Human, p.19
Human, page 19
part #1 of Humanity Ascendant Series
Or Eth…
He shook his head, clearing the thought away for the moment. “It’s fortunate to find your force still here, Commodore,” he said as he set the mug down in front of Ingolf, near the end of the long table.
Mishak waved the Varangian commander to his seat and dropped into a chair at the same end so they’d face at an angle rather than opposed across the table. “A new claim, especially one with no prior registration, can be very tricky.”
Ingolf took a sip and shuddered with delight, a reaction that most citizens would never expect to see from a Varangian but Mishak had spent much of his youth at court. He’d seen these nearly invincible warriors drink, joke and prank one another, just like any species.
He also knew there was no rushing them in a meeting. They always seemed to get things done but they rarely got concerned about how quickly it was accomplished.
There always seemed to be just enough time.
He smiled. “The coffee is to your liking, I see.”
“I had twenty kilos aboard the Visundr but cheevers got at it.
“Cheevers?” Mishak chuckled. “Been having a quiet cruise, Commodore?”
“We had to rig for combat twice on the way out here from Throne World,” Ingolf countered, his tone mild, “but you know how it is. The damn things have learned that spare suits make for good nesting. We went into a fight near Isriria – driving off some raiders – but a sizeable number of the little vermin survived.
“We rigged for combat again when we got here and cleared out the suits but…” he spread his hands, “…they got their damn mold all over my coffee beans.”
Cheevers, small semi-sentient six-legged mammals, were the constant bane of all ships. They were nearly impossible to eradicate and they had the ability to communicate effective hiding spots among themselves.
Their survivability was commendable but their biology was problematic, to say the least. They relied on a symbiotic relationship with a highly specialized mold that produced several vitamins the cheevers were unable to make on their own. They licked the secreted vitamins from their fur. It kept them healthy but tended to leave mold spores on everything they came into contact with.
Mishak chuckled as he brought up a holo interface. “I’m just sending a quick message to the quartermaster,” he told Ingolf. “I’m having a forty-kilo case of coffee delivered aboard your shuttle.”
“Ahh! Coffee straight from Kish!” Ingolf practically beamed. “I sincerely hope I haven’t brought any of the little vermin over with me. I’d hate to see your stock spoiled.”
“Unlikely,” Mishak said. “We have rats on most of our ships. The galley staff does several good dishes from rat-meat but we always have enough to kill off any cheevers that get aboard.”
“Really?” Ingolf stroked his chin. “Perhaps we could have a few?”
“I’m sure the galley would have a few in cages. We capture them alive so they stay fresh. We can give you a couple of breeding pairs.” He raised his mug but stopped and set it down.
“Commodore, a friendly warning; you do not want to get bitten by a rat. Our Humans bleed for an hour or so if they get bit but Quailu need a coagulation booster or we bleed for several days, even from new cuts. They have powerful anti-coagulants in their saliva.”
“Small but deadly? No wonder they’re so effective against cheevers.”
“It’s a little scary to see them in action. I pity the cheever that gets aboard one of my ships.” Mishak took a sip and sighed. “You should definitely test their effects on Varangians before you turn them loose on your cheever problem.”
Ingolf nodded. “I have a crewman in the brig for repeated incompetence. He’s an idiot, but he has connections. I’ll toss a couple of rats in with him and see what happens.”
Mishak laughed. “I would dearly love to see that!”
“For forty kilos of fresh coffee, the least I can do is send a copy of the holo-recording,” Ingolf raised his mug in a toast before taking his next sip. He grunted his approval of the flavor.
Mishak set down his coffee. “What twist of fate took you away from palace security?” He asked.
The Varangian looked at him, surprised, pleased but also a little guarded. “I wasn’t sure you would remember me,” he said carefully. “I was just one of the protection detail back then.”
“But you were guarding the princess Tashmitum so I saw you every day,” Mishak replied, “until the Emperor decided she and I were growing too close and sent her away to her mother’s home-world.”
“And most of us were transferred to ship-board duty for not keeping the Lord Marduk properly informed. Though I’ve managed to advance, nonetheless.” The Varangian said, with a grin. “And that brings us to the present. You’d like for us to stay and review your claim?”
“I would,” Mishak confirmed. “Though we’ll need some time to prepare our case in the proper form...”
The Varangian chuckled. “A phrase that has become a part of the ‘proper form’ through its own frequent use.” He inclined his head, a show of friendly respect.
“We will stay, young prince, and gladly.”
So Mishak would have the time he needed to collect the oaths from his outlying systems. Once that was completed, there would be no point in Uktannu trying to reclaim his lost territory.
Heiropolitan Hospitality
H eiropolis was a more advanced world than Kish. The natives had been far more technically advanced and they’d managed to avoid enslavement when they were annexed into the empire. They were known for their expertise in sensors, among other things, and half the sensor suite in Eth’s new cruiser had come from this world.
They also seemed to lead the empire in smug mushkenu business owners.
“Kish has only had mushkenu natives for a few cycles, hasn’t it?” a portly Heiropolitan native asked him.
Eth was glancing around at the reception being thrown in their honor, though there was little honor in evidence here.
