by Peter Nealen
[Then I would question his judgement even more,] Raider of the Enemy’s Stronghold signed. Blue Moon Above the Salt Cliff might have twitched at that, but Gaumarus shook his head, even as he remembered that the over-chief probably wouldn’t recognize the gesture.
[We do not ask for a permanent alliance, Raider of the Enemy’s Stronghold,] he signed. [That is too much for a simple soldier like myself to negotiate. But the past is the past, and these monsters have powers and weapons far more advanced than ours. We might not have been able to find your city, but they could. They are a strange race, and our people have feared them since long before we came from the sky.]
He didn’t think that he was convincing the over-chief. But he had to try. [If an alliance, even a temporary one, is not possible, we ask only that we be returned to human territory,] he signed. [We will promise not to ever reveal what we have seen here in the City of the Twenty Tribes.]
[What good is the word of a human?] It was technically impossible to work a sneer into the sign language, but somehow Raider of the Enemy’s Stronghold managed it.
Blue Moon Above the Salt Cliff suddenly stepped forward. He used the sign language instead of the chirping and clicking indig tongue, presumably so that Gaumarus, at least, could understand.
[Raider of the Enemy’s Stronghold may be over-chief,] he began, [but no hill-tyrant has yet been appointed by the Elders. To call me tribe-traitor is not within your authority. If you have doubts about me, who have led the Infiltrators for these many turns, let them be brought to the full Council.]
He half-turned, as if to address the humans and their escorts as well as Raider of the Enemy’s Stronghold. [I have seen the raiders from the sky. I have fought them. I have seen them pelted by rockets and heavy gunfire and keep coming. I have seen the cruelty of their weapons and the strange fear they project ahead of them. They are, as Friend of Hunters said, monsters. We have grievances against the humans, and I am sure that we will fight them again. But that time has not yet come. This time has. I do not doubt that what Friend of Hunters says is true, and that the raiders from the sky will hunt us as well, once they know of our existence. And not all of my warriors made it off the plain alive. They know we are here.]
[Then the question must be asked,] Raider of the Enemy’s Stronghold signed, [Why did you not disengage the Infiltrators before such losses could be taken? The humans did not know of our cities or our technology before; if you had left them to their fate, then the raiders from the sky would not have known either. Your judgement is still in question, Blue Moon Above the Salt Cliff. You have brought us to this pass.] He was apparently satisfied to continue the conversation in such a way that the humans could understand. Gaumarus wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not.
[If Raider of the Enemy’s Stronghold had beheld the monsters’ ships instead of hiding in a cave,] Blue Moon Above the Salt Cliff retorted, [He would not have to ask that question.]
Even unable to read the indig expressions, Gaumarus could feel the tension mount in the huge cavern. Blue Moon Above the Salt Cliff had just lost his cool with his tribal over-chief, and done it in front of the humans.
“You are not translating very well, Corporal Pell,” Morav Dun remarked. It was apparent that none of the other humans, except for maybe Raesh and Chauwens, had picked up on just how fine the knife-edge they were balanced on was. “What is being said?”
He gulped. “Raider of the Enemy’s Stronghold, the over-chief, doesn’t want us here,” he said quickly, as Blue Moon Above the Salt Cliff and Raider of the Enemy’s Stronghold stared each other down. “He thinks we should be left to deal with the M’tait ourselves. More than likely, given what we’ve already seen, though he hasn’t said as much, that would mean we would all be killed.”
There was a stir at that, as he knew there would be. They wouldn’t go down without a fight, though surrounded by that many indig fighters, and given the already-demonstrated power of their firearms, they definitely would go down. If this didn’t work out, none of them would ever see the surface world again.
And I’ll never find out if any of my family survived. It was a gut-wrenching thought. His hand clenched unconsciously around his coilgun’s grip. At least he was still armed, though his powerpack and his store of pellets had to be getting perilously low.
