Joshi III
Joshi orders another Tau Ceti Slammer as the interview continues; she seems only a little tipsy after the first one. She appears apprehensive of what is to be covered next.
Q: What was your time on the Flishithy before Operation Yi like?
A: Well, I first spent two days recovering from my concussion. Weightlessness is beneficial to many medical processes, I suppose; that's why I was in the center of the ship, where the centrifuge spinning didn't really affect me. Chris - the doctor - tended to me as best as he could. I would try to talk with him during that time, but my English wasn't very good, and neither was his Hindi.
Once I was deemed well, the fithp escorted him and I to the garden of their ship. It was a massive cylindrical chamber in the heart of the Flishithy. I still remember the strange feeling of being able to look up, and see fithp walking on roof of that little world.
That was also where they stored their thuktun. That massive stone block the size of a building, covered in diagrams and designs and alien writing.
A few other people were inside the garden. There were six men and women from China; one seemed to be a soldier, while the others were civilians. One of them was a toddler, who just clung on to his mother and bawled.
I was relieved to see some other people from Mumbai'i, even if I couldn't recognize any of them. I asked them what was going on, but they were in the dark like me. All they knew was that they'd been pulled into space like me, and that the fithp were keen on keeping us alive.
They showed me the ropes, so to say. The bathroom was a pond meant specifically for that purpose, and our food was in the form of whatever canned goods the fithp had scavenged from the ground during their conquests. The people had already strung up a barrier made of towels and coats to hide our nudity while we bathed or used the shit-pond.
Q: When did the fithp tell you your purpose aboard?
A: It was likely a few hours after I got introduced to the group. A pair of fithp came over, and introduced themselves as Takpusseh and Tashayamp, our Breakers. They informed us that we were to serve as the first integration project. That meant they'd have us do simple tasks with fithp around the ship, and see how could get along with them. Tending to the garden, helping them study broadcasts, cleaning, those sort of things.
I was assigned to be led by Tashayamp, as she knew Hindi. She led me and the other people from Mumbai'i to a part of the garden, where she began planting some strange type of shrub with black leaves, and had us do the same. She taught us how to dig the holes, and we had to work together to put the shrubs in.
All the time, she was talking to us about how it was important to 'soil one's own garden'. She sounded very critical of the pollution around the world. As someone who liked to consider herself a green individual, I was pleased to find common ground there. I asked her a few questions about what their world was like, but she was spare with answers. Apparently, that was for when we proved we weren't going to try and murder any fi' we got alone.
After a few hours of that, we were returned to our spot in the garden, and instructed to try and get some rest. I decided to sleep near the Chinese mother and her child; I trusted we would wake the other up in case some of the shadier-looking men tried something.
I didn't get much sleep. Not so much because I wasn't tired, or because of how uneasy I was. It was because Tashayamp and Takpusseh ended up waking us up early, acting very solemn.
Q: Was that when you received news of Operartion Yi?
Joshi takes a long gulp of her Slammer. She sucks in a shuddering breath, and I can see the pain in her eyes.
A: They showed us orbital footage of the operation. I saw... I saw my home city go up in nuclear hellfire. A few flashes of light, and suddenly it was just gone.
I had to take it in bits and pieces, as to do so all at once would have destroyed me. I had to think on the individual things that were lost.
My parents? Dead, shadows on the sidewalk. The quiet library with its musty books, where I used to spend my summers reading? Gone, the books turned to ash. The relics, the temples, the museums and the scientific institutes... vaporized.
And it wasn't just that. My entire nation lost something that day. Almost everybody in India knew someone among those twenty million deaths. Friends, family, acquaintances, even friends of friends, or role models, or people they admired. Millions of little strings connecting that city to the rest of India, severed in a moment.
Mumbai was a jewel in our nation. It was the capital of India's economy and entertainment. It was steeped in millennia of culture and history. With its loss, we lost a part of our cultural and religious history. We lost a third of Zoroastrianism, and a capital of ancient kingdoms. We lost the largest film industry.
