Chapter 364

The Retreat

As Jeff, Arlene and Kayla were finishing their run, Lieutenant Mayfield contacted the Colonel on his radio and said, simply, "She picked up the weapon, Sir."

"Very well. Keep me posted on any new developments. Oh, yes, I thought of something during the run. I'll get back with you later."

"Affirmative, Colonel. Mayfield out."

Showered and dressed after their morning run, Jeff, Arlene and Kayla entered the kitchen, the women to assist in breakfast preparations, and Jeff to pick up a carafe of coffee.

"Morning, Lovers. How was the run?" the Clan Queen asked before kissing her husband.

"Great," Arlene replied as she waited for the kiss to end before hugging her mom.

Kayla also gave Diana a hug before the two younger women began helping with breakfast.

Insulated carafe in hand, Jeff headed for the living room. After greeting the other Alphas already there, he put the carafe on the coffee table near the cups and condiments.

"Ah ... elixir of the gods," General Whitworth said after he had filled his cup, blown on the hot brew and taken his first sip of the day.

"Where is everybody?" Jeff asked with a grin as he took the freshly filled cup and plopped down in his favorite chair near the fire.

They all chuckled, but Dave verbalized what they were thinking. "Probably trying to recover from an abundance of pussy last night."

"Or partaking of that pussy one more time before breakfast," Jeff added. "There were several weddings last night. Chances are there will be some women walking a bit tentatively, and four exhausted Alphas trailing along behind with big grins on their faces."

"Yesterday afternoon, I heard Diana admonishing the brides to not show up to help prepare breakfast this morning, so you might be right about the morning pussy," Wainwright commented.

"Nothing wrong with a little pussy first thing in the morning," the General allowed.

"Damn straight," Jeff agreed as they all chuckled again.

Dave and Jeff chatted about ongoing construction projects, with Frank occasionally adding a comment, but Whitworth sat quietly, obviously deep in thought.

During a momentary lull in the conversation, Jeff turned to watch Whitworth until he felt Jeff's eyes on him. "What?" he asked as he looked up.

"Just wondered what was bothering you. Something wrong at the base? I remember that you said you were headed there this morning."

"No," the General replied. Then after a few seconds, he went on, "Same old thing. I was just thinking about Morales."

Jeff and Dave exchanged a glance, but neither responded.

Whitworth crossed his legs before taking another sip of coffee. "Dammit, he just doesn't fit the ... profile of a killer. Oh, he's killed, and did it on command, but ... he's shown over and over how conscientious he is – at least now that he's on the prison planet. But there's something else. He and that wolf, or whatever the fuck that damn thing is, exhibit ... something. They're..."

" ... a team," Jeff supplied.

"Yes. Exactly. And a damn good one. Too fucking good for the short time they've been together. Hell, even if Morales was a dog trainer, he could never accomplish what he has with the wolf – not this soon. And if I remember correctly, didn't he say something about never having had a dog before?"

When Jeff nodded, the General went on. "That animal wants to do whatever Morales tells him, and that should help, I suppose, but it's more than that. Somehow that wolf thing knows what Morales wants or needs at precisely the right time. It's almost as if he's..."

Jeff broke in with, "Yeah, I've been thinking the same thing. That wolf is a little too sharp, unless he somehow really knows what Morales is thinking." Jeff hesitated a moment before going on. "There are telepathic races that we've run into in other dimensions, but even a hint of telepathy is rare as those proverbial hens' teeth in this dimension. And then there are Ship's builders. That's the reason she and the Healer are telepathic, of course. But Ship wasn't in this dimension when we found her – or she found us."

"So, do you think the wolf is a telepath?"

"Hmmm. Good question. At first blush, it would seem that a telepathic being would instantly know just what the other was thinking, but that wasn't the case with Little One... or Ship. Their minds are so drastically different from ours that it took a long time for Little One and me to reach the stage of communication we now enjoy. And ... that communication isn't perfect yet.

"Ship, with her vast mind and resources, had a different approach. She accepted me as her Prime. After that, she was bound to help me any way she could. The method she chose was to submerge my mind in hers. That was, shall we say, quite an experience, and I survived it, I suspect, because we were somewhat compatible to begin with. Even then, it was an ... experience.

"I practically lived in her mind while she tried to find Earth by exploring what little knowledge of astronomy I had acquired during my education. Even though she did manage to find Earth, she, like Little One, tended to flood me with total concepts about a subject when we as humans would have used only a sentence or two about the specific aspect we were talking about at that instant. To a telepath, her method was far faster and delivered all the knowledge on a particular subject to another similar telepath. To a human it was like having the material from a whole encyclopedia thrown at you to cover what should have been a simple answer.

"Over time, she has learned to send simpler concepts – a much more simplified and subject specific transmission similar to the way we think and speak. Just a few sentences on the subject, and she has learned to voice those thoughts as well. I shudder to think what changes the data go through before we hear it, whether it is telepathically or verbally sent. And both she and Little One are still improving. It's the only way we will ever communicate with them, because the human brain is not designed to think the way the two of them do. We simply can not hold that much information in the forefront of our thoughts at one time, let alone unravel the maze of thoughts to understand what she is trying to tell us."

"Her mind certainly scared the shit out of my people, and if it were not for her healing chambers, some of them would never have functioned again," the General broke in to say.

A frown crossed the Prime's face. "She still worries about that. She had no intention of harming anyone."

"I know it, and the ones that were involved know it, but there's no way in hell that three of them will ever get back on that ship," Whitworth said.

"Can't say that I blame them," Jeff agreed.

"So, you think the wolf is telepathic?" Whitworth asked.