And the thought of what those powerguns could do at that kind of close range before the indig’s bullets could punch through the Knights’ armor was almost as gut-wrenching as the thought of dying in the Badlands before he could find out whether or not his parents and his sister were safe.
Instead of signing, Raider of the Enemy’s Stronghold chirped and snapped a question in his own tongue. Blue Moon Above the Salt Cliff replied in kind.
The exchange continued for several minutes. “Can you understand any of this?” Kan Tur asked, his exterior speakers pitched low. Gaumarus shook his head; he was as lost as any of the rest. But finally, Raider of the Enemy’s Stronghold made a curt, peremptory gesture, and turned his back. Blue Moon Above the Salt Cliff turned to Gaumarus.
[I have convinced the over-chief that your lives must be spared,] he signed. [Whether we will join the war has yet to be determined; that must be left to the Council. But you are safe, for now.] He pointed toward the doors. [Come. I will show you where you will stay.]
15
The humans were brought to another building some distance away from the Council chamber. One of the multi-story structures, it stretched from floor to ceiling of the cave, and had only the smallest slits for windows. They let in a little bit of light during the day, at least the ones facing the crevasse.
It didn’t look quite like a prison; the interior was well-lit by more of the gas lamps, and there were plenty of seats, tables, and even beds. Most of the indig were smaller than humans though, so the beds were too short for most of the humans, especially the Knights.
It wasn’t furnished like a prison, but it was clear that it was functioning as one, at least until the indig could decide just what to do with them. They couldn’t go outside unescorted, and it was quickly made clear that a “sufficient” escort was not going to be forthcoming any time soon. So, they sat and stewed.
Colonel Piett had recovered something of his old pompous self, and had made it clear that he considered himself in charge. Morav Dun was obviously unimpressed, and steadily ignored the colonel’s increasingly self-important proclamations, but they had yet to clash over anything meaningful. Though that might have been simply because there was little meaningful that could happen while they were shut up in the stone building. The tension was building, however, and soon the humans were divided up between Piett and his lackeys and Morav Dun and most of the Knights. Gaumarus tried to stay out of the way, and found more often than not that he was joined by Raesh, Chauwens, and Verheyen, along with a few of Verheyen’s section.
Night had fallen quickly in the City of the Twenty Tribes, as the sun had moved toward the horizon and let the crevasse fall into shadow. More lights had been lit out on the thoroughfares between the buildings as darkness descended, and Gaumarus had taken to watching the traffic through the slit window facing inward toward the back of the cave.
Most of the indig walked, but there were carts of various sizes still moving around the streets. Some were drawn by lean, rangy kitaks, the small domesticated animals evidently trained to move more slowly than their customary bounding lope so as not to disturb their cargo. Others appeared to be self-propelled, engines whirring and crackling in the stony passages between structures.
Gaumarus was watching and studying the indig not so much because he was curious—and he was—but because he already felt the dark shadow of his own thoughts descending on him again. Without an immediate crisis to focus his mind, he was finding his coldly efficient detachment slipping. His thoughts kept wandering back to the farm and his fears for his family, along with the gnawing dread that Raider of the Enemy’s Stronghold would prevail, and that he’d die there in the city, cut down helplessl
y like an animal in a trap. Maybe Blue Moon Above the Salt Cliff would have to do it, to prove his loyalty to his tribe. In the quiet and the darkness, the fact that everything he’d thought he’d known was now on shifting sand was threatening his mental equilibrium even more.
Fear and despair clashed back and forth in his mind, even as he watched the indig outside without really seeing them. He had survived the battle, but would there be anything left to survive for? And had he survived only to die as one of the last humans on Provenia, when the indig decided to take back what was theirs? He had checked his weapon when they’d gotten into their lodging; he had about two dozen bursts left.
It wouldn’t come close to enough if the mountain tribesmen decided to kill them. Presuming that they didn’t just lock the doors and stop feeding them.
