The Xenocide Mission by Ben Jeapes

resource. Washing was done with jets of germicidal, perfumed powder, but even that wouldn’t be possible without power. He had to use the next best thing – dry pads impregnated with the same stuff. Self-conscious under the watchful eyes of the XCs and that bloody camera, he swabbed himself down all over. Then he rubbed it into his hair, grateful that he had always kept it short and that he had had his facial hair follicles permanently zapped. At last, scrubbed clean, sweet-smelling and with fresh underwear, he felt capable of putting the uniform on again, and the familiar feel of the fabric against his skin was bliss. He was enclosed, he was comfortable, he could be warm once more. He zipped the shipsuit up the front and presented himself to the camera.
    ‘004972 Gilmore, Joel, Lieutenant, Commonwealth Navy,’ he said. ‘Not that you lot have ever heard of the Geneva Convention, but I thought I’d mention it. And now I think we’ll do the canteen. Why not?’
    ‘Come on, Boon Round, let’s be having you.’
    Joel unzipped the Rustie’s hammock and pulled Boon Round out. The Rustie didn’t react.
    ‘Look what I got you. You’re a whole Rustie again,’ Joel said. He unwrapped the harness from around himself, then paused. How the hell did you put one of these on a Rustie? It wasn’t something he’d ever done before. He was pretty sure
this
bit went at the end;
this
bit wrapped round the body . . .
    But whenever he tried to hold Boon Round steady, the slightest knock would send the Rustie tumbling in mid-air. Joel swore as Boon Round began to rotate for the third time.
    But then Boon Round suddenly steadied. The XC male who had been handling the camera had come forward and was holding him still. Joel stared at him, then turned back to the female who must have given the order.
    ‘Thank you,’ he said, and finished putting the harness on. Rustie clothing wasn’t the same as human clothing – it gave no protection, offered no modesty, but it did show rank and designation and all the other little things that gave a Rustie identity. A few straps, a few badges here and there, and Boon Round was complete.
    Almost.
    Joel turned back to the female. ‘I need the translator unit, please,’ he said. He unzipped the front of his shipsuit and mimed taking something out, then clipping that something under Boon Round’s throat. ‘Remember?’
    The female paused, then reached into her tunic and retrieved the unit. The aide stayed where it was. The senior male expressed something forcefully again, but was obviously overruled.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ Joel said. ‘No funny business.’ He made himself smile at the female and took the unit, then attached it to Boon Round’s harness. One of these controls must be the on-switch . . .
    A small light came on, and Joel hoped that was it. ‘Boon Round, can you hear me?’
    The unit would be sending vibrations direct to the Rustie’s cochlea-equivalent. Mouthtalk only, not the fulltalk that was so important to Rusties, but much better than nothing.
    A pause . . .
    ‘Joel Gilmore? At last.’
    The voice was flat, impersonal, but it was a voice and communication had been re-established.
    ‘Yes!’ Joel shouted. ‘Boon Round, it’s OK. You rest there. Look, I brought something for you to eat.’
    They had brought back two boxes from the canteen, one full of food concentrates for humans and the other for Rusties. Joel calculated that if they ate sparingly, they should last about a week and then – hopefully – he would be allowed to go back for more.
    Half an hour earlier, he had been resigned to dying; in the days he had been held captive, he had deliberately not given in to hope because he didn’t think he could handle the disappointment. But now there really did seem grounds for optimism.
    ‘Is there any water?’
    ‘Right here.’ Joel held the straw of a waterpack to Boon Round’s mouth and the Rustie sucked it dry in one swallow. Then Joel picked a slab of Rustie food