Perhaps the only Western equivalent I can think of would be if Rome or London had been destroyed in its entirety. Imagine losing all the history and culture steeped into those cities. Imagine if America had lost New York, or if Japan had lost Tokyo? Could those nations even survive such losses?
The feeling was much the same for the Chinese who saw Chongqing go up in flame. Their only consolation was that Shanghai had been spared the same fate, as the fithp had managed to swat down the missiles.
Q: What happened in the group?
A: I remember screaming. I remember howling, and pulling at my hair and beating my fists against the ground. I remember one of the Chinese men trying to run at the Breakers, screaming curses at the top of his lungs. He was calmly swatted to the ground for his trouble.
The two fithp waited for an hour for us to stop our wailing and mourning. Then, growing impatient, they simply left us to grieve.
She finishes her Slammer.
On that day, the world ended. At least, the world I knew. For others, the end was still yet to come.
-/-\-
Wallafess V
As we continue our meal, Wallafess gestures to a faint mark in the scales on his shoulder.
A: I got this from some shrapnel, after a fithp hover-tank chewed up the room I'd taken cover in. I'd made it through the siege of the city intact, but within a day of those snouts landing, I was out. So was everyone else, really. They'd taken out our starships, they'd flattened most of our landcruisers, and there was no way to launch even a helicopter before their lasers blasted it out of the sky. The chain of command was gone; it was basically every male or squad for themselves.
Ristin got pulped by the tank's guns. One shot, right to the heart. Splat. I got coated in little giblets of Ristin, and watched his lower half hit the ground. Just like that, a good friend who loved to take photos, who knew so many quotes from an old movie we used to watch together, was gone.
Q: I'm sorry for your loss. What happened after that?
They captured me after that. I was too busy staring at the congealing spatter that was my friend to resist as some big fi' swatted me onto my back with his trunk, and pressed his foot into my chest. After that, I was shoved into the tank, and brought me a temporary holding cell while they prepared to bring me up to their ship.
I had no idea what was going on. They didn't know much Race-tongue, unlike many humans, and I didn't know their strange language. For all I knew, I was about to be dissected, or eaten, or used as cannon fodder. There were a few others in the cell with me. Some males I didn't know, and none other than Straha himself.
Q: You were imprisoned alongside Straha?
A: Yep. His paint was smudged in a few places, but it was recognizable. He wasn't talking much, just sitting and listening to what was going on. Even then, he seemed like he was trying to figure out how he could use the situation to benefit him.
If I'd known just what he was up to, I probably would've throttled him right then and there.
Q: How long were you in the cell?
A: We were still there on the day of Operation Yi. I still remember the sound of the fithp's alarms blaring throughout the base they'd set up, and wondering what the hell was going on. There were fithp running back and forth, yelling at each other in that hideous tongue of theirs.
Before I knew it, we were forced out of the cell at gunpoint, and marched into one of their digit-ships. Weird-looking things, I thought, with that big concave section where the laser would hit. Not that I knew, anyway.
We were basically shoved into a cargo hold, and didn't have time to really secure ourselves before they lifted off. I nearly dislocated a stalk as they hauled stump into orbit.
Q: You can do that?
A: Do what?
Q: Dislocate a stalk?
A: Oh, yeah. Hurts like a fucker.
Q: Moving on. After you were brought to the Flishithy, what happened next?
A: I remember being escorted through the ship. I was just shocked by the size of the thing, and how alien the halls were. I was terrified throughout the whole experience, wondering just what was lurking in those big and smelly halls.
I was actually kinda relieved when I was brought into their big garden section. I couldn't recognize any of the plants growing along the walls of the centrifuge, but they didn't look threatening. A few were actually quite pretty.
The fithp guards just guided us over to a section of the garden, where a few humans were. A bunch of Zhōngguórèn, some beefy Russiyan, an American, and a handful of people from Indiya. I remember seeing an Indiyan girl curled up by some bushes, bawling her eyes out. It made me think of the girl I'd shot in Shànghâi.
I tried asking the people from Zhōngguó what was wrong, but they didn't say anything, either. Many of them looked just as upset; one of them tried to actually swing at me before the others pulled her back.
