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Grass Eaters 3 | 43 | Book Club I
🕑 Added 2025-01-31 16:47:01 +0000 UTCZNS 1687, Znos-4-C (40,000 km)
POV: Plodvi, Znosian Dominion Navy (Rank: Six Whiskers)
Plodvi woke up groggily to the hum of the ship’s inertial compensators mixed with a loud ringing in his ears. As he slowly regained his senses, he realized that he was in some kind of maintenance closet. His paws were tied behind him to a chair by a thick rope. As his concussed head struggled to devise a way out of his predicament, he heard voices.
He was not alone.
He peeked open his eyes experimentally. There were two other shapes in front of his blurry vision. Rirkhni and another — a female. It didn’t take him too much extra thinking to put the puzzle pieces together.
These must be the two I heard in the vents.
“— So what do we do? By the Prophecy, we’re like hatchlings in deep water!” Rirkhni exclaimed, his voice laced with fear.
“We have to get rid of the evidence properly,” she said coldly. “We can’t keep him here; without supervision, he will get out in hours. Snap his neck to minimize the mess. Once we kill him, his corpse will begin to smell in days, and there is no hiding that on this ship. If we are unlucky, they’ll send for a Lesser Predator collaborator to sniff for evidence. Then, we’re dead. We have to get rid of him before all of that. Do you have access to the airlock cameras yet?”
“Are you serious?” he hissed back at her. “We can’t just kill him and— and dispose of him! What if— what if they start investigating where he was last? They’ll know we were two of the five people in the server room when he disappeared!”
In Plodvi’s vision, she shrugged. “We have no other choice. If it comes to it, we can find a way to frame our stupid supervisor. How did this one find you anyway?”
“I don’t know. I just put a subroutine on those logs just in case, and they alerted me that he was accessing them in bulk…”
“You have to be more careful! If State Security or anyone else on the ship finds out about this, we’re both dead,” she admonished. “And our entire bloodlines.”
“I didn’t know—”
“There’s a lot of things we don’t know. We can’t afford to be careless. Anyway, use one of the airlocks near the rear cargo modules at night. No one patrols there. And when you’re done, take a long shower.”
“A shower? Tonight? But I’m not scheduled for cleaning until next week…”
“Yes, to get all traces of him off of you when you are done,” she replied, her voice patronizing. “His fur. His skin. Did you not read all the detective stories from the predator propaganda?”
“Oh. I see. But do we really have to— wait, he’s awake.”
Plodvi cleared his throat as the two conspirators both levelled their gazes at him. “Please… don’t kill me,” he begged. “I don’t want to die!”
“Sorry, Six Whiskers,” Rirkhni said, looking actually apologetic at him. “But it’s either you or us.”
“No, please… I won’t— I promise I won’t report you,” he cried. “I’m too young to die!”
“Hatchling officers,” the female said with a snort. “I thought we were the youngest two people on this ship, but they keep making them younger and younger.”
Rirkhni stared at Plodvi for a second longer. “Well, he is saying that he won’t report—”
“And you believe him?!” she asked incredulously. “He’s just saying that so we’d let him go. First thing he does when he gets out of here is make a call to ship security, guaranteed.”
“But— but— he’s just so— so small,” Rirkhni said hesitatingly. “Look at his tiny paws. He is almost still wet behind his ears. This is— this is wrong.”
She shook her head. “It’s us, or him.”
Plodvi pleaded desperately, “Please… I won’t— I won’t tell. I’ve read those predator books too before— before I got onto this ship. I’m a— I’m a defect too. I won’t report you. Please… Rirkhni.”
Rirkhni flinched at his name.
The female didn’t. “Lies! Don’t listen to him.”
But she did seem slightly less sure.
He continued blubbering, “I saw those reports. I was— I was curious. I read their textbooks back in hatchling school. Their science and math textbooks. I was—”
“What’s the predators’ fifth law of thermodynamics?” she asked coldly.
“Fifth— fifth law of thermodynamics?” Plodvi asked. After a moment, he said slightly more confidently as he remembered his readings, “They don’t have one.”
His captors didn’t reply, only glanced wordlessly at each other.
Sensing his lifeline being extended, Plodvi continued, “The Great Predators didn’t formalize theories around non-equilibrium systems and entropy into their laws of thermodynamics like we did.”
They didn’t say anything for a few more heartbeats.
The female recovered some of her prior certainty. “He could still be a State Security plant… investigating our ship for apostates—”
“If I were, you’re dead anyway,” Plodvi said, sureness re-entering his voice as he began to engage his brain more rationally from his initial state of fear. “I’m a defect, like you. It makes no sense to kill me. If I report you, it will only increase my risk of exposure. And if you kill me, it will only increase your own risks of exposure.”
