She pushed her speculation aside whenTau brought a canteen and chunks of meat for their meal.
Before the war Ultima wouldn’t haveconsidered eating rattlesnake, but she’d learned to appreciate alot of things since.
The almost constant hunger they allbattled had made them far less particular—withoutexception.
Tau ate slowly—carefully keeping pacewith her, she thought. Sad to say, she couldn’t eat much with thebest will in the world to gorge. She ate more, she thought, thanshe should have and declined more.
Tau frowned. “You areweak.”
Ultima wrestled with her irritation.“Yes, I know, but my body has done without too long for me to forcemore food than I can manage. I’ll do better if I build that upslowly as my strength returns.”
He was thoughtful—no doubt accessingsome of the information she’d given him—and then dismissedit.
“What happened?” she askedwhen they’d finished their meal and settled back to rest. “When youcame?” she clarified.
Tau and Xi and Quan exchanged a longlook and then Tau seemed to shrug. “Our coming was anticipated. Wehad thought to access the onboard computers when we took thedrones, but they had been … wiped. There was no data to beextracted and no clue left behind to guide us to ourtarget.”
Ultima frowned, considering that. “So… you weren’t able to access any information regarding the …leader? Before it was wiped? No … data trail at all?”
“No,” Tau said shortly.“At least nothing that we could detect by the time we had foughtour way through the drones—which were not supposed to be at thelanding point. We were forced to cut communications at thatjuncture because of the evidence of a traitor back home. So we areentirely on our own. And we, alas, have no prior understanding ofyour people or this world.”
“At least one traitor,” Xiadded.
“There may very well stillbe a pocket of them—although we had believed all had fled when webegan the search for them,” Quan said.
Ultima frowned. “Are you saying thatit’s possible we might be facing more than one?”
Tau shrugged. “We have the signatureof the one we seek.”
Utima settled to digest thatinformation uneasily.
Because all of her calculations hadbeen based upon the belief that the drones were hive driven andthere was only actually one alien they need worry about.
Multiple hives might make her attackplan useless.
“And now that we have …shown you ours, mayhap you could do the same?” Tau said.
Ultima met his gaze with the certainknowledge that, if she had misjudged them, it was liable to be herlast mistake.
She was almost convinced, though, thatTau at least must have some inkling. The other two—maybenot—yet.
“The data was collectedfor the purpose I explained,” she said slowly. “We did not want togo quietly into the night and it had begun to seem—has begun toseem like there’s little hope for us. We’d hoped to leave a recordof our legacy if this … alien monster made us goextinct.”
“But that is only part ofthe story,” Tau prompted.
Ultima sucked at her lowerlip. “It isallof the story insofar as everyone knows,” sheadmitted.
“Except you.”
She nodded. “I began to look for a wayto weaponize it when I realized there was no way for us to pass iton as originally intended … because there would be nothing lefthere … would have been nothing, that gave a damn about ourexistence or our achievements.”
“And you found away?”
She met his gaze for a long moment.“Not in the way you think. I … attempted to program self-awarenessthrough AI. So that any of the drones that downloaded the datawould be awakened and would have the chance—and the knowledge—tofight for its freedom from the controller. That way, even if it wastoo late to save humanity, there would be a part that would liveon. The drones—the cyborgs—were created using humanDNA.”
Anger flickered in Tau’s eyes. “Andwhat is it that it has done to us? We were alreadyself-aware.”
“I don’t … I’m notcertain.”