That was when a pair of fithp came in, and began to speak. One knew Race-tongue, and so I was able to understand. Their names were Takpusseh and Tashayamp, and they were our breakers. Apparently, their job was to see how humans and Race could integrate into society.
Straha asked them the urgency of being brought into orbit. It was the first time he'd spoken since we got taken off-planet.
They had a screen with them, and they showed us orbital footage of the initiations in Mumbai'i and Chóngqìng.
Q: What was your reaction?
Wallafess takes a long pull of mîjiû. He lets out a shuddering breath as he closes his eyes, as if accessing a part of himself that he prefers to keep buried.
A: I had never seen an explosive metal bomb go off. Not in person, not even in video. None had actually been used in the conquest of Halless or Rabotev, and only four had ever been used in the history of the Race. Two of those were in this war, and I'd only seen a few holograms of the mushroom clouds.
I'd read about them, heard about them; I knew they were our most powerful weapon, but so damaging that they were to be used only when every other option had failed. They told me about the dangers of radiation, back in training, and about the ecological affects of even a few initiations.
Then I saw you hit your own cities with what looked like dozens of bombs. I saw the flashes in the cities, lighting up the nightside of the planet, and saw the few remaining city lights in a good chunk of Indiya go dark. It was hard, realizing that each flash was probably killing tens of thousands of Tosevites, and thousands of my own people. I could see the smoke of the bombs wafting across in realtime.
The Indiyan girl began sobbing again, practically screaming. No one bothered trying to shut her up; they were all seeking comfort in each others' arms or just staring with wet eyes at the screen.
Tashayamp said that it was important that we learn to integrate, lest even worse things happen. Straha asked what they meant by that, only to be told that it was confidential for the time being. All that we needed to know was that the Flishithy was pulling back to lunar orbit to repair some damage from the first day in orbit, and to restock its supplies of metal for its rods. During that time, we'd be under a full gee of thrust, and so had to remain in the strange spiral shape of the garden walls; they served as a sort of staircase when the ship was moving.
Q: What happened next?
A: Then they just left. We were left alone in that garden, to let what happen sink in. A few males began praying to the Emperor. Straha simply sat on a rock and studied his claws, lost in thought.
As for me, I sat down across from the Indiyans, and watched the pain in their eyes.
The girl looked at me, and in that moment, I realized that the war would never really be over for her, or for the others. Not while they lived, and especially not while I lived.
-/-\-
Front Page of Reddit: December 21st, 2020
(500k) You were the capital of empires, and the home to millions. You were a jewel of culture and history and art. Alavida, Mumbai. [ .it]
Posted to /r/pics three hours ago - 599145 comments
(452k)The fithp mothership has retreated to lunar orbit, US and EU sources say. [cnn]
Posted to /r/invasionnews four hours ago - 20149 comments
(400k) Shanghai has been retaken after fithp retreat from city, Chinese officials claim. [bbc]
Posted to /r/invasionnews five hours ago - 29143 comments
(935k) [MEGATHREAD] Nuclear explosions in Mumbai and Chongqing confirmed. [self]
Posted to /r/worldnews twelve hours ago - 5298546 comments
(193k) Presidential Address regarding what happened in India and China announced for 8:00 PM tonight. [whitehouse]
Posted to /r/news nine hours ago - 29441 comments
(110k) Get this to the top. We need to help people find out if their families in Mumbai or Chongqing are alright. Try to see if you can help in any way. URGENT. [self]
Posted to /r/invasion six hours ago - 149184 comments
(42k) "There is a curse. They say 'may you live in interesting times'." - Terry Pratchett [self]
Posted to /r/news three hours ago - 19313 comments
(300k) Photograph taken of mushroom clouds in China. Remember this, when the lizards and elephants beg for mercy. [ .it]
Posted to /r/EWBBWD five hours ago - 193941 comments
(111k) One upvote = ten aliens we're gonna kill for this. [self]
Posted to /r/EWBBWD six hours ago - 19488 comments
