it's not that bad. I've survived being in love with John Crichton and I wouldn't have my life any other way, if you must know. To tell you the truth, I don't think a lack of emotional attachments does much for the Peacekeepers and I know you'll never be happy among humans if you try to keep your emotions all walled off. You'd be better off telling Ed-dee good-bye and living the rest of your life here with the K'hiff. You simply can't live successfully among humans and not let your emotions loose."
We sat there and stared at each other for a long time. Finally she spoke. "I don't think I've ever been so frelling terrified in my life. How did you stand it?"
I laughed again. "Easy. There was no other option. Oh, I could have died, but I was too stubborn to let someone kill me just to put me out of my misery. And after a while I got to see that being with John was better, more interesting, more exciting than anything I'd known in the Peacekeepers." I thought for a microt. "You may end up loving Ed-dee and find he doesn't love you. Or neither one of you will love the other. Or….all sorts of things may happen. Love is like combat, except that you die much more slowly when things get frelled."
We stared at each other again for another long time. Finally she just shrugged. "I'll go with Ed-dee."
We left the food stall and walked over to where Ed-dee's combat car was being repaired. I made a show of telling Ed-dee, or Eddie, as I found he was, all about the physical differences between humans and Sebaceans. About the living death and paraphoral nerves and stasis pregnancies. When Aida went off on an errand, I managed to tell Eddie a great deal about her lack of any emotional experience. I told him that, based on my experience, she'd probably be a giant pain in the eema at times because of her inbred fear of an emotional attachment. I also told him how happy I was with John and that I thought Aida could be brought out of her Peacekeeper shell.
When she came back, she stood right by Eddie and looked me straight in the eye, looking every bit like a pilot about to go on a suicide mission. Oh well, with any luck her journey would be easier than mine. No lunatics were likely to implant a mental clone in Eddie's brain, or hijack his DNA to keep an empire going, or any of the things that had kept John and me apart for so long.
For good measure, I had Jool write a report on all she knew about Sebacean physiology and diseases. I had John deliver it to Eddie with instructions to explain to Eddie just what he was getting into, the good and the bad, from the human male perspective. I thought that I would never see them again.
The wars didn't last long. The Peacekeepers were soon reduced to a few bands of stragglers that the K'hiff militia could handle. The two ships had originally had been home to more than seventy-five thousand crew.
How many of those had survived whatever it was that had shot us all into this Universe, I had no idea. But they had been remorselessly ground down to less than a thousand prisoners, plus a handful still on the loose. It gave all of us, even John, something to think about when it came to humans.