“Yes,” he answered without inflection, as though he were talking to a computer. He didn’t like the posturing circuitry magnate, especially when his wife’s amusement gave the lie to his barbed politeness.
He, of course, could feel their disdain for their wardu-born visitors but they thought they were hiding it.
“And what was your job, before you were raised to mushkenu status?” the Heiropolitan inquired silkily. “Agriculture? General labor, perhaps?”
The wife actually had to turn her head to hide her amusement at that one, but Eth felt it as plainly as if she’d broken out laughing.
“Combat,” he said, turning now to stare into the other’s eyes directly. “I killed the natives of other worlds, mostly mushkenu, and I’m quite good at it. Would you like to arrange a demonstration for the other guests? I believe you’ve given just enough provocation for me to escalate this conversation.”
Fear feels so much better than contempt. Eth smiled at the Heiropolitan as he bowed and muttered an apology. “Perhaps another time?” he called to the retreating couple.
“You too?” Oliv came to stand next to him, drink in hand.
“Somebody give you a hard time, Oliv?”
“A hard time’s exactly what he had in mind,” she answered darkly. “Evidently, they have a small wardu class here and prostitution is one of their ‘career paths’.”
“You can’t expect these sphincter-burglars to get action on the basis of their charming personalities, can you?” Eth asked. He glanced at her. “You mean that…”
“Offered me five hundred ducats to service him behind that pillar over there,” she nodded to a far side of the large reception room.
“What did you say to him?”
“Not much sense wasting breath talking to him at the moment.” She looked at him with defiance. “He’d need to be conscious first…”
“I didn’t notice any commotion…”
“That’s because I smiled at him and went behind the pillar before I gave him my answer.”
“Just a friendly thumping, right?”
She paused. “Might be a broken bone or two.”
He took a deep breath. He could hardly blame her, especially when he’d just offered a duel to an influential local. “I think we’ve had enough of the local ‘hospitality’. Why don’t you go round up the rest while I make our excuses to the governor?”
The governor saw him approaching and hastily concluded a conversation with one of his courtiers. “The hero of the hour!” he announced grandly.
Eth could feel that the Quailu noble was unconvinced that his world would have fallen into hostile hands and that he was hosting the Humans for fear Sandrak would think him ungrateful for his son’s efforts.
Perhaps Mishak and his forces should have let the locals take more of a beating before they’d intervened.
“With your leave, Governor,” Eth began politely, “I’ll take my people back to our ships now.”
“But we have just begun,” the governor waved a hand about the hall, his relief at this request at clear odds with his words. No doubt the inability to read Eth was weighing heavily on his attitude toward him.
Eth was tempted to tell the governor to compile a list of insults from his guests and send it to him in orbit to save time. He resisted the urge, knowing it would only make the Humans seem touchy.
“We have much work to do if we’re to be battle ready,” he said instead, “and I should let you know that you’ll need medical staff for one of your people.” He was about to point toward the pillar but the governor had already glanced in that direction.
“Yes,” he replied, tone growing colder. “He was cruelly assaulted and…”
“He fell,” Eth said forcefully.
“Fell?”
“Against a pillar,” Eth insisted, iron in his voice, “repeatedly.”
The governor gaped at him.
“With your leave, Excellency…” Eth turned and stalked out through the crowd.
He glanced over at Noa as he fell in beside him. “What’s that thing on your face?”
Noa brought a hand up to touch a red bump on his cheek. “Remember that security officer on Chiron?”
“I seem to recall meeting a lot of security officers the last time we went there…”
“I think you’d remember this one,” Noa said. “Bad manners. Exploded all over me?”
“Oh yeah. He was funny.”
“Funny like a blood-borne parasite.”
“You don’t mean…”
Noa nodded. “Posthumous revenge. He had a binary infection. The spores spread out in the neighboring muscle tissue until the ‘queen’ node achieves critical function. Then it comes together to build a spore-production cyst. Any day now, she’ll be releasing new spores into my blood.”
Eth shuddered. “Then why don’t you cut the damned thing out?” he growled.
“I only get one chance at this. If I act too soon, the remaining spores will scatter throughout the body and start over in a thousand locations. If I wait too long to cut, then it’s essentially the same problem.”
Noa licked his lips. “Believe me, I want to pull out a knife and slice into my cheek like you wouldn’t believe but that’s exactly why there are so many carriers in the empire. I programmed my medical nanites to deal with this. They’re surrounding the cyst, waiting for the first hint of a hormone shift.”
Noa fell silent, reading the anger in Eth’s face.
His expression was enough to deter further conversations as they moved through the crowd. He was thinking about how good it would feel to shoot a few of the attendees, perhaps even that idiot of a governor.
Abdu had died for a Quailu just like him and he’d received no thanks for it. He’d even died a wardu for his troubles.
And now these comfortably lazy fools were looking down their noses at their saviors because they’d been born to the mushkenu class. They missed no opportunity to point out their perceived superiority.
Eth almost stopped walking as he realized what that meant. The Quailu rarely bothered with such games, except for those who were near the bottom of their own hierarchy – that cargo handler when they first came aboard the Dibbarra , for example.