(167k) Africa and the Middle East have practically gone dark. Does anyone know what the fuck's going on there? [self]
Posted to /r/invasion eight hours ago - 49149 comments
(291k) Guys, I've been using my telescope to watch all the crap going on in orbit, and I've found this weird thing. It wasn't there before, but it doesn't look like a ship, either. Any ideas? [imgur]
Posted to /r/spaceguard nine hours ago - 24244 comments
(131k) A few independent analysts claim that this war's death toll has already surpassed WWI's. Let's hope it doesn't surpass WWII. [bbc]
Posted to /r/invasion six hours ago - 19391 comments
(291k) There hasn't been such a lack of communication or travel between nations since the 1900's. Does anyone know what's going on in affected countries? [self]
Posted to /r/askreddit nine hours ago - 19319 comments
(133k) Stricter flight bans by US and EU are still in effect, officials say. [cnn]
Posted to /r/worldnews eight hours ago - 48149 comments
(293k) Don't let what's happening make your forget the flooding in the Yangtze. It's only gonna get worse now that the upstream's been nuked. [self]
Posted to /r/invasion nine hours ago - 39419 comments
(330k) Chengdu has been liberated, Chinese officials say. [bbc]
Posted to /r/invasionnews ten hours ago - 68219 comments
(411k) Sunrise in Shanghai. [imgur]
Posted to /r/pics six hours ago - 39193 comments
(221k) Internet has been restored to a third of China, and a quarter of India, estimates claim. [cnn]
Posted to /r/worldnews four hours ago - 58382 comments
(330k) Let is remember the sacrifice of this city, and its people. Zaijian, Chongqing. [imgur]
Posted to /r/invasion five hours ago - 44919 comments
(111k) EARTH [ .it]
Posted to /r/EWBBWD three hours ago - 19114 comments
(110k) WILL [ .it]
Posted to /r/EWBBWD three hours ago - 4429 comments
(108k) BREAK [ .it]
Posted to /r/EWBBWD three hours ago - 28888 comments
(105K) BEFORE [ .it]
Posted to /r/EWBBWD three hours ago - 7111 comments
(100k) WE [ .it]
Posted to /r/EWBBWD three hours ago - 1991 comments
(99k) DO [ .it]
Posted to /r/EWBBWD three hours ago - 4411 comments
-/-\-
Hù I
Hù Qíngyù is rather short for a Chinese national, standing a good five inches below the norm. She keeps her hair in a short bob devoid of gray, and the wrinkles around her eyes only highlight their liveliness. We meet at a tea shop in Chēngdù and begin the interview while shopping. Outside the shop, one can see the statue in the city square, of Chinese and Russian soldiers heroically standing as one.
Q: You were part of the disaster response to the the rupture of the Three Gorges Dam, yes?
A: Yes. I was a Corporal in the newly formed Disaster Response Corps, which had only been established the year before the invasion. The government decided that a larger, and more effective, emergency response system was required for the coming war.
Q: What fell under the Corps' jurisdiction?
A: While the military was to fight the invasion directly, our job was to respond to the aftermath of battles, or any other kind of disaster caused by invasions. If the PLA liberated a city, it was our job to make sure it was up and running again. We would make sure refugees were fed, we restored power grids, we helped evacuations, and we cleaned up the streets.
If the world fell apart by the seams, it was our duty to piece it together again.
Q: Which is why you were sent in after the dam broke.
A: We weren't able to really respond to the flooding en masse until both the Race and the fithp had been repelled from our nation. By then, the damage had already been done. Entire towns and villages swept clean, drowning millions. About four hundred kilometers upstream from Shànghâi, all the debris and bodies had choked up the river, making an impromptu dam. We had to make sure that didn't collapse all at once while we did our job.
It was not easy going. The destruction of the dam had essentially created a narrow path of ruin nearly three thousand kilometers long. Along those three thousand kilometers, we had to search for survivors, clear rubble, and dispose of bodies. Millions of bodies.
We wore hazmat suits for much of the work. Though it was winter, all the decaying dead posed a serious risk. We needed to fish them out of the river before they could taint the water any further. It would not be good to deal with an epidemic in addition to everything else.
She selects a box of lapsang, and purchases it. We walk out, then sit down at bench in the square.
Q: I take it you were involved in the clean up of bodies?
