The Trilisk Revolution (Parker Interstellar Travels) (2 page)

“Our
ships don’t look anything like what took out the
Seeker
,” Telisa said.

“Interesting
you should bring that up. They destroyed the
Seeker
without your father
on it, by the way,” Garrison said. “You know how that looks?”

Telisa’s
face shifted for a second, then relaxed.

Anger?
She suppressed it quickly.

“As
soon as we’ve removed the Trilisks, we can hand power over to you to set up an
interim government. I know you must have had dreams about doing that. I bet you
even have a few details drawn up for it, back when you started the revolt and
envisioned success.”

“We
can’t support an attack on our own kind conducted by aliens. Even Earth. If
what you say is going to happen, we might move in to pick up the pieces. As it
is, I’m thinking about warning them you’re coming.”

“That
would be a terrible mistake,” Telisa said.

The
man shrugged. “We can’t help you. Not up front.”

Jason
shifted uncomfortably. Though he was not privy to the details of the plan, he
figured failure to get an agreement could not be a good sign.

“How
far away will you be? How long will it take for you to step in? We need someone
in from ground zero.”

“A
week or more. But we have a few people around of course, keeping tabs on
things.”

“Now
is the time for bold decisions and risks,” Telisa said. “The future of our race
depends on it. That’s why I’m doing this. Against Trilisks, we could fail. But
we have to try.”

“If
you’re for real, I wish you luck. We won’t be there when the hammer falls.”

The
woman turned away. The others followed. Telisa made no move to continue the
conversation.

Telisa’s
face looked troubled. Jason wanted to say something, but nothing came to mind.

“We’ll
have to find someone else,” she said. “Who do you think could take over?”

Jason
hesitated as she put him on the spot.

“Hrm.
Well, the Space Force.”

“They’re
in control now,” Telisa said.

“No,
the Trilisks are,” Jason said. “They’re at the top. Wielding the Space Force
like we use a stunner or a laser. Get rid of the Trilisks, and you still have
Terrans with the training, equipment, and desire to keep the order on Earth.”

Telisa
absorbed that.

“We
hired you because you’re smart,” Telisa said. “I like your thinking. We have to
figure out where to cut the hierarchy and go there. Those will be the ones in
charge when their superiors go missing. Let’s work on fleshing out that idea.
The first problem is, how do we prepare them without them calling the alarm?”

Jason
had no idea.

Chapter 2

From
within his huge battleship in deep space, Kirizzo studied a vast collection of
information on the Terran homeworld, Earth. Of course Kirizzo had long been a
student of Terrans. He had studied their behavior within their many virtual
environs. Now his attention shifted to reality. He had to know specifics about
the Sol System and its inhabitants aside from the race’s vast shared virtual
existence.

Gorgalans
had a concept of adjectives, though they were attached as metadata to nouns
within a statement, typically drummed out simultaneously on the back channel of
legs 35 to 40 in incarnate conversation. If Kirizzo’s primary channel legs
tapped out the pattern for ‘planet’, his rear legs might well tap out the
patterns for ‘large, rocky, hot, <
noun delimiter>
’ at the same
time. Gorgalans were adept at accepting information in this way and it felt
perfectly natural to follow it visually and, later in life, also with mass
sense (only immature individuals needed to watch conversation with their eyes).

An
executive summary of Earth in his language included adjectives like united,
connected, rich, corrupt, populous (ten billion Terrans), and homogenous (no
obvious alien presence). Its population was described in Gorgalan terms as
shallow, frivolous, self-absorbed, VR-obsessed, and mostly enslaved (though
they appeared not to know or care).

Core
world Terrans were highly concerned with their appearance. Earth Terrans even
more so. They wore thin coverings that flickered between brightly colored
designs that varied depending upon context such as current mood, activity, or
objectives. The optimal set of designs to choose was tied to fickle social data
streams, and it differed between incarnate and virtual encounters. They
attached great import to things of only internal significance in the social
ladder. Those who could entertain the masses, whether through works of art,
music, or virtual adventures were elevated in status.

