Chapter 12
After Tamerin ran off with his specs, Throttle decided they may as well wait to see what the test results were before they took off. Not that he couldn't just head home and grab a new pair of normal sunglasses now...but a shape-shifter had come to Mars, for reasons he didn't really understand beyond Tamerin saying that it wanted 'information' and was willing to casually get him executed for treason to get it.
He felt it was something worth asking a few more questions about, in case more showed up in the future. So while they waited, the three of them relaxed in the dining area, which was buzzing quietly about what just happened.
Tamerin came in a short time later and joined them at the table they were quietly snacking at. "So, you see how easily they can sneak in here, even after all the precautions we've taken," she commented, though her tone wasn't particularly unhappy. Throttle supposed it was because no one had been hurt, which he thought was odd considering what she had told them before.
"How long do you think that one was here?" he wondered.
"About half a week, according to Trent," Tamerin responded. "Back when they first attacked us, they didn't even bother changing form since we weren't expecting it, and later when they first started posing as one of our own, it was only long enough to slip in and start firing. Now, they wait patiently for a chance and take great pains in emulating whoever they're posing as, down to the last detail. On top of that, they can somehow simulate the mental imprint of whoever they've taken form of, too."
"Mental imprint?" Rimfire repeated, looking puzzled.
Tamerin flashed him a brief smile and waved the bartender over, ordering a fresh round of cold drinks for all of them before continuing. "All minds are different and wholly unique to the person," she explained. "And you'd think a race who can easily pick out strong thoughts and emotions just by touch wouldn't be easily fooled by impostors, especially when they know another mind as well as their own, but however they do it, the shape-shifters can imitate the basic mental patterns of someone so accurately we've yet to figure out a way to see around it."
"You can read minds just by touching someone?" Throttle asked in surprise.
"Not outright mind reading, no. But physical contact enables us to share strong emotions and get a basic idea where a person's mind is at without actually seeing their thoughts - and like any skill there are some of us who are better at this than others. It's very convenient for us, actually, since it lets us pass information quickly. No need to ask someone how they're doing," she said with a grin. "Just tap their hand as you go by and you'll know."
That explained all those light touches that went on around here. If used properly, it probably made a pretty sophisticated form of non-verbal communication, Throttle thought.
"Why do you think that one stuck around quietly for so long?" he wondered, after taking a sip of his drink. "You said they usually start blasting as soon as they work their way inside."
"Usually," Tamerin agreed. "But that one wasn't sent here just to kill, apparently. Trent says it was asking about the computer we use to communicate with the military base, something that only Trent, Jayce and myself know how to use, since the system is carefully encrypted."
"So it sounds like they're switching tactics," Modo commented.
"Exactly. That computer, as you can imagine, has a lot of vital information. I don't know if any of it can actually be used against us, but it's definitely worth noting that they're looking for other methods to help them wipe us out."
The thought made Throttle sit back with a frown. "And they've never given any sign of why they want to?"
Tamerin shook her head, her gaze lowering to the glass in her hand. "None. As I mentioned before, we're not really Imeerans. Mock-Imeeran was what the original group used to call themselves, but it was eventually decided to just call ourselves Imeeran. It's not like the real ones are using the name anymore."
"Why's that?" Modo wondered.
"You want the whole story?" Tamerin asked, setting her glass down and resting her folded arms on the table top. "It's like this; the real Imeerans were an advanced race that was slowly dying out. We're not sure how or why they were dying out, but they saw their inevitable doom coming, so they got started on creating a super-species to take their place in the universe, encoded with all of their personal drives and goals. What they got instead was us - a colossal failure."
"You don't look too failed to me," Rimfire noted, his eyes full of appreciation.
"Well, thank you. We're designed to be that way, you know. They gathered genetic information from thousands of species all across the galaxies, extracting what they thought was the best each one had to offer. We're actually kind of a grotesque blend of countless alien races and the finer characteristics of various animal species. Then they somehow programmed our reproductive systems to recreate the specific features they wanted us to have, so we only come out looking the way we do, even though we've never been able to fully trace just how many different races they spliced into us. We might even have a little Martian in us," she added with a grin.
"Just as long as there's no Plutarkian," Modo said, grimacing.
"I've no idea. But we do have gills."
Throttle almost choked on his drink. "What?"
"Uh, I thought you were, you know...warm blooded mammals," Rimfire commented, nose wrinkled.
"We are and we aren't. We share characteristics with mammals and reptiles and we can breathe almost any atmosphere - or underwater, if we have to. It's how they wanted us; strong, fast, intelligent, and capable of adapting and surviving almost anywhere. There was just one problem."
She smiled again, a little grimly, Throttle felt. "They also wanted us to be completely obedient to them while they were still alive, and to look upon them like gods once they were gone, forever preserving their memory. When they thought they had finally perfected our design, they created fifty of us; twenty-five males and twenty-five females. Only instead of listening to orders, that fifty did nothing but test their boundaries and look for ways to escape. They were supposed to talk, but they never said a word, instead developing non-verbal forms of communication no one else could follow. And they were supposed to breed and be prosperous, but instead they refused to mate, period, let alone actually procreate."
She paused to take a sip of her drink. "Finally," she continued, "it was decided that the project was un-salvageable and they had to start over, and the fifty beings they created were to be disposed of. But by then their little failures had worked out an escape plan, though only twenty actually made it. They stole a ship and fled the space station the Imeerans had made them on, setting out for the first safe planet they could find. Eventually they passed by Malteria and got caught in the gravitational pull. The ship crashed and wasn't powerful enough to leave the planet even if it could still fly, and the surface, as you know, is far too toxic to inhabit.