Kan Tur loomed next to him. The Knight was still in his armor, but he had doffed his helmet. His dark hair was matted and plastered to his scalp and the scar on his face almost seemed to stand out more in the dim glow coming from the gas lamps.
“They are far more advanced than you thought they were, aren’t they?” He spoke in his own language, but the translated words came from the small module strapped to the side of his neck.
Gaumarus looked up at him. “I thought the translator was built into your helmet,” he said.
Kan Tur chuckled. “It is part of the helmet, yes,” he replied. “But it can be removed, for situations like this one.”
“Can it translate any language?” he asked, grasping for any curiosity that could divert him from his fears.
“On its own, without preparation? No,” Kan Tur replied. He was studying Gaumarus, understanding in his eyes. He didn’t seem to object to his question being ignored. “That would require a quantum computer and far more equipment and power than a Knight’s armor can carry. The translator is programmed with each individual language. If we do not have files for the language where we are going, then matters become somewhat more…complicated. Some of us, myself included, speak Trade Cant, but unless the people who live on our destination world do as well, we are right back where we started.”
Gaumarus nodded, looking back out the slit. The Knight’s explanation had made sense, but he’d still barely heard it. “Yes,” he said quietly. “They are more advanced than we thought. We never saw much of the Badlands. For as long as humans have been on this planet, the Badlands were a place to be avoided. No one who came here ever returned.” He suppressed a shudder at the thought. How many had actually made it this far, been captured, and died in one of these prisons, unable to return home lest they reveal the mountain tribes’ secrets? “The lowland tribes had some skill at metalworking when we found them, but they had little more than spears, arrows, and axes for weapons. They used animals and water power in place of machinery. We didn’t think they even knew what machinery was.”
“Clearly, the mountain tribes have come far,” Kan Tur commented, but Gaumarus shook his head.
“They’ve been spying on us, that much is certain,” he said. “Blue Moon Above the Salt Cliff admitted that much. But this…I think the mountain tribes might have been well on the way to this kind of tech long before humans ever arrived here. This isn’t stolen machinery; some of these things we don’t even have, like that train. They designed these things themselves.”
“The weapons certainly seem made for their physiology,” Kan Tur murmured.
Gaumarus nodded, suddenly imagining the other humans there in the room being blown apart by those big, heavy bullets. He shut his eyes. That only made matters worse, because then he saw the M’tait swarming over his family’s lands, the Hunterships looming out of the pall of smoke and dust, and Sergeant Verlot shuddering out the last of his life as the borer tore him apart.
Kan Tur’s hand descended on his shoulder. “This was your first major action, was it not?” he asked quietly. The translator headset seemed to be able to adjust its volume to his voice.
He nodded jerkily. “I’d been in the PDF for five years,” he said. “But we only ever trained and ran drills. Bar was the first time I’d ever seen combat, and I didn’t even fire a shot there.” He did shudder, then. “And the battle with the M’tait was something else altogether.”
“The first contact can make or break a man,” Kan Tur said. “Better men than you have been reduced to vacant-eyed madmen by facing the M’tait.” He looked past Gaumarus through the window. “If it is any consolation, none of us had faced them before a few days ago, either. The M’tait have not been seen in the Ietran Bubble since Gdan.”
Gaumarus looked up at him. “How can you stay so calm, then?” he asked.
Kan Tur just looked at him and let one corner of his mouth rise in a faint smile. “Practice,” he said.
Gaumarus turned back to the window, his brow furrowed. It certainly sounded simple. He wondered if he could ever learn to be like the tall, scarred man beside him. Judging by the increasingly petty clashes between Morav Dun and Colonel Piett, it seemed that it was more difficult than Kan Tur made it sound.
The next three days passed slowly. Sunlight only filtered in for about a third of the time; the relative angle of the sun above the crevasse precluded much more than that. And as bright as the indig’s gas lamps were, they could only pierce the darkness so much.
That darkness seemed to be wearing on the humans. The Knights surely had to be used to it, living aboard starships for long stretches at a time. But many of them seemed to be as tetchy as the Provenians.
