NEW VOY: I'll Never Understand Humans (1/1) PG [Hirogen, P]
Title: I'll Never Understand Humans
Author: Dave Rogers
Email Address: daverogers@geocities.com
Series: VOY
Rating: PG
Codes: Hirogen, P
Part: 1/1
Date Posted: 6th September 1999
Summary: How did the events in "The Killing Game" affect Hirogen
culture? Ten years later, a Hirogen explains.
Disclaimer: Paramount own the real Hirogen. This is just my
simulation of them.
I'll Never Understand Humans.
I'll never understand humans. I've studied them, lived with them,
worked with them, fought with them and against them, stalked them,
cornered them and hunted them down, I've stabbed them, shot them,
beaten them, phasered them and bat'lethed them, and they still manage
to surprise me. Maybe that's good; I've changed for the better - we've
all changed for the better - and humans are mostly responsible.
I was One of the First, and that's one of the three things I've done
that I'm really proud of. I stood behind Stenj when he took the
optronic datacore from Janeway, about three feet behind and to his
right. Every time we run a sim of the Voyager encounter, I get to
stand in the same place, a privilege only the First get. A few of us
have fallen in the chase, and they get replaced by holo-characters.
Maybe when we're all gone, the sims will stop too, but it'd be nice to
keep the tradition. As long as it doesn't take us over, of course. If
there's one lesson we've really learned, that's it.
Stenj really wasn't sure what to do with the thing at first, of
course. He'd always despised Turanj, so it was easier for him to deal
with the human who Hunted him. He hadn't thought that much of Idrin's
plans either, though, as he explained to Janeway at the meeting.
While he was thinking about it, I took my ship out on another Hunt.
We all felt very low after the Voyager incident, so it was the best
way of raising my spirits. It turned out to be the second thing in my
life that I'm proud of.
The ship I Hunted was fast, manoeuvrable and powerfully armed, a
worthy Prey in every sense. For seventeen days it evaded my every move
as I studied its Captain's mind from his responses. When at last I ran
it to earth, a large and determined crew fought doggedly through every
corridor, fighting on though their wounds were mortal, ambushing and
evading and tricking me in ways I'd never seen before. In the end,
there was only the Captain left, and he fought to the last like his
crew. I took care in killing him, and was rewarded with a complete
skeleton. As I stripped the bones, though, something new and unusual
happened. Another ship, commanded by the same species, approached and
requested my attention. I saw an opportunity to learn more about
a new type of Prey, so I answered their hail - and our culture's
never been the same since.
We'd come across the idea of criminals before, especially in some of
the Voyager simulations. It struck me at the time that there must be
something deeply wrong with a way of life so unsatisfying, so out of
touch with the instincts of its people, that some find themselves
turning against their whole society. This Prey I'd killed, Tau by
name, was evidently so dissatisfied with his society that he'd set
up one of his own, and this, in the eyes of his people, made him a
criminal. That, or the fact that he stole from them; I was never quite
sure which. Anyway, the officer who hailed me was more than certain of
his definitions, as was clear from his first words:
"Alien ship, we understand you have apprehended and terminated the
traitor Tau. Can you provide us with evidence of his death?"
I was confused at first. "Evidence? I've got trophies of the Hunt.
Would they serve as your evidence?" This game was amusing, trying to
find out why he wanted my trophies. "I could let you take a look at
them."
"We would like something we can take back to the homeworld, if
possible." I wasn't too sure how his facial expressions worked, but I
think he was assuming a friendly one. "I am authorised to pay the
bounty on the spot, but I would be happier not to have to try too hard
to justify my decisions back home."
I searched my database for the meaning of the word "bounty". Several
items from the humans' data suggested that it was a reward payable to
a successful hunter; an odd idea for us, as we'd always held the
hunt to be reward in itself, but not one so alien that I couldn't see
possibilities in it. "I've got the traitor's skeleton," I replied.
"I want to keep the spine as a trophy, but I could let you have the
skull as your evidence."