"Now, I'd like to say that we invented the transport technology that we use, but we didn't. The original Imeerans did, and there was a small unit kept on the ship. This and other equipment the twenty were able to salvage allowed them to move out of the ship and into the ocean, where they built the first pod."
"You've built up a lot since then," Throttle noted.
"Building an underwater city was a lot faster than building up the species, that was for sure," she agreed. "Out of that original twenty, only four of them were female. And even though the original plan was for us to operate in an alpha male kind of way, with any male mating with as many females as he wanted and then leaving all the offspring to female care, something ingrained in us keeps us from doing things any differently now than the twenty did back then: mate for love, and mate for life."
She took another sip. "Naturally, this left a lot of leftover, lonely males in those first years, but they were eventually able to pair off with the offspring the others created once they grew up. Which I know probably sounds a little strange, but with the way we age, we don't really worry about how much or how little someone has been alive once they become an adult. Differences in years aren't really important to us."
Throttle rested back in his seat as he took a moment to process all this. It was a strange beginning, but they had obviously long since adapted to their situation and developed their own way of life. "Speaking of years, how long have you been here?"
"Just shy of a thousand." Tamerin's expression turned solemn, and she absently pushed her empty glass away. "The last of the original twenty died in an attack four years ago," she noted sadly.
"Quite a lifespan," said Modo, sounding impressed.
"Indeed. Another one of our fine attributes. Our cells are always renewing themselves, so once we stop growing, we stop aging. We're immune to virtually any disease. We can heal almost any injury short of regrowing lost limbs, and even injuries that are generally fatal sometimes still aren't enough to get rid of us. When we're hit with something we can't heal normally, our bodies shut down into a coma-like state and regenerate themselves. Not that we can survive anything, mind you. A lot of us have died in the last thirty years, though no one has ever died of old age."
"Can you?" wondered Rimfire, who had his chin rested on his palms and looked a little awed by all this.
"Honestly, I'm not sure. But I tend to think not."
This comment made Throttle remember something. "So, when you joked about Deichan being two hundred years old..."
Tamerin smirked. "No joke. Trust me, beyond children you should never try to guess our ages by our looks."
His expression still impressed, Modo tossed back the last of his drink, swallowing noisily. "Speakin' of children, when this war is over, I imagine there'll be a lot of them popping up in a hurry," he mused.
"No doubt," Tamerin agreed. "But as I said, we don't know why the shape-shifters have it out for us, or how we can drive them off for good. We don't exactly have a lot of contact with other races down here, and beyond the short intergalactic trips we've taken over the years, we rarely step off planet. We've done it a lot more in recent years, but that's because we need to gather rations and supplies right now, and we have to monitor enemy movement. No, them crashing down on us was a completely unprovoked attack given without any warning. They have small, inconspicuous bases on other planets, but their actions are a lot sneakier in other places. Generally they take what they want - information or resources - and then leave without anyone being the wiser."
"Strange then how they picked you for mass genocide," Modo noted, his voice full of sympathy.
"We think so too. If whatever they wanted was just to set up an outpost on the surface or to mine resources or something, we would have told them 'knock yourselves out up there' and left it at that. Whatever reason they have for wanting us gone, it isn't because they want something from this planet."
"What about Mars?" Throttle asked. "Just what was that one that impersonated me out to get?"
"Like I mentioned before, they like to gather information, especially information about the strengths and weaknesses of different planets," Tamerin explained. "We don't know if they have any allies, so we can only assume that they want to be prepared for anyone who might be their enemy someday."
"So, they don't indiscriminately attack everyone, then."
Tamerin shook her head. "Just us, apparently. And don't think we haven't tried the diplomatic approach. In the beginning, we tried endlessly to speak to and reason with them, but we were ignored. And the only time we ever hear them say anything we can understand is when they take on another form, so we suspect that their native language is too primitive - or maybe even too advanced - for us to understand. But if we could reach some kind of agreement, we would. We're all tired of living like this; we want life to go back to the way it was."
"We thought the same thing, once," Modo murmured quietly.
"And we'll do anything we can to help," Rimfire added.
Tamerin flashed a tired smile. "Thanks."
"How old were you?" Throttle asked quietly. "When all this started, I mean."
He had originally pegged her as being in her mid-twenties or so, but now that he knew about the lack of aging they did around here...
"I was thirty," she said. "Jayce was ten, and since then the only other, well, other worlders he's ever really met were the babies that crashed here, and another baby brought here nineteen years ago. He doesn't like venturing off planet either, so his dealings with other species are as low as his opinion of them."
"Can't really blame him, bein' so young when this started," Modo commented. "We'll be sure not to do anything to rile him."
"Don't hold your breath. You're not our first visitors, and when the last ones left, he rejoiced. He has some pretty big trust issues."
"Like Modo said, we don't blame him," Throttle said.
Tamerin grew quiet for a moment. Her eyes had turned distant. "A lot of it has to do with our father's death. We've always had military here, and our father was an engineer who specialized in traveling to the surface and studying the terrain and the local wildlife. He was one of the first fatalities during the initial attack. Jayce saw it happen."
Rimfire cringed in sympathy. "What about your mother?" Throttle asked gently.
"She's alive...so to speak. After that day she put her heart away where no one would ever find it again. She's the exact opposite of warm and friendly these days, and she treats everyone around her with cold indifference. Jayce and I are no exception. It's the only way she can keep going."
Throttle was glad, then, that she and Jayce seemed so close, even if he wasn't fond of anyone else. Not anyone from another planet, anyway.
One of the male guards suddenly hurried into the room and beckoned to Tamerin. "Can you come to the infirmary?" he asked, a note of restrained excitement in his voice. "The Doc says she's discovered something that might help turn this war around."