The
military forces of the race were a dominant minority that operated very
differently. Within the Space Force, VR entertainment was rationed and used to
reward incarnate performance. That performance was measured largely by computer
systems that were resistant (though not foolproof) to corruption. The Terrans
preferred to keep a tight rein on their machines.

Or
more accurately, the Trilisks did, Kirizzo thought. How could he separate
everything he had learned between the Terrans and the Trilisks? Kirizzo thought
on this for a moment and decided it was goal structure that would differentiate
the two species.

The
Trilisks wanted to build up the Terran war machine to use it against their
enemies. What did Terrans want? From seeing the PIT team work, he saw Terrans
who wanted to explore and learn. But that was a tiny segment of the population.
Most of the Terrans on Earth wanted only VR time to escape a mundane existence.

This
had happened to Kirizzo’s race as well. When VR was introduced, more and more
of the race fled into virtual worlds and competitions. Unfortunately for them,
that left the Vovokans in the real world with a huge advantage. The Vovokans
who sharply limited their VR time eventually took over Vovok. They enslaved and
sterilized the others, sharply correcting this self-limiting behavior in the
race. Those who used VR to improve their incarnate lives flourished, and those
who sought VR as an ends unto itself disappeared.

The
Terrans had not yet experienced this revolution, most likely because of their
hesitance to flip between cooperation and competition. Robotic workers provided
the populace with most of what they needed, though the transition to full
automation was not complete. There was still a minority with less than 40
percent VR time who had to maintain the factories, improve the VR body support
modules, and watch important facilities. These and the military forces were the
ones who would eventually take over and do whatever they wanted with those who
could currently afford near 100 percent VR time.

Kirizzo
allowed himself to be distracted by the geography of Earth. To him, the amazing
part about the Terran homeworld was the lack of crust penetration. Almost
everything alive lived at or above ground level. The Terrans refused to
seriously dig into the planet, yet they created endless rows of squarish
artificial caves above the planet’s surface. If the Bel Klaven came to this
planet, the extermination would occur so much faster than it had with Gorgala.
Though the fragmentation forced by huge amounts of surface liquid had lessened
over time, the footprints of it still remained in flora and fauna populations.

Kirizzo
wondered if living above ground made Terrans so much more vulnerable that they
had to extend their alliances across relatively long periods to survive. Could
this simple but important environmental difference explain why Terrans lacked
the Vovokan quick trigger cooperation-competition switch?

There
was a lot going on in the rest of the system that would affect the PIT mission.
Armadas of Terran war vessels were stationed at several points in the system, ready
to intercept alien incursion. The ships were relatively small and harmless by
Vovokan standards. And yet by sheer weight of numbers they could not be
entirely discounted.

Kirizzo
detected thousands of artificial satellites and orbital platforms ready to
support the defense fleet. They held a wide array of weapons to deter the alien
invasion the Terrans so feared. Kirizzo wondered if their Trilisk overlords expected
an invasion to actually happen. He thought they did not, at least not until
they struck their enemies first.

Kirizzo
looked for discontinuities in technological levels among the defenses. He saw
no such clues. The Terran’s capabilities grew quickly, but they had taken no
shortcuts. Had the Trilisks decided not to advance the Terran sciences in
unnatural ways?

Explaining
theories competed for Kirizzo’s favor: The Trilisks were happy to let the
Terrans advance organically? The Trilisks had hidden their real weapons well?
There were no Trilisks left on Earth? The Trilisks were damaged and unable to
accomplish more than this?

Kirizzo
stayed rock still for days, sunk deep into a complex risk and reward analysis.
When he next moved, it was with a grand plan in mind.

Chapter 3

Cilreth
sat with Telisa and Jason in Telisa’s lavish quarters. Telisa stared at her in
that way she did when she was trying to figure out if she was Cilreth or
Cilreth2.

It
feels awkward sometimes, but it’s a small price to pay to have my duplicate
, Cilreth thought.

