colonizing thousands of star systems. Like I told you before, we annihilated the first two species without thinking more deeply about it. This time, we were determined to not make that same mistake.”
“So we’re good to you alive,” I said, “only as long as we’re of research interest.”
“Do not forget, human, that it was you who initiated hostilities.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “The planets Marvelous and New America were uninhabited when our colonists got there. They didn’t know about the mantes until your people showed up and blew the colonial fleets out of orbit. Sol would have been totally in the dark, except for the two picket ships that got away. Bad mistake, that. We came back hard. Showed you what we were made of.”
The vestigial wings on the Professor’s back opened and fluttered—a sign of extreme amusement.
“What’s so funny?” I said.
“Do you know what happened to the six colonies— mantis colonies—that your Sol fleets attacked, in so-called reprisal?”
“We kicked your butts,” I said, my voice rising.
“No, assistant-to-the-chaplain. We wiped you out. Those worlds remain in our hands, as do many others you once thought of as yours.”
“Liar,” I said, feeling hot in the face.
“If you’ve been told that your attacks against us on other worlds have been successful, then it is not I who has been lying to you. Think of your own fate, here on this planet. How successful was your fleet this time? Why would it have been any different anywhere else?”
I longed for a weapon. Any weapon.
“Our science is far advanced beyond your own. Discovery of the jump system is an easy, first step towards becoming truly technological. It in no way prepared you to deal with us at our level, and fortunately we have been able to deflect your violence and will now extinguish it from the universe.”
The Professor stopped, as if noticing my posture for the first time.
“You hate me,” he said.
“Yes,” I told him.
“I can smell it on you. You would kill me, if you could.”
“Yes,” I said. Why lie now?
The Professor and his disc hovered lower, his disturbingly alien eyes looking directly into my own.
“Listen to me, assistant-to-the-chaplain. It is not I and my colleagues who orchestrate your species’ destruction. The Quorum of the Select see you as animals. A pestilence. Having become aware of you, they consider you only inasmuch as they wish to eradicate your existence. But a few of us—in the schools—think differently. We suspect there is more to you than the Select believe. We suspect you have . . . perceptions, beyond our own.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, still wishing for a weapon.
“This place”—the mantis spread both forelimbs and wings wide—“is an utterly absurd concept to us. A house for your God. Where you come to hear Him speak to you without words. It is madness. Yet, we remember the avians and the amphibians. We remember their cultures. It is a profound scientific deficit, that we destroyed them as quickly as we did, without first penetrating their otherness, such that we understood their passions.”
“Our belief frightens you,” I said, feeling a small surge of pride.
“Yes,” said the Professor.
“Good.”
“You would antagonize me?”
“What have I got to lose?” I said.
The Professor was silent for well over a minute, then rotated his disc and opened the door with a forelimb, before gliding out of my room, and back out of the chapel, which at that point was completely empty.
CHAPTER 3
THREE DAYS PASSED, AND THE PROFESSOR DID NOT RETURN. I kept his news of our impending doom to myself, still believing that if word of it leaked out, there would be more harm done than good. We still couldn’t penetrate The Wall. We had no machines anymore with which to fly over it. Better, I thought, if the human population of Purgatory went on about its business, so that when the end did come, it came swiftly.
It was tough. As
“So we’re good to you alive,” I said, “only as long as we’re of research interest.”
“Do not forget, human, that it was you who initiated hostilities.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “The planets Marvelous and New America were uninhabited when our colonists got there. They didn’t know about the mantes until your people showed up and blew the colonial fleets out of orbit. Sol would have been totally in the dark, except for the two picket ships that got away. Bad mistake, that. We came back hard. Showed you what we were made of.”
The vestigial wings on the Professor’s back opened and fluttered—a sign of extreme amusement.
“What’s so funny?” I said.
“Do you know what happened to the six colonies— mantis colonies—that your Sol fleets attacked, in so-called reprisal?”
“We kicked your butts,” I said, my voice rising.
“No, assistant-to-the-chaplain. We wiped you out. Those worlds remain in our hands, as do many others you once thought of as yours.”
“Liar,” I said, feeling hot in the face.
“If you’ve been told that your attacks against us on other worlds have been successful, then it is not I who has been lying to you. Think of your own fate, here on this planet. How successful was your fleet this time? Why would it have been any different anywhere else?”
I longed for a weapon. Any weapon.
“Our science is far advanced beyond your own. Discovery of the jump system is an easy, first step towards becoming truly technological. It in no way prepared you to deal with us at our level, and fortunately we have been able to deflect your violence and will now extinguish it from the universe.”
The Professor stopped, as if noticing my posture for the first time.
“You hate me,” he said.
“Yes,” I told him.
“I can smell it on you. You would kill me, if you could.”
“Yes,” I said. Why lie now?
The Professor and his disc hovered lower, his disturbingly alien eyes looking directly into my own.
“Listen to me, assistant-to-the-chaplain. It is not I and my colleagues who orchestrate your species’ destruction. The Quorum of the Select see you as animals. A pestilence. Having become aware of you, they consider you only inasmuch as they wish to eradicate your existence. But a few of us—in the schools—think differently. We suspect there is more to you than the Select believe. We suspect you have . . . perceptions, beyond our own.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, still wishing for a weapon.
“This place”—the mantis spread both forelimbs and wings wide—“is an utterly absurd concept to us. A house for your God. Where you come to hear Him speak to you without words. It is madness. Yet, we remember the avians and the amphibians. We remember their cultures. It is a profound scientific deficit, that we destroyed them as quickly as we did, without first penetrating their otherness, such that we understood their passions.”
“Our belief frightens you,” I said, feeling a small surge of pride.
“Yes,” said the Professor.
“Good.”
“You would antagonize me?”
“What have I got to lose?” I said.
The Professor was silent for well over a minute, then rotated his disc and opened the door with a forelimb, before gliding out of my room, and back out of the chapel, which at that point was completely empty.
CHAPTER 3
THREE DAYS PASSED, AND THE PROFESSOR DID NOT RETURN. I kept his news of our impending doom to myself, still believing that if word of it leaked out, there would be more harm done than good. We still couldn’t penetrate The Wall. We had no machines anymore with which to fly over it. Better, I thought, if the human population of Purgatory went on about its business, so that when the end did come, it came swiftly.
It was tough. As
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