And so it was agreed. What was possessing me, to make deals with Prey,
I can hardly imagine; but it had been a time of changes for us all,
and new ideas were needed. Gradually I began to realise that we'd
all, unwittingly, embarked on a new type of Hunt: a Hunt for a way of
life that was Hirogen, yet sustainable in the face of Prey that was
our equal in cunning and resolve. Because, make no mistake, Prey like
that existed. The humans might be a long way away, but there were
many of them. We'd heard of Klingons too, warriors even the humans
respected, and Romulans, whose cunning everyone feared. Sooner or
later we'd meet these species, as adversary or ally, and live or die
based on our choice.
Returning with my trophy and my bounty - enough dilithium to power the
Federation's datacore for a millennium - I tracked down Stenj and spoke
with him. He had, like all of us, been unsure and undecided about our
future, feeling that Idrin's ideas were not enough, that we'd fail as
a race without a genuine Hunt. It seemed that I'd supplied the
solution, the second part of our destiny: that our best Hunters
would Hunt for those who wanted it, and so we could Hunt yet live in
peace. After a long discussion, I became Stenj's Second, and together
we set out to Hunt our destiny. The third thing I'm proud of was the
way we found it.
The Borg had always interested us. Clearly the humans feared them, but
had survived their attacks - just. They seemed worthy Prey. When word
reached us that a Borg cube had fought its way past the Krenim and was
threatening to assimilate Mari Prime, our immediate response was to
muster every Hunter whose ship could haul vacuum, and converge there.
It was Stenj, confident in his course now, who decided to offer our
help to the Mari. It was amusing, of course, to watch their leader's
face as she listened to our offer, not sure whether to trust us,
suspect us, accept or refuse, and not knowing that it made no
difference what she said. Seventy Hirogen ships on a Hunt can hardly
be called back by any First. It made a difference to her, though, I
suppose, that she said yes. It made her our first ally, and so her
planet survived.
The Borg were powerful and adaptable, but somehow they weren't as
downright tough as the humans. We could defeat the humans over and
over again and they'd still come back for more. Once we'd found a way
to out-adapt the Borg defences, they crumbled fast, and we hunted
their drones down through the cube in relative safety. It took a few
weeks, but in the end we came away with a really impressive trophy.
There aren't many species with a Borg cube of their own. It looks good
to this day, in orbit round the planet we eventually decided to settle
on. Looks can be deceptive, though, because in this case the bounty
turned out far more valuable than the trophy.
The Mari should have been pleased, really, but when Stenj and I went
down to their planet to visit them, they seemed very upset about
something. We'd barely been there an hour before they were offering us
anything we liked if only we'd leave, fast. In the end we decided to
deal with them from orbit, which everyone seemed a lot happier with.
It was, so it turned out, the third and last of the three turning
points in our history - or, at least, I hope so. It's early days yet.
"Now, the question of our reward." I was stood behind Stenj again,
almost the same relative position as when he'd made the truce with
Janeway, as he addressed the Mari leader over the commlink.
"Your reward, yes. As you know, we are not a rich planet, but we owe
you our existence." I could tell she felt easier not to have us
standing next to her. "I am at a loss, however, to know what to
offer. What do we have that you might want?"
Here, I felt, was where Stenj really became the great leader that
Idrin had tried to be. He replied, "We are interested in acquiring
cultural and historical information on other peoples. Have you
anything of interest in your databases?"
The Mari's expressions are as difficult to read as those of most Prey,
but I believe she looked almost flattered. "We have four hundred
gigaquads of cultural and historical information, that covers all the
major civilisations in this sector. We would be glad to upload it to
you."
"Then that will suffice as a bounty," concluded Stenj.
It took me days to understand his decision. We could have had weapons,
energy stores, military bases - they would have given us anything.
Instead, all we had was data. But then Stenj set me to work entering
the data into the Federation datacore, and I began to understand. But
there was a little more to his cunning, as he explained to me as I
worked.
"You are disappointed in my bargaining skills, Eren." It was not a
question.
"I was, First," I replied. "But this data's important, I suppose. We
can Hunt this sector without depleting the Prey now."