“I
don’t blame them for not taking us seriously,” Jason said. “Don’t be angry, but
maybe it’s harder for you to see because you’ve been out on the frontier. On
the core worlds, everyone knows about the
Seeker
. Everyone has been
working hard to pay the taxes for the new defense fleet. Now, they’re asked to
potentially betray their race on our word? Of course it doesn’t work.”

“We
need to prove it to them without warning the Trilisks,” Telisa said absently.

“Tall
order. If the smoldering remains of the UED was thinking about turning us in…”
Cilreth said.

“We
can tell someone important right before we strike. Give them the heads up they
would need to fill the power vacuum fast,” Telisa said.

“A
few hours lead would be great, but we still risk alerting the Space Force even
with that,” Jason said. “I’m not trying to be the negative one here. I want to
remove the aliens from power as much as you do.”

“The
Trilisks. Don’t forget we have Shiny, and he’s on our side,” Telisa said.

“Of
course. I meant the Trilisks,” Jason stumbled.

Shiny
makes him nervous too
,
Cilreth thought.
Maybe they should meet. That would scare him even more at
first, but over time… we don’t have time.

One
of Cilreth’s programs sent her an alert. She followed the pointer and saw what
had been flagged. It was a news story that gave her an idea.

“I
may have found a unique opportunity,” Cilreth said. “It’s kinda crazy, but
we’re about to attempt a coup on the largest, most powerful government Terrans
have ever had. So crazy is in line with our current plan.”

“You
intrigue me,” Telisa said, smiling.

Cilreth
brought up the story link for them to look at.

Core
World Delegation to Visit Earth Incarnate.

Cilreth
continued immediately, even though the others were still absorbing it. “These
are ministers from other core worlds. And I think they’ve sensed a change in
Earth. They’re coming incarnate to discuss policy decisions they don’t like.
They may well be walking into a Trilisk grinder.”

“The
battleship
Bismarck
has been assigned escort duty for the delegation,”
Jason said. “But I guess
Clacker
can handle even the newest of Terran
warships?”

“Yes,”
Telisa said. “And it’s even better that
Bismarck
is there. If we can
convince a Space Force fleet officer of what’s going on, he could help
stabilize the system during the transition. Our ships are strong, but they’re
alien. The continued presence of alien dreadnoughts would generate anxiety and
distrust, so we have to leave after the Trilisks are hit. There are some space
force admirals on the list of a hundred, but with them out of the way, it might
work.”

“It
gets better,” Cilreth said. “There’s an admiral on board the
Bismarck
.
He’s not on the list. We can check him anyway. If he’s not a Trilisk host, then
he could be someone that could help keep law and order in the system in the
wake of our strike.”

“Won’t
we just warn the Space Force we’re doing this?” Jason said.

“Our
Vovokan ships can jam their communications. Better than jamming, actually, if
we want, it wouldn’t even be apparent to either side for a while. And we can
disable the ships without harming anyone,” Cilreth said. “Of course, taking
prisoners is a terrible way to make friends.”

“They’ll
see our overwhelming superiority. And we won’t board the ships,” Telisa said.
“They’ll be super pissed, but when we remove the Trilisks and leave, then
they’ll know it was true. We wouldn’t just show up, take out some leaders and
leave unless it was real. Once they see that, we can apologize. They’ll know it
had to be done.”

“We
can use the evidence package we gave to the UED representatives,” Cilreth said.
“We still have a lot of stuff lying around. They may see it as fabricated, but
it’s hard to come up with so many details. If they have an AI, it might be able
to tell it’s all real.”

Jason
shrugged. “I wouldn’t believe it. I would just assume the alien AIs are smarter
than my AIs.”

Cilreth
suppressed her ‘Diminishing Returns in Intelligence’ speech. Grudgingly, she
agreed with him. The evidence could always have been produced by more AIs, with
more time to work on it. The element of the unknown, the mysterious source of
the information, all this would work against them as it had when trying to
convince the UED.