The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier Invincible

“To be perfectly frank, Doctor,” Geary admitted, “I’ve tried not to think about what they eat and how they eat it.”

“That’s understandable.” Dr. Nasr grimaced. “Some spiders don’t kill their prey at once, you know. They paralyze it, perhaps, or just wrap it in webbing to immobilize it. Then they leave it, keeping it handy for when they want to eat. They don’t want their prey injured. They want it alive and ready for consumption.”

He didn’t get it at first, then the doctor’s meaning washed over him. “The bear-cows might have encountered the spider-wolves and learned that the spider-wolves liked eating their prey alive, and that they considered bear-cows prey?”

“It is something we must consider,” Dr. Nasr said. “We don’t know. But it is a possibility. We don’t know that these bear-cows didn’t deal with predators like that on their own world before they achieved dominance. We don’t know whether or not they’ve encountered other species who like the taste of bear-cow. Humans do not usually consider themselves prey, Admiral. But when we do get that feeling, that we are nothing but something’s next meal, it is a very horrifying feeling. I wondered at first why a sentient species would develop the means of shutting down its own vital functions, of willing itself to die. But these bear-cows are prey. They have always been prey. They may have developed the means to will themselves to death at the same time as they developed intelligence. I can imagine the physical pain of being eaten, but I cannot imagine the mental pain of knowing I am being eaten. Under such circumstances, the ability to cease suffering would be a welcome option.”

A buzz sounded in Dr. Nasr’s office, and he jerked in reaction. “My surgery. Admiral, I must go.”

“All right, Doctor. Make sure the remaining five bear-cows are kept sedated, kept unconscious.”

Dr. Nasr paused in midreach to end the call. “You realize that we know so little of their physiology, of how they react to medications, that we might easily kill them by trying to keep them sedated.”

“I understand, Doctor.” Damned if we do and damned if we don’t. “Unless we want the other five to kill themselves, or die of other causes, I don’t see any alternative at this point.”

Geary sat brooding after the call ended. What could he do with the bear-cows? An attempted humanitarian gesture had turned into a need to keep them in a state of living death to keep them from actually dying. Would letting them die be the humane thing to do?

He realized that he was thinking of them as bear-cows again, not as Kicks, after speaking with the scientists and the doctor. But no matter what they were called, the same problems remained.

And the talk with Dr. Nasr about Commander Benan hadn’t exactly been comforting, either.

He had no doubt that someone, or more likely a number of important someones, had convinced themselves that the use of mental blocks in a few cases was a justified and humane way to handle knowledge too explosive to risk its ending up in the wrong hands.

But at least one someone who knew about Benan’s involvement in Brass Prince hadn’t been blocked, and had been able to use their knowledge to blackmail Rione. Furthermore, everything pointed to that someone being a very high-ranking individual in the fleet or the government.

It was long past time to shine some light on an ugly shadow. He could ask Lieutenant Iger about proper security procedures, and would undoubtedly be told that proper procedures required Geary to say nothing to anyone though he did wonder if even the intelligence officer knew about this particular thing. No. He wouldn’t do that. “Don’t ask the question if you don’t want to know the answer,” a chief had advised him when he was just an ensign. It felt like that conversation had taken place a hundred years ago.

Actually, he realized, it had taken place a hundred years ago. But it would take a lot longer than that for him to forget that particular wise advice.

When I get back to Alliance space, there will be changes made, and people like Commander Benan will be helped. I’ll tell anyone I need to in order for that to happen. Security is not a license for people in authority to hide tactics they would never openly admit to using.

THE next morning, he was stopping by Dauntless’s bridge, trying to look rested and confident while he checked on the latest status of everything. He could have done those same checks from inside his stateroom, but leaders had to get out among their people, had to show that they were engaged and involved.

“I hope to hear today that we’ve got clearance to head home through spider-wolf-controlled territory,” he told Tanya.