Ten Thousand Miles Up--pt. 3

"I heard about the emergency," the commissioner said.

The new commissioner Pokokuro was, to Jakari's relief and concern, an old face. Pokokuro arranged the video conference from inside a hot bath (an enormous waste of water, had it been onboard the ship). Her attendants, miniscule in comparison, scrubbed down her scales, massaged her wings, filed her talons and horns, and covered her in gallons of fragrance. Slaves guided hoses hanging from the ceiling to rinse down the parts of her above the surface of the pool. Others stood on her, scrubbing down each scale with caustic soap which would, had they not each been dressed in full body suits, seared their flesh off.

The krakun's rise to power occurred long before computer technology ever came into being on their planet. The average krakun was a physical and mental powerhouse, with a life expectancy in the range of twelve thousand years--twelve times longer than the next longest-lived species in the universe, the turek. Over the course of many centuries and many wars (on a planet with no less than four dozen sapient species--astounding given the odds of even having a single one), the krakun slaughtered half their home planet's races and enthralled the other half. The krakun ruled these races, first as semi-benevolent god-kings, then as indifferent god-kings, then as gods. By then, they'd turned their greedy eyes outward toward the stars.

"No need to concern yourself, Commissioner," Jakari said. Jakari had the knack for making her voice sound sweet and pleasant all the time without alteration software. She also bore, at least onscreen, a perpetual, mostly honest smile.

Her job as liaison gave relief to both the crew and their indomitably sour bosses; the former because she kept them out of trouble, the latter because it let the krakun believe what they liked about geroo intelligence.

"I am the daughter of a very important CEO," Pokokuro stated, "I know all about these problems." She picked a flaking scale from her arm and tossed it at one of the semi-idle attendants poolside, a pinkish creature whose only fur was on its head. He caught the scale, which was a third the size he was.

"I apologize, Commissioner," Jakari said, cocking her head a little, "A minor emergency only, to do with the gate's physical structure. We'll need it running smooth."

Pokokuro snorted and flexed her foot-like hands in front of her, checking the filing job three geroo had done on it. "See that it's fixed then. Sarsuk's absence is no excuse for idleness."

"If I may ask--" Jakari started.

"Hmm? About what?" Pokokuro looked up at the camera, honestly confused. Apparently, she was not used to being questioned by slaves.

"My apologies Commissioner, it is likely our fault, but we never received any news on what happened to Commissioner Sarsuk."

"You didn't hear?" Pokokuro said, brightening, "Oh it was the most interesting scandal that's happened in centuries! Caught selling classified technology to the turek--quite an underhanded scheme! See, he made a deal to allow the raiders to steal a terraformer, superficially in a raid. He sabotaged our own forces so the defense was crippled--an untraceable glitch in communication. Fortunately, our defense force, one sector away, captured the raiders. After their torture, the turek prisoners told the whole story, and the courts had that matter settled fairly quickly." She drew a line across her throat with her finger.

Jakari winced. Of course, nobody liked Sarsuk--not to say Pokokuro would fare better. Glib, yes, but one high in the company echelon was certainly canny where it counted.

"So we've received new orders. The moment a battle turns sour, we're to scuttle the terraformers into atomic ash. They're even installing multiple redundancies into the self-destruct mechanisms now. We commissioners pay for losses out of our own accounts, but it's either money or . . . you know. Anyway, Commander, since you are interrupting my bath, what is your status?" Pokokuro stated, returning to playing with a large metal sponge.

"Status?" Jakari's ears stood up. They hadn't had time to prepare the false reports. Instead, she leaned over as though checking dispatches on another screen. Since Pokokuro couldn't observe her actions, she only waved her hand over blank monitors. "Erm, my apologies, we haven't prepared a status report--"

"I don't want a report, I just want news!" Pokokuro stated, firmly enough that the rumbling effect of her voice carried over the speakers.

"Right!" Jakari said, and saluted enthusiastically. "Our preliminary reports on C18‑3 are promising! If the numbers correlate, we'll have our first positive since our commission began."

"Oh good! This ought to be exciting!" Pokokuro sat upright in the bath, pulling her tail in and causing the water to swell. Three slaves clung onto her various scaly protrusions as they lost footing. Krakun, being four-legged creatures, sat on a floor more readily than a chair.

"I am just explaining things, Commissioner. The company won't begin construction for at least a week."

"Hush, I'm not leaving you to your own devices; this is important. There's money involved. Slaves!" She said, standing up in the pool, "you're dismissed!"

"We need to rinse--"

"DISMISSED!" She roared, and the whole chamber quaked.

The slaves took their supplies and scattered to the small entrances. After they departed, Pokokuro activated the rinse manually from the enormous wall controls. The ceiling opened and the pool drained. Thousands of gallons of water doused her. After a minute, she hit another switch, and the shower morphed into a fan that produced winds hotter than desert storms.

As Pokokuro did not shut off the camera, Jakari watched, keeping a bright smile on her face. She wondered about the purpose of slaves, when the entire process was easily automated. For deep space travel, sure, no one could hack biological beings--but a private bath?

Pokokuro turned off the machine and reattached her wristband toolbelt, the only piece of clothing krakun wore on a daily basis. "Besides, I've only seen a terraforming performed once, it was that awful deal with Krakuntec IX."

Jakari, for the first time, dropped her smile. She wondered if Pokokuro was trying to goad her or not--but since Pokokuro wasn't even looking at the camera for Jakari's reaction, Jakari assumed the remark was innocent. She forced a smile just as Pokokuro turned to the camera again.

"You know of it, right? The first attempt to fix the biosphere."

Jakari knew, but she could not respond as it was taking all her concentration to not let her smile falter. The biosphere of that planet was perfectly sound before the krakun tampered with it; no sulfur and only one-quarter oxygen.

"It was the closest we've come to destroying a planet entirely. If it weren't so slow we could weaponize the terraforming technology!" Pokokuro chuckled at her little joke.

Jakari gritted her teeth, but said nothing. Krakuntec IX was a hellhole, a glorified mining asteroid with an incalculable death toll.

"I was just a wyrmling then, of course, watching the video footage. It reeled my mind. Breaking the foundation of a world, dead oceans roaring as they collided with magma. It was like the scream of a fallen god." She said the last part narrowly as though tasting it, and she enjoyed its flavor.

Jakari squeezed her eyes shut. She wondered if krakun sweet-talk consisted of whispering greed and various blasphemies to one another on their wedding-beds.

"You look annoyed. What did I say, geroo?" Pokokuro huffed, as though Jakari's expression killed her perverse fantasy.

Jakari snapped her eyes open. "Nothing! Nothing you said could annoy--"

"I'm serious!" Pokokuro shouted, the fixtures in her shower rattling.

Jakari did not drop her smile, though she was positive other muscles in her face had moved elsewhere in protest. " . . . Krakuntec IX was formerly called Gerootec," she said. Despite her smile and her tone up to that point, she said it with no emotion.

Pokokuro considered this for a moment, then smiled wide. Because of how the krakun face was constructed, the line of her lips drew up nearly to her ears. "Really?" She laughed uproariously. "Dead gods, I had no idea!" She fell over from the side-splitting laughs and rolled, her bulky wings preventing her from moving too far.

Jakari waited with the same frozen expression. She discreetly glanced at her hands, which had seized up into tight fists. Her nails dug into her own palms until they bled. She shoved her hands under the desk.

Pokokuro, having forced herself to calm down, eyed Jakari from her position upside-down on the floor. Then she snorted as her wide grin returned. "Indignation! You mammals and your mammalian things."