"As Idrin said we should." He bowed his head in respect to our former
First; he'd been doing that a lot lately. "But there is more to it
than that."
"How's that, First?"
"The Mari have a great many friends, and none of them have heard of
us. We have plenty of Prey for now, but eventually the Hunt must move
on. What the Mari have to say of us to their neighbours will be most
important to us then."
"So by just taking data, which doesn't cost them anything..."
"Exactly. We gain a reputation for generosity. Others will be happier
to deal with us if they see us as scientists, perhaps, than hunters."
"But if they ever found out, what then?"
"They had better not."
Hence my pride in three great moments, the three moments that defined
modern-day Hirogen culture. The holo-arrays, for the virtual Hunt;
the bounty hunting - we're now the policemen of the Delta Quadrant;
and our reputation as keen but harmless anthropologists and
historians. We've lived in peace now, since calling all the Hunters
home to rebuild our civilisation, for ten years. There was only one
great danger, so long as we kept our secret; some day, we might meet
humans again, and our true nature might be revealed.
And so to the events of the last few weeks. In the end, you see, it
was Voyager that came back, the ones who knew us best and feared us
least. They came, this time, not as a ragtag crew of lost travellers
trying to find home, but as a powerful ship of explorers and
ambassadors, seeking to broaden the influence of their Federation.
Janeway was still Captain, but no longer in supreme command; one of
their greatest warriors, an old man they called Admiral Paris, came
with them to speak for the Federation. Many of the junior members of
his crew had tales to tell us of his courage, his cunning and his
fortitude in battle. And so I decided to kill him.
I had all the information I needed to approach him by stealth. We'd
retained the technical specifications of Voyager, we knew her crew
and could anticipate their behaviour, and an appropriate choice of
weapon was fairly simple. While most of their crew slept, I beamed
aboard in an empty corridor, and began my Hunt. I was happy to see
guards in my path, because killing an old man without any defences
didn't seem much of a challenge. They were sharp, too, those guards;
I was bleeding from half a dozen superficial wounds before I got to
his door. Then, when I was about to burst in on him, I heard a voice
from behind me saying -
"Computer, freeze program."
I spun round - or tried to, and nearly fell over. When you try and
move in a frozen hologram, and your weapon's part of the hologram -
I'd rather not talk about it, it's one of the first things our kids
learn. The human certainly thought it was funny.
"What are you doing here?" Hardly an original line, but it was the
best I could do in the circumstances.
"We figured out you'd be playing the same old games." I recognised
him now; he'd been a junior officer, both on the real ship and in the
last simulation, the one based on their Second World War. He seemed
to be a junior officer still. "The Captain said I could come and join
in."
"Then I must kill you all," I replied. "This is too great a secret.
Nobody must know."
He stared at me with those human eyes that seem to see into your
mind; his had blue outer centres, and they seemed to drill into me as
he said, "You tried that once, remember?"
He was right. I was in a cleft stick; let him go, and let the secret
out - then nobody would give us information on their cultures, and
the Hunt and the Hirogen would die; or take on the humans again, in
which case it would be them or us - and from my experience, that
probably meant us. I tried to reason with him. "Then keep the secret!
Can you imagine how the Prey - I mean the other species - round here
would react if they knew how we're using our information? They'd never
trust us again!"
He thought about it for a minute. "I'll talk to the Captain." Why not
Admiral Paris, I wondered? "I'm sure she'll be amused to hear what
you're up to here."
I hoped against hope that he wouldn't ask the next question. But he
did; these humans are so damned curious. "By the way, who exactly are
you hunting here?"
I thought about trying to lie, or evade the question, but there didn't
seem to be much point. "Admiral Paris," I replied, and waited for him
to get angry.
But he didn't. I've learned a bit about reading the expressions on
the face of Prey, and we've got quite a lot to go on with humans. I
think the expression on his face was a smile; the eyes didn't quite
look right, but the rest of it was definitely a smile. And then he
spoke.
"Mind if I join in?"
Humans. I'll never understand them.
THE END
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