A: Yes. It was unpleasant work. I was in Shànghâi, and I was still finding bodies in the river. Men, women, children... all as pale as death, with wide open eyes and slack jaws. We had to identify the bodies, then put them in body bags. We ended up filing an entire football stadium with them.
Q: But Shànghâi is thousands of kilometers downstream. How did those bodies reach all the way down there?
It made sense, unfortunately; between the damage caused by the bombardments, the flooding of the dam, and restoring both Chēngdù and Shànghâi, we were stretched thin. We didn't even touchChóngqìng until almost a week after the bombs fell.
She sighs.
Chóngqìng. That... that was what stuck with me. I was unsettled by the bodies caused by the flooding, but I was prepared for it.
But then the bodies from Chóngqìng started coming in.
Q: What do you mean?
A: It's a part of nuclear warfare that most people didn't know before what happened in Chóngqìng. I didn't know, until I saw it first hand.
I want you to imagine that you just survived a nuclear explosion, but just barely. You're covered in radiation burns, all over your body. Your face, your chest, your groin. Every movement, every breath, is agony. The pain floods your mind, allowing the animal part of your brain to take over the decision making process. You're not thinking clearly; you just want to make the pain stop.
So, you shuffle towards the nearest body of water, to try soothe your pain. Maybe it does, when you wade in, and your body responds to that. All around you, thousands of people are doing the same thing, shoving against each other, packing so tightly that they can't even lift their arms. They go deeper, and deeper, until their feet are no longer on the banks. You try to stay afloat, but you are weak after the blast, and tired. Others begin to thrash against you as well, trying to stay above the water, but they can't even move their arms. Some begin to shove others under, without knowing it.
You can't keep it up, and you can't get out. Slowly, but surely, you give up, and sink under. And then...
She shudders.
Thousands of people died in Nagasaki and Hiroshima that way. It didn't change here. There were nearly a quarter million of them, staining the water with blood and other fluids as they drifted downstream. Some of them looked like men made from black licorice, with only their white teeth standing out. Others were more recognizable, with open sores and burns all over their body.
A few... a few were still alive when we found them. But they were living dead; their skin would slough off when you grabbed them and tried to drag them out. The most that could be done was to pull them onto dry land and talk to them before they expired.
We didn't bother trying to identify those bodies. We just buried them in mass graves.
Q: What else did you do there?
A: We also recovered any alien technology we found, in the river or the city. The same went for the bodies of the aliens, Race and fithp alike. Those were confiscated by the spooks in the Ministry of State Security. I don't know what they did with them.
I was there for two weeks, during the lull in the fighting after the fithp retreated to lunar orbit. I ended up in a state hospital in Xiānggâng for the rest of the war, due to exhaustion and mild radiation poisoning.
Well, I've been treated for those things since then. I even got therapy for the clean up work. But, sometimes, on bad days... I don't really get nightmares. I don't. But when I do, I'm one of those living dead in the river, and I'm watching myself pull me to shore and whisper sweet nothings in my ear before death takes me.
-/-\-
Saeed II
Saeed finishes his cigarillo, and lights another one.
Q: During the theater in China and India, what was combat on the Africa front like?
A: The closest term I can think of would be the American term. Ah, "clusterfuck".
Q: How so?
A: Well, there was the damage to the Aswan Dam. It wasn't like what happened to all of those poor people in China, but it was a close call. We had to do emergency draining, and although my country didn't get washed out into the sea, we still lost a great deal of power. Not good when fighting a war.
Thankfully, the Lizards were having problems of their own. Their lines were broken up by the snouts' weapons, and they seemed almost petrified in place. A few small excursions to the south of Egypt got picked off by us. I shot two killercraft down while on patrols during that hellish week.
Still, it was agreed by most of us that once the Lizards got off their asses, we'd be in deep trouble. NATO had the courtesy to inform us that they'd detected nearly three score of new starships landing in Africa on the day the fithp forced them out of orbit.
That was about eight million more of those scaly devils to worry about.
