go down to the sergeants’ mess, where a dozen hostile faces watch me as I cross the room and keep watching as the door shuts behind us and we head along a corridor toward an elevator.
“It wouldn’t hurt you to say good day. ”
“ They don’t,” I say, and beside me I hear Horse take a deep breath.
“You’re the stranger,” he tells me. “It’s their room, their club. No one gets access to the sergeants’ mess except sergeants. Even officers have to be invited.”
“So why am I allowed?”
“Because the general wants it.”
“Why?”
Sergeant Hito is about to say No one questions what the general wants. One of those hardwired reflexes we all have instead of thought. But he doesn’t. At my side, he hesitates, thinks about it.
“You lived among the ferox.”
I nod.
“No one has done that before. And you claim to be able to talk to them.”
“I can,” I tell him. “Well, I could. Maybe it was only those ferox.”
“And maybe you were insane with hunger and exhaustion, and had lost control of your thoughts and only imagined it. That’s what Colonel Nuevo thinks.”
“Youngster and I spoke,” I say firmly. “Sometimes it was hard to understand him. When I was on the whipping post he had to cut me before he made sense.”
“And then there’s that,” says the sergeant.
“The whipping post?”
“That, too. Medical scans show seventeen lashes in a single whipping. No one survives that level of abuse.”
“I did.”
“Apparently. But that also worries the colonel, I can say this because he’s already said it, and has told me he’s told the general.”
I wait for Sergeant Hito to reach his point and wonder if he knows what this negation of personal responsibility says about him. Maybe it says something about the Death’s Head as a whole.
Negation of personal responsibility. I’m proud of that. It sounds like something the old lieutenant might say; probably did, come to that.
“You cut yourself to stay sane? While you were a captive of the ferox. Have we got that right?”
“I did it to talk to them.”
Stepping out of the elevator, the sergeant indicates that he is listening. Two men in lesser uniforms step aside. The uniforms are complicated. Sergeants look grander than lieutenants do, and the colonel’s uniform is simpler than that. From what I can remember of General Jaxx, his uniform is almost entirely plain. Apart from the Obsidian Cross hanging from his neck and silver death’s heads on the points of his jacket collar, nothing indicates that he outranks them all.
The men who step aside are probably corporals. One of them slides me a glance and then hurriedly looks away.
“You were saying…?”
“Pain focuses my ability to hear the ferox.”
“You insist that they can speak?”
“Only in here,” I say, tapping the side of my head.
“They’re telepaths,” he says, adding…“They speak with thought?” In case the word is too strange.
“Yes, that’s exactly right.”
“And you can hear their thoughts?”
I shrug. “I could hear the speaking of one tribe. What if different tribes speak differently?”
“Thought is thought,” he says.
CHAPTER 16
T HE ROOM to which he leads me is small and dusty, which is surprising in itself, since most of the ship is spotlessly clean and seems to be kept that way by an unseen army of cleaners who are either invisible or so small that they work at levels below human sight.
There’s uniformity to the mother ship’s design. The walls are black and shiny, obsidian or glass. The floors are also black, made from what looks like marble. Lights are set into the floors to create pathways when the ship is in darkness, which it is for eight hours out of every twenty-four.
The air is clean, the temperature is pleasant, and everyone seems to know exactly what they are doing. If I were the general I’d never set foot on another planet again. When I say this to Horse, because that’s how I still think of Sergeant
“It wouldn’t hurt you to say good day. ”
“ They don’t,” I say, and beside me I hear Horse take a deep breath.
“You’re the stranger,” he tells me. “It’s their room, their club. No one gets access to the sergeants’ mess except sergeants. Even officers have to be invited.”
“So why am I allowed?”
“Because the general wants it.”
“Why?”
Sergeant Hito is about to say No one questions what the general wants. One of those hardwired reflexes we all have instead of thought. But he doesn’t. At my side, he hesitates, thinks about it.
“You lived among the ferox.”
I nod.
“No one has done that before. And you claim to be able to talk to them.”
“I can,” I tell him. “Well, I could. Maybe it was only those ferox.”
“And maybe you were insane with hunger and exhaustion, and had lost control of your thoughts and only imagined it. That’s what Colonel Nuevo thinks.”
“Youngster and I spoke,” I say firmly. “Sometimes it was hard to understand him. When I was on the whipping post he had to cut me before he made sense.”
“And then there’s that,” says the sergeant.
“The whipping post?”
“That, too. Medical scans show seventeen lashes in a single whipping. No one survives that level of abuse.”
“I did.”
“Apparently. But that also worries the colonel, I can say this because he’s already said it, and has told me he’s told the general.”
I wait for Sergeant Hito to reach his point and wonder if he knows what this negation of personal responsibility says about him. Maybe it says something about the Death’s Head as a whole.
Negation of personal responsibility. I’m proud of that. It sounds like something the old lieutenant might say; probably did, come to that.
“You cut yourself to stay sane? While you were a captive of the ferox. Have we got that right?”
“I did it to talk to them.”
Stepping out of the elevator, the sergeant indicates that he is listening. Two men in lesser uniforms step aside. The uniforms are complicated. Sergeants look grander than lieutenants do, and the colonel’s uniform is simpler than that. From what I can remember of General Jaxx, his uniform is almost entirely plain. Apart from the Obsidian Cross hanging from his neck and silver death’s heads on the points of his jacket collar, nothing indicates that he outranks them all.
The men who step aside are probably corporals. One of them slides me a glance and then hurriedly looks away.
“You were saying…?”
“Pain focuses my ability to hear the ferox.”
“You insist that they can speak?”
“Only in here,” I say, tapping the side of my head.
“They’re telepaths,” he says, adding…“They speak with thought?” In case the word is too strange.
“Yes, that’s exactly right.”
“And you can hear their thoughts?”
I shrug. “I could hear the speaking of one tribe. What if different tribes speak differently?”
“Thought is thought,” he says.
CHAPTER 16
T HE ROOM to which he leads me is small and dusty, which is surprising in itself, since most of the ship is spotlessly clean and seems to be kept that way by an unseen army of cleaners who are either invisible or so small that they work at levels below human sight.
There’s uniformity to the mother ship’s design. The walls are black and shiny, obsidian or glass. The floors are also black, made from what looks like marble. Lights are set into the floors to create pathways when the ship is in darkness, which it is for eight hours out of every twenty-four.
The air is clean, the temperature is pleasant, and everyone seems to know exactly what they are doing. If I were the general I’d never set foot on another planet again. When I say this to Horse, because that’s how I still think of Sergeant
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