Jeff hesitated. "I ... don't know. If he is, it's obvious that he has not fully meshed with Morales yet – if he ever manages. Or, there might be some other reason the two have functioned so well together. It might be that his version of telepathy is much more compatible with humans. Then again, maybe the wolf is highly empathetic and also extremely intelligent. People are still arguing over how intelligent dolphins are, even after studying them for years. The wolf can't talk, and I suspect that the environment over time has conditioned his species to be silent, and this silence has lasted so long that making any noise other than the quiet whine we've heard is difficult for him. Possibly, we did hear him howl once when he was on the plains, but then again, it could have been another animal."

"Morales did kill his buddy and he did it only a few minutes after arriving on 2214," Frank Wainwright pointed out.

Whitworth's voice changed. "Like I've mentioned before, it would have been murder here on Earth, true enough, but there are no laws on 2214, so technically he committed no crime. In addition, I would have done the same thing. He would never have survived the first week with Robinson doing stupid things, and with his arrogance and stupidity, he might well have gotten both of them killed the first day. The planet has a way of eliminating the stupid and slothful."

"So what are you going to do about Morales?" Art inquired.

The General sighed. "There's nothing I can do, at least that I've thought of."

"You could always send him some modern weapons," Dave offered.

The General sat staring into the fire. Just as Dave started to say something else, Whitworth commented. "No way could I get away with another 'lost' resupply case, and if I send him something he needs, he'll know that I'm watching him."

Art leaned forward with an idea. "Well, maybe he could be some type of explorer on a primitive world that you're exploring."

"The General is already doing that," Jeff returned with a chuckle, "and besides, we use heavily armed teams to explore unsettled worlds. If they don't make contact with aggressive intelligence, we send in the scientists."

"And they're armed, and fully capable of using those arms," Whitworth assured him. "Still, a planet is an enormous piece of real estate for a few people to explore. Missing an aggressive animal type is more the norm rather than the exception, and, over the years, that has applied to an intelligent species or two as well. We've lost scientists on worlds that seemed safe. Even insects that appear totally innocent and non-threatening often aren't at all. Flowers that smell wonderful sometimes give off a type of pollen that will kill humans if they inhale it. Rest assured that there is a damn good chance we haven't discovered all the relevant dangers on 2214, either."

Jeff let out a sick chuckle. "I imagine Morales thinks there are plenty of dangers that he does know about. He's seen the saber-tooth tigers up close and personal, and he's been told about the cave bears. The way he's digging into those computer files, he's probably seen pictures of them, as well. Hell, even that gar is enough to get my attention. I'd hate to meet that thing while going for a swim."

"And every animal there seems at least bigger, if not meaner," Art offered. "And the poor guy is stuck with nothing but a crossbow and a compound bow."

"Well, it wasn't meant to be a resort," the General snarled out a little stronger than he intended. There was quiet for a moment, before he went on. "Most of the other prisoners sent there were too fucking lazy to survive. But we sentenced them to life, not death. They were given weapons more advanced than many primitive tribes on Earth or other worlds, and those tribes survived without any major problems.

"Theirs wasn't an easy life, and neither did we expect the prisoners' lives to be. But with work and some thought, they have a good chance of living for many years. Unfortunately for them, the majority had become accustomed to taking from others rather than earning a living for themselves by the sweat of their own brow. Suddenly, they weren't at the top of the food chain any longer. But the animal life on 2214 isn't impressed by the puny humans. Unless the prisoners learned to shoot well and constantly put survival at the top of their mental lists, they soon wind up in some animal's belly.

"At least we didn't have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars 'rehabilitating' some scumbag so he could be released to commit the same crime yet again. Life on 2214 is just that – life. No parole. No good-time early release. No clearing out the jails to make room for more deadbeat criminals. There is plenty of room on 2214, and plenty of animals for meat. Hell, there are wild vegetables all over. We've even seeded plant life or else transplanted varieties like 2214's version of the potato plants. There were native varieties already there that were palatable to man, and over the years, we've spread them around a bit in soil that they proliferate in. And there are other vegetables and fruit trees that we have helped along as well. With a little work – well, maybe a bit more than a little – the prisoners can have a fairly significantly varied diet. But they have to look for the plants, dig them out of 2214's weeds, and cultivate them."

"But there are no women there," Wainwright commented.

"So far, we haven't had to deal with that problem, leaving it to Earth's courts. It's ... survival of the fittest on 2214. I've worried that any woman sent there would essentially be a slave to the first man who happened upon her. In addition, we would have to sterilize her, or else all the men. I surely don't want to be responsible for any child born on a prison planet. I..."

"Come and get it before we throw it out." Diana announced over the PA.

Grinning, the men came to their feet. Alphas were always hungry.

After breakfast, Jeff, Diana, Arlene and Selina went with Dave, Evie, Kim and Linda to the Ship. As the group stood on the flight deck, Jeff turned to Dave. "Do not take any chances, and I mean any. Just like before, the two of you are to observe and report. If you even faintly suspect that the aliens are aware of you, tell the AI to get you the hell away from there. It is under orders to leave as unobtrusively as possible, then when it is out of detection range, to warp out in a random direction before eventually making its way back to Earth."

Dave laid a hand on the Prime's shoulder, and earnestly said, "We know all that, Jeff. We'll be cautious. I was a sniper, remember? I'm used to observing and waiting. And ... Evie and I have done this before. The aliens didn't discover us then, and they won't now. In addition, the AI is just as paranoid as you are. We'll spend a boring week watching, then return to report and swap out with another team for their week of boredom."

"Shit, I wish I could go but..."

" ... Ship won't let you go without her being there to protect you, and if she goes, then who or what is going to protect Earth while she's gone? Real pisser, right? There are perks to being the Prime, but there's a downside too, huh?"

Jeff just frowned back at his friend. "See you in a week," he responded before Dave and Evie turned to say their goodbyes to Kim and Linda.