Almost all of Africa was in the clutches of Lizard claws. Our allies in the Middle East were fighting their own battles, trying to liberate the Arabian Peninsula and swaths of Iran and Pakistan, so we couldn't rely on them. The damage to transportation infrastructure and communication meant that we really couldn't rely on NATO, either. The only thing keeping the entire continent from falling, and allowing the Lizards to open a new front in the Middle East, was us, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. Just the five of us, against about half of the Lizard army.
Q: What did your government do, then?
A: There was an emergency convention between the governments, and they agreed on making a joint military command for the time being, in order to better combat the threat. Since we had the biggest army, and had already fought off a landing, we were essentially put in charge.
So, when I finally began flying after the orbital space over the region became relatively safe, my squadron now had Libyans and Algerians in it. Let me tell you, trying to keep those undisciplined fucks in line was not easy at first. I remember getting in a fist fight with a pilot who'd nearly clipped my plane.
Still, we had to maintain cohesion. The brass had us play sports with each other during off-hours, in order to try and build a rapport. Me and the pilot I punched actually ended up becoming football buddies. Good ol' Rahman...
Sorry, I was getting off track. You were saying?
Q: What actions were taken against the Race during that time?
A: I've heard rumors that we started supplying resistance fighters, to try and keep the Lizards bogged down in occupied countries, but I don't know about that. Laughs. Considering the nastiness they got up to in places, plausible deniability was probably for the best.
All I know for sure is that I began to fly a lot more missions. My squadron and I took out killercraft patrols, and did strafing runs of nearby Lizard bases. Occasionally, we were sent on deep air strikes. I'm talking about hitting bases in Addis Ababa, or Bangui. Those.. those were the riskier ones. We lost a lot of pilots during that time. Still, it was better than having them organize more quickly, and launch coordinated assaults into our territories.
Q: So this was mainly an air war?
A: Yes. Almost like the Battle of Britain, but it was us attacking their territory, in order to prevent an invasion of ours. An inversion, really.
Though, there are key differences, I'd say. If one of us had to eject and landed in Lizard territory, odds were some locals would help us sneak out, or at least turn a blind eye. If a Lizard landed in our territory, however, they were captured. If they landed in their own territory, then they occasionally ran the risk of getting attacked by a mob, if those disgusting internet videos meant anything.
It wasn't enough to keep the borders unbesmirched, however. Occasionally, a few thousand of them would try to attack our bases closer to their territory, and there was a big offensive into Algeria that we had to fight off. I think there were a hundred thousand Lizards in that one.
Ultimately, however, it was a losing battle. Each day, the Lizards got more organized. And the more organized they got, then the more effectively they'd be able to use their vast numerical superiority. And then it'd be all over for us. We were growing battered, just trying to keep them disrupted. Tunisia lost four fifths of its air force, and my own country lost three hundred planes by the end of the month.
Of course, when the New Year came about, things changed. But even before then, I knew. I knew that even this desperate battle we were fighting, to try and hold the line for our allies in the Middle East, that this part of the war was a breather in comparison to what came before, and what was going to come after.
-/-\-
Fistareth-thuktun I
Fistareth-thuktun lives in New Haven, Connecticut, where he teaches classes on the history of fithp and the nature of thuktunthp at Yale University. His office is right across from Ttomalss's; apparently the two of them are notorious amongst the staff for their explosive arguments.
By fithp standards, he is old and wizened, with droopy ears and cracked foot-claws. He drinks coffee directly from a large pot as we begin the interview.
Q: You served aboard Message Bearer as a historian-priest-scientist during the war, yes?
A: Yes, though that is only the closest term. I was chosen to study the thukun aboard thirty years before our arrival at Winterhome, due to my studious nature, and spent ten of those years learning of earlier thuktunthp. I pored over photographs of diagrams for metallurgy and agriculture, as well as nuclear physics and the workings of biology. I recreated attempts to bring the early designs to life under the eye of my predecessor, to see how well I could help bring the more advanced designs to life.
I found that it was fulfilling work, despite the difficulty.
Q: The nature of thuktunthp are still a source of much debate. You've gone on record of saying that they were left behind by a predecessor species, but there are some who insist that it was placed by an earlier civilization of fithp. What is your opinion on that?