The third day, things almost erupted into blows. The indig brought their food, which was surprisingly tasty, if somewhat limited in portions. Provenian biology was mostly compatible with human; the indig also digested “right-handed” sugars and “left-handed” amino acids. Some of the stuff they ate would make humans sick in any great quantities, but the Provenians, at least, generally knew what to eat and what to avoid. It appeared that the indig knew as well, as none of the sickening food was served to the humans.
Capitan Maes, Colonel Piett’s chief lackey, had shoved forward to grab the biggest portions for the colonel and his staff. In so doing, he shoved one of the Knights, a sour-faced man named Yev Kol. Yev Kol shoved back, hard, barking something in his own language. He had not taken his translator headset out of his helmet like Kan Tur and Xanar Dak had.
The shove sent Capitan Maes sprawling, and he scrambled to his feet, white-faced. “Knight Subcommander,” Colonel Piett said pompously, “I demand that that man be disciplined.”
But Morav Dun crossed his arms in front of his breastplate. With his helmet off, it appeared that he wasn’t much older than Kan Tur, his auburn hair swept back from a high forehead, a thin, pencil mustache still somehow immaculately groomed despite the fighting and imprisonment of the last week.
“Why should he be?” Morav Dun said. “Your rank means nothing to me or my Knights. And it has been ably demonstrated of late that you and your men are far our inferiors when it comes to capability, knowledge, and the arts of war, all of which are the only ticket we have out of this predicament. I would say that your man owes mine an apology for slighting him so. In fact, I would say that your man owes all of mine such an apology, for presuming to attempt to push ahead of those more capable, and therefore more deserving of first pick.”
Colonel Piett’s mouth dropped open slightly. He evidently hadn’t expected such a reply. Gaumarus watched the Knights carefully. Most of them were standing up, their hands loose and ready at their sides, a few smiling a little as they watched the Provenians, most of whom didn’t look all that certain of themselves anymore.
He glanced at Kan Tur. The scarred Knight was not smiling. Nor was Xanar Dak. Both were watching Morav Dun, their faces tight and hard. Clearly, they didn’t think much of their Knight Subcommander’s attitude.
Morav Dun waved at Yev Kol, who brushed past the other Provenians of Colonel Piett’s staff and began gathering the packets of food. He started handing them out to the other Knights, while the Provenians watched, none
of them hardly daring move under the eager stares of several of the Knights.
Xanar Dak muttered something, but Kan Tur shook his head. Both Knights turned away as Yev Kol held out baskets of food to both of them. Yev Kol said something in the Order’s language, and there was a general laugh among the Knights. There was an ugly sound to it, and Gaumarus glanced at the two angry men in armor, his hopes fading further. If the Knights turned on them over food, what hope did they have if the indig decided to do away with them, or simply starve them?
The Knights, except for Xanar Dak and Kan Tur, helped themselves, talking and laughing. They left less than half of the food for the Provenians, who outnumbered them by nearly two to one. The Provenians watched, some with slack expressions of bewilderment, some with fear, and some, especially Raesh and Evrard, with a smoldering anger.
Gaumarus knew he should be angry. But after three days of sitting in the dimness, cooped up with nothing to do but think and fear, he could only feel the bleakness of despair closing in on him.
The division among the humans was even more pronounced after that. The Provenians stayed to one side of the room, the Knights to the other. Gaumarus and his little band, including Kan Tur and Xanar Dak, migrated to a corner that wasn’t quite with either group.
The door abruptly opened, and Blue Moon Above the Salt Cliff stepped inside.
He looked around at the humans, and despite his alien features and a mindset that Gaumarus was no longer confident he could understand, he clearly observed the bifurcation. He did not comment though, as his eyes lit on Gaumarus. His repeater was slung across his back, and he now carried what looked like a large revolver holstered at his side. He was also dressed in the long vest of the mountain tribes, with twin crests on his shoulders.