“How did you know where to look?” Rirkhni asked, his eyes uncertain. “To look for us.”
“By accident,” Plodvi recalled. “I was… working on the vents, and I heard your voices coming through. And I was curious so I tried to get access. And you know the rest. I was just curious. Please… don’t hurt me…”
The two conspirators looked between each other and him for a few more seconds.
“Well, I vote we let him go,” Rirkhni declared using that strange predator word.
She faltered, thinking out loud, “Well, having a six whiskers in the life support section could be useful in the future…”
Rirkhni argued, “Maybe he’ll be an asset. Maybe we’ll die. Either way, I don’t want to kill him.”
After a few more seconds of thinking, she relented. She circled around behind Plodvi’s chair and undid his restraints.
Rirkhni was more enthusiastic about the decision. “Welcome to our little book club, Six Whiskers. No hard feelings, right?”
Plodvi slowly climbed out of the chair, massaging blood into his paws in immense relief. “Book club, huh? What’s your name, female?”
“Just in case, I don’t want to use my real name here,” she replied before Rirkhni could. “Call me… Hobbsia.”
“Hob— Hobbsia it is,” Plodvi grinned for the first time since being knocked out. It was very clearly an alien name.
Rirkhni looked at him seriously. “Six Whiskers, are you sure we just got unlucky? Is there anyone else on the ship we need to be on the lookout for?”
“Yes, I really did just hear you talking in the vents,” he said with a sniff. “I doubt anyone else is looking through the computer logs, unless they’re other defects like me.”
Rirkhni sighed in relief. After a moment, he added, “Oh, and one more thing. We are not defects.”
“Not defects?” Plodvi asked quizzically.
“No, Six Whiskers. We are free.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Since joining the “book club” on ZNS 1687, Plodvi got unfettered access to the interesting transmissions from the predators. Rirkhni showed him how to modify his datapad so he could keep the illicit propaganda material secret. They were careful to hide their tracks from the watchful eyes of their supervisors — and the integrity-checking programs of the Digital Guides — on board.
A careless mistake, and that was it for them… and potentially their bloodlines.
In their scheduled nap times, they would covertly gather in the life support module, discussing what they’d discovered and exchanging contraband. And increasingly… argue about the idealized future of their people. It was all a fanciful pipe dream, they knew, but it was much more interesting than their day jobs.
“In an ideal Dominion society, propagation of the Prophecy would be strictly banned,” Hobbsia would say.
“No, in an ideal Dominion society, anyone would be free to believe in the Prophecy, or not,” Rirkhni would counter. “Like any other ideas that may or may not have merit.”
“But it’s fiction masquerading as reality. It’s deliberate disinformation.”
“Who determines that? Who can say if it’s true or false?”
“We would. Or someone bred to.”
“Bred leaders with no oversight or reliable correction mechanisms?”
“They should take full responsibility for the decisions.”
“And what stops them from refusing to?”
“They’d be bred with compulsion to take responsibility, duh.”
“More eugenics? More?!”
“Someone must take responsibility anyway. And you don’t really believe in that snout-counting crap they have, do you?”
Plodvi felt like a third wheel watching them argue, but it was still more entertaining than staring at a dashboard of life support systems that rarely failed. Sometimes they’d even ask him for his opinion.
His opinion.
“Six Whiskers, you’d ban the Prophecy too, right?”
“Come on, Plodvi, you’re not a proto-fascist like her, are you?”
“Six Whiskers, you have to read the new book they released on the FTL network. It’s called Open Society and Its Enemies, and in one of its endnotes—”
“Don’t listen to her, Plodvi. Hobbsia doesn’t even understand the context around that book. The predator who wrote it fully agrees with me. The line he drew for the paradox of intolerance was at violence and coercion, not disinformation!”
At the end of the day, they’d go back to being coworkers who didn’t know each other. And they understood that it was all pretend. Just fun and games. Something they did to pass the time at their boring, meaningless jobs.
Until they got the call on the FTL radio.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
“My fellow Znosian spacers. My name is Ditvish. I was a ten whiskers in the Dominion Navy. For fifteen years, I did the bidding of my superiors, my commanders, and their masters. I thought I served the people of the Dominion. That I Served the very Prophecy itself. But that— that was all a lie.”
“Shhhh… listen to this,” Rirkhni shushed as he played the audio message on his datapad.