A: They are fools, who have not studied the thuktun we brought with us. It is evident that the designs they etched into the stone were not specifically tailored to us, due to the nature of the writing we found alongside the diagrams; they are not meant for our trunks. The Predecessors existed, loremaster. The only question, therefore, is their fate, and that is something even I cannot know.
Q: Moving on, then. How did the war impact your work?
A: I spent less time studying the Podo Thuktun directly, and more time searching through the earlier thuktun. The Life-Thuktun, the Shape-Thuktun... I and my disciples were tasked to find any information the Predecessors may have left regarding Winterhome and its inhabitants. Ultimately, however, it proved fruitless labor. The Predecessors knew that Winterhome was habitable, but did not know of your kind. Perhaps you had not evolved yet, before they disappeared.
The day after the prisoners were brought aboard, the Breakers showed them the Podo Thuktun. I paid them no heed as I continued my work; my duty meant that such matters were of no concern to me.
Then, of course one of the Breakers chose to ask me questions that the prisoners had. Most of them were rubbish. "What are those etchings?" "Did you make that?"
Q: Most?
A: The only question that gave me pause was "Is the knowledge in that thuktun what brought you here?" It was enough to make me ask the Breaker who had make the inquiry, and I found myself looking down at a small male from the Outsider Herd.
After they had left, I forwarded an inquiry to the Breakers, asking them what role that male played in his own herd. A day later, I was informed that he had been the Attackmaster of his old fithp. A valuable mind, and one that seemed useful for my own tasks.
Q: So what did you do?
A: I asked the Breakers to send him to me. If they were to be absorbed into the herd, then they would be occupying all of its niches. That meant that, in a few generations, there could be a Winterhome fi' or Outsider fi' occupying my position. A head start was important, and perhaps an outsider could prove useful in cracking the remaining puzzles in the Podo Thuktun.
Q: So you essentially made Straha your apprentice?
A: Less than that. He could not understand the language; my disciples had to translate for him, and it was rudimentary. He operated the computer screen that pulled up images of older thuktun, and his small size was useful for squeezing into nooks and crannies in order to repair our equipment. His superior eyesight also helped when it came to correcting notes.
He was very useful. He ate and slept far less than my disciples, only requesting that he be allowed a vial of some orange powder every day, and was a very inquisitive mind. He began to study the older thuktunthp with assistance, and was constantly asking me questions. Occasionally, I asked him questions of my own, when I felt that his input could break a rut.
After two Winterhome weeks, he was learning from the Podo Thuktun directly, poring over the stone. He learned of the technologies we used to wage this war, and of our plans for the future of the system.
Q: There was nothing alarming about it?
A: No. He was assimilating perfectly, which was what we had hoped for. The only odd behavior I could not discern was why he would occasionally take an entire vial of the powder during breaks, then curl up in a ball for a few eight-cubed breaths. I did not waste much time thinking on it; I assumed it was only some quirk of his biology.
If I had known the truth, I would have likely had him dismissed, and the history of our herds would be vastly different.
-/-\-
Paulson II
Q: When exactly did the US government realize that something strange was going on?
A: A good two years before the war began, if you really want to be broad about the definition of "something strange".
Paulson produces some astronomical slides, and places them on the table for me to see.
The first inkling suspicion was when the fithp began leaving Saturn on a wacky kind of brachistochrone transfer. We still could detect the burn of their fusion drive, but the craft was moving a lot slower than anticipated. That engine was burning for a good three years, something powerful enough to bring a massive ship across the stars, and yet it barely passed the orbit of Jupiter before it began to increase velocity with an acceleration of 0.8g.
At the time, there could have been a number of explanations. Some fusion drives can actually "shift gears"- they can go from high impulse but low thrust to low impulse and high thrust. It's a method of fuel conservation, which would make sense. They might have decided to quicken the flight to Earth after the Cassini images, we thought. Still, it was important to consider all sorts of possibilities...
The idea of asteroid bombardment had been one of the first things the government began worrying about, even before that, which meant pouring more funds into observatories like my own. I ended up reporting directly to NORAD, of all places. We kept our eyes on the asteroid belt, since that was the ideal locale to pluck rocks from.