No matter how wealthy or well-dressed these Heiropolitans were, they still ranked beneath the lowliest Quailu. The governor was Quailu, of course, but he was probably just some extra son, sent to this boring little dustball. Barely a member of the awilu classs.
That was why they were such a pack of assholes.
He laughed out loud, not caring what they thought of him. He left through the same side door they’d used when they’d arrived an hour earlier – had they really been insulted that many times in only an hour?
Your Last Chance was bobbing gently at the edge of the pedway. Oliv already had the rest of their crew waiting at the boarding ramp.
“What changed your mood so suddenly?” she demanded. “I thought we agreed to be pissed.”
“It was more an understanding than an agreement,” he replied cheerfully, waving them up the ramp.
“Hold on!” a loud, deep voice yelled.
They all turned to look, seeing a Quailu in oracle robes running toward them. The robes were stained with what looked like an atlas of at least a week’s worth of meals. The filthy garment fought a valiant but ultimately doomed holding-action against his large belly which had parted three of the toggles near his navel.
“Gods!” he wheezed, coming to a stop in front of Eth. “I look away for half a heartbeat and you all disappear!”
“Didn’t see that coming, did you, Father?” Eth needled him, not exactly well disposed to non-Humans in general at the moment.
He’d meant to be churlish but the disheveled oracle seemed imperturbable. “You can’t insult me!” he declared with an angry face he couldn’t hold for more than a few seconds before it dissolved into a friendly grin. “Believe me, others have tried!”
Eth couldn’t help but laugh. He wanted to hate this Quailu but he suspected it might entail more work than it was worth. “What do you want with us, Father? We’re about to lift off.”
“That’s exactly what I want,” the oracle exclaimed, reaching inside the fold of his robe and pulling out a strip of fermented fat, which explained the oddly shaped bulge above the braided leather belt.
Eth had no trouble imagining this holy man racing after them but stopping to grab a tray of fat from a waiter and dump it into the fold of his evil-smelling garment. “Father?”
“Lift-off,” the Quailu said. “I’d like very much for you to take me with you – to get me off this shit-heap of a planet.
“No customers here?” Oliv asked, one foot on the ramp.
“Oh, plenty of those,” he did a double-take at her before taking a bite of the fat, nodding in appreciation at the flavor. “No end of folk wanting to know their futures, but I see the same thing in every one of them: they scheme until some other schemer out-foxes them and they end up starting over from square one.
“You know why a Heiropolitan gives you a pat on the back?” he asked the Humans. He turned to shout at the crowd standing near the exit, taking the night air. “Because they’re looking for a place to stick the knife!
“All they stand for is themselves,” he said, turning back to Eth. “In all seriousness, if I could unleash a terrible plague on this world, I’m not certain I’d be able to refrain.”
“I’m not certain you have refrained,” Eth said, leaning back from the odor.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” the oracle continued, apparently missing Eth’s comment, “but the little darlings don’t have the highest opinion of you Humans, even though you helped save them from a nasty tax hike.”
“Why tell us that?” Eth demanded.
A shrug. “Common enemies… Look, I’ll work for my passage. I’ll serve as your personal oracle, if you like.”
Eth certainly had questions about his future, especially after learning of the Varangians’ interest in him.
And he just couldn’t help but like the fellow. He didn’t act like a member of the ruling race; he was just a person. “What’s your name, Father?”
“Sulak,” he replied, leaning forward slightly. “Sulak the traveler, perhaps?”
Eth smiled. “What does your sight tell you, Father?”
Sulak belched mightily. “I’m afraid the sight tells me little about myself,” he admitted, “but it doesn’t take the sight to know you make for better company than the locals.”
“Well, we aren’t going anywhere at the moment,” Eth told him. “We’re supposed to help secure Heiropolis.”
“You’ll be moving on soon enough,” Sulak assured him, “and I’d rather not miss it.”
It seemed Eth’s fate to be the last to actually know his fate. “You’re welcome to join us,” he said, “but keep your predictions to yourself. You’ll have us running into all sorts of harebrained schemes.”
“My weary ears thank you!” Father Sulak scrambled up the boarding ramp. “And thank you,” he said to Oliv as she passed him on the way to her tactical station, “for improving Marenko’s personality. Unconsciousness becomes him!”
“And don’t dwell on that mouth-breather,” he told her solemnly. “His attitude, like all the others, comes from jealousy, if I’m not much mistaken.”
He dropped into Glen’s unoccupied comms chair and rooted around in his robe until he found a large piece of smoked fish.
Hendy dropped into the pilot’s seat and began the pre-flight check, while Eth stopped at Oliv’s tactical station, casting a quick glance at the Quailu and his snack.
“It’s worth remembering,” Eth said to her quietly, “that the weight behind our commissions advance or decay with the fortunes of the lord who issued them.
“Our lord is most likely an elector by now, a prince of the realm. The only way our commissions could hold more backing is if he replaced the emperor himself.”
Seniority counted for much in the imperial house militaries but the power of an officer’s lord carried a great deal of weight. A lieutenant of seniority who served a minor lord would be wise to defer to a junior lieutenant commissioned by an elector.