“The Dominion Navy has fallen prey to the faithless administrators, directors, and governors at State Security. They belittle our Service. They throw away our ships. They waste our precious lives. If you are hearing this message, you have surely seen the incontrovertible evidence of all this by now. You know the truth. The truth they keep from you. State Security’s claws have gripped every dimension, every institution of our society. They have corrupted our state. The very self-correction mechanism we trusted to protect us from disorder and destruction thousands of years ago… it is now rotting away at the core of our species. They… they are the real abomination.”
“Is that really Zero Whiskers Ditvish?” Hobbsia asked in a hushed voice.
“Could be a fake,” Plodvi shrugged. “Or they could have broken him.”
“Or he could just be free,” Rirkhni said excitedly, “like us!”
The recording continued, “But you already know all this. And you are wondering, what can one Znosian spacer possibly do? What can we possibly do against this seemingly insurmountable institution. How can I take full responsibility for my own destiny? There is a solution.”
They all leaned in simultaneously, hanging onto his every word.
“The Great Predators,” Ditvish continued simply. “Humans from the Terran Republic who lead their multi-species defense against our senseless war.”
“What?!” Hobbsia said in disbelief.
“Shhhhh!”
Ditvish’s voice rose to a crescendo. “State Security has lied to us about the predators. They have bred us to live in fear of our own shadows. They claim simultaneously that the predators are both incurably weak and corrupt… and yet an existential threat to us all. That is a logical fallacy so blatant even a hatchling should be able to see through it! But after generations of breeding and brainwashing, they have blinded us to the truth, the truth that shocked me to the core when I learned it myself. The predators are our real salvation! The Great Predators are here to save us from State Security!”
“That is an interesting claim, but—”
“Shhhhhh!”
“The Great Predators are offering rewards for your information or cooperation. Real rewards. Rewards you can see and touch for yourself. Not fictional fairy tales that State Security tells you. Good lives. Good food. And most importantly, what you yearn for most: the truth. Call them on the FTL radio today. Direct it towards any major star system. Any channel, any encryption scheme. They are listening. They will answer. They will keep you safe. And when they end this horrible war, they will free the Znosian people from its real shackles. From the lies of State Security. Call now. You, too, can make a difference. I am Ditvish, free Znosian, signing off.”
The recording ended in static and silence. None of them said anything for a good minute.
“I’m not sure I trust what they say,” Hobbsia said. “They are giving us a distorted perspective of the truth.”
Rirkhni harumphed. “Maybe, but even if they are lying, they may be able to help us, right?”
Finally, Plodvi voiced the question they were all pondering. “Just… theoretically, how would we broadcast from the FTL radio without detection?”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Naval Station Europa, Europa (100 km)
POV: “Hersh”, Terran Reconnaissance Office
“Pretty good, huh?” Hersh beamed at the former ten whiskers.
“Another one of these? Some of our people must be onto your tricks and these impersonations by now.” Ditvish wrinkled his nose in annoyance. “These horrible fabrications of my voice.”
“Hah. If we actually used the real you to make broadcasts like this, that could be— it’s of somewhat questionable legality. Under our laws of war, at least.”
He looked intrigued. “Is it actually?”
“Well… maybe. Something about protecting you from public curiosity.”
Ditvish flicked a ear at him. “And you always follow that rule closely?”
“Well… maybe,” Hersh repeated.
“But counterfeiting my voice — that is allowed and uncontroversial?!”
“I don’t know if I’d call it uncontroversial, but there’s no law nor rule of war against that whatsoever.”
Ditvish looked at the operative in amusement. “You and your silly rules of war. What if they hold a commission and investigate you for this?”
“Like if the Republic Senate does another one of their accountability hearings about our recent activities? We’ll just tell them the truth: it’s faked. Like I said, that’s perfectly legal and half our computation budget goes to legal intelligences these days.”
“How could you prove it?” Ditvish asked skeptically. “How could you even tell? The recording sounds indistinguishable from real to me.”
“Worst case, they can just haul you in for questioning to see if you made the recording. What are you going to do? Tell them you actually did the recording for real?” Hersh asked with a wink.
Ditvish looked at him with a bemused expression. “What if I do? I can tell them all that you forced me to do it. I’ll get you all in trouble. Big trouble. I am very good at lying.”
Hersh chuckled. “No, you’re not; you’re a terrible liar, Ditvish. And you wouldn’t. Because if you did… then, you would actually have to admit that you believed every single word that fake-you said in that transmission. That the Dominion really is rotting because of your leaders. That your species is doomed unless we go liberate them.”
“Sure, but I don’t care what I admit to your leaders. I don’t care what they think about me.”
“No, maybe not. But I know there is one person you don’t want to admit it to — that you really do believe it all. Every single word about the rot in your own society.”
“Who?”
“Yourself.”
Comments
DeWhit
Oh, now I’m even more excited to see where this goes