Q: Why so?
A: Well, there's a wealth of iron-nickel asteroids when compared to the Kuiper Belt or gas giant systems, which would be ideal impactors, and you wouldn't need to push the rock out of some planet's gravity well. We especially kept our eyes on the ones that would be easier to nudge in our direction, like Apophis.
We weren't expecting the fithp to actually pull a rock from the Saturn system, considering that they needed to achieve a system escape velocity of thirty six kilometers per second. Then again, perhaps they knew we weren't expecting that.
Q: When did you realize that the the Foot was not a hypothetical danger?
A: Far later than I would have liked. Between observing the Conquest Fleet, tracking the Flishithy, and keeping an eye on the belt for anything strange, we didn't notice the Foot until the snouts actually began their invasion. We could've done it earlier, if the initiations in the stratosphere that the Race did before the invasion hadn't fried some of our more delicate equipment. It didn't help that the snouts flattened observatories around the planet, either.
She points at one of the slides, showing a starry field. Around a point of light, there is a circle.
Still, we eventually realized that there was an object approaching our general vicinity, about two days after the fithp came. We didn't know for sure if it was an asteroid yet, or just their discarded fuel tank, but by then we had someone we could ask.
-/-\-
Harpanet V
Harpanet and I sit down under the shade of a tree in the back lawn of the White House while we have a light snack of some fruits and cheeses. The Secret Service form a perimeter around the tree, keeping an eye out for any possible dangers.
Q: After your capture on American soil, you were brought over to Cheyenne Mountain to be questioned. What was that time like?
A: I was greatly stressed. Though you seemed reasonable enough to understand my surrender, I did not know how I would be treated upon arrival at Cheyenne. I also did not know if the environment was ultimately to have a negative effect on my health.
There were many things happening when I arrived. The soldiers guided me out of the armored truck they had transported me in, and I found myself in broad daylight, surrounded by forest, with only a gate built into a mountainside facing me. They brought me inside, where I was given a thorough cleaning, and then I was herded to an empty room. I was alone for a few minutes, then the soldiers returned, with three men and three women alongside them.
Q: Scientists?
A: Yes. Scientists and Dreamer fithp. They asked me simple questions in a broken mixture of English and my own language, which they had intensely studied after my old herd's arrival.
Q: What sort of questions?
A: If I needed food, or a special bed. I replied as best as I could that I needed plant matter to eat, a mud pit that I could wallow in, and that I not be left alone.
They agreed, then took some samples from me. A mouth swab, a skin scraping, and some of my blood. They told me it was to know what was safe for me to eat. Then three of them left, while the rest stayed with me, occasionally asking questions, or simply trying to build their vocabulary. I took the time to try and learn more English.
Some hours later, I was brought to a new room, and was pleased to find a mud pit waiting for me, with fresh cut fruit and shoots waiting for me. After I gorged myself, the Dreamers wallowed in the mud pit with me, and asked more simple questions.
Q: How long did it take to develop a good understanding of the language?
A: After ten of your days, we knew enough of each others' languages to ask more difficult questions. They asked me why my old fithp had come here, and of our reasoning. During those first weeks, I told them of the exile from our home, and of how we waged war in the past.
It was on the third week that a new human fi' entered the room, surrounded by soldiers. One of the Dreamers, the one called Larry, told me that this was the Herdmaster of the American fithp.
Q: What did the President ask of you?
A: He asked me if my old fithp had plans to use a large asteroid as a weapon, pulling up photos of a point of light they had detected.
Q: What did you tell him?
A: I told him the truth, as is proper. I told him of the Foot, and of how we had spent three years pushing it. I did not know much of the specifics, but I told them it was the rough size of Message Bearer herself.
The Dreamers made some calculations, which was enough to alarm them. I remember seeing the look of panic in my new Herdmaster's eyes. They asked me if I knew when or where it was due to make impact. I replied that I didn't know, as it was the truth.
The Herdmaster excused himself from the room after that, and I was left to spray mud with the Dreamers, wondering how long my time there would be.
-/-\-
You have been reading:
Worldfall, Chapter Eight: Lull