Bug Karnak didn’t have time to contribute much to our info about this vessel, only that parts of it looked familiar and that the bugs may have encountered similar vessels once upon a time—might know more about them and tell us more about them if we simply observe more, exchange more—help the fragments come together.
As for getting more information from bug steward—
That’s no longer possible.
I’m not sure if it’s an actual shock or just another bloody brick in a wall of cruelty and confusion, but we’ve been dragged to another cube-shaped racquetball court and another round cage suspended by cables.
There are people inside this cage. Or rather, they were people once. A sour, stale smell tells us all we need to know about their present condition.
Bird Girl tugs on the rope, making us loop around each other. We swing past the cage. Inside are clumps of tangled mummies, black and brown and gray. As Bird Girl warned us, based on the evidence clumped in this identical trap, we’re not the only humans on board, but we may be the only live ones.
Borden absorbs the view with a darkening of her face that could be prelude to a heart attack, but I know it’s just more rage—rage pumped up and then barely suppressed by discipline and training. All along, since she sprang me from Madigan, I’ve had a difficult time figuring the commander. That may be because for Borden it’s not so much honor and duty but closeted fury that keeps her going. An urge to vengeance. And not vengeance on our former enemies. There are people and things back home she’s gunning for.
Borden hates Gurus. I pity them all, despite the strong suspicion that none of us will ever see Earth again.
More important to our fate, if the starshina is part Guru, how much longer can she stay human, stay useful to the Antags?
“How many are there?” DJ asks. We try to tally but it’s not easy. The bodies are in bad shape, and not just from decay. They appear to have died while engaged in desperate hand-to-hand. Biting. Rending. Ripping. Severed, shriveled limbs drift slowly across the cage, along with blackened scraps. Some of the bodies are still tied in combat knots, limbs embracing torsos, fingers tight around necks, wrestling holds so much like coitus—others, just plain inexplicable. Last-ditch. Chaotic. Most still wear clothes, pants and shirts dark with old blood. Shoes are not in evidence. A few of the scraps have escaped the mesh. We bat at them with instinctive grunts of pity and disgust.
“Seventy or eighty,” I guess.
DJ covers his nose and mouth with one hand, keeping his other hand on the knotted rope. Borden is beyond expression but her body is stiff and her jaw waxen.
“Didn’t they feed them?” Ulyanova asks, but I doubt they were trying to eat one another. A few, I see, are draped with banners or ribbons covered with symbols I can’t read. Maybe they had all been pressed into some sort of competition, strong against weak—and the Gurus handed out prizes.
“No women,” Ulyanova says. “Maybe all men.”
“How can you tell?” DJ asks. “Not much of the fun parts left.”
She gives him a perplexed look.
“Did Antags kill them?” he asks, but we already know better. These poor bastards were put in a cage and left to their own devices until the fighting made them too weak to live. The Gurus could have recorded their combat and their agonies. Makes sense if this is a Guru ship. Plenty of studio space. Plenty of program opportunities.
Wonder who was the last one and what he was thinking, and how long he lasted after he’d won and the fighting was over?
Ulyanova looks startled. “Getting stronger!” she says.
Whatever she’s hearing isn’t coming from either of us or the steward. Those signals have faded to nothing. Bug Karnak is blown to bits, melted down, buried in ice and Titan’s interior magma. What the starshina’s hearing seems to be from a source much nearer—but we have no idea how all this works.
Ulyanova swings close. “Antagonista are frightened!” she whispers. “No control, no way out … and something wild bad up front.”
Borden’s darkness has gone pale. Her jaw juts. Our prospects aren’t improving. What if Gurus were and are still smarter than bugs? Could they reverse the whole weird, tricky process? Like turning a telescope around.
Are they already looking at us through Ulyanova?