by B. V. Larson
Cassiel’s movement seemed to attract the attention of one of the barracudas, which turned and shot at high speed directly toward the ship.
Chapter 21
Hell’s Reach, aboard the Furmian Homeship Rodolfian.
The Furmian engineer Camdian positively glowed, despite the grease on her face and head-feathers. Twenty years fell from her face as she sniffed and swallowed, choked up as Chief Gurung asked her to marry him from bended knee.
“I will,” she whispered, wide-eyed.
Gurung stood. “How do we make this legal before somebody stops us?”
Cam held out her hand. “Give me your knife.”
He handed it to her, not without a sudden alertness. Furmians were tricky.
She handled it confidently, nicking her own forearm, a mirror image of Gurung’s cut, and then returned it to him. Pressing her wound to his, she smeared the fluids together. “Blood for blood, life for life, I take you Vedayan Gurung to wed and bed, as my Senior Husband, above all others I take, below only the Homeship and the Divines who protect it. So be it.”
“So be it,” the Furmians around echoed.
“So be it,” Gurung repeated. “Should I say something too?”
Cam chuckled, and then kissed him soundly. “Too late. You’re married now. Men ask, women answer—and you can’t un-ask. That’s our custom.”
“So since we’re married, I can challenge Dromian for leadership?”
“Well, there’s one more custom to observe.” She molded herself to him. “The marriage has to be consummated.”
“Seriously? Now?”
“For it to be fully legal. The people will ask.”
His grin widened, and he felt strong emotions. “I suppose I’ll have to suffer it.”
“We both shall.” Her tone was serious, downcast, and he suddenly remembered that she was only four months a widow. Her loss was long enough in the past for him not to feel embarrassed, but too recent to be entirely comfortable.
“Uh…” he said. “I know this is awkward, but we have to put our people first. Furmians and Breakers both, together.”
“Together.” She took his hand and called to her daughter. “Pam, everybody stays right where they are until we... return. Nobody moves, nobody uses a handcomm. If Dromian gets wind of this, he might do something stupid—again.”
Some Furmians rolled their eyes, and several nodded. Gurung silently thanked the Buddha that Dromian wasn’t popular.
Cam glanced around before leading him to a tool room and shutting the door.
“Here?” Gurung asked.
“Not very romantic, I know, but... ” She unzipped her coverall, and then reached for his fasteners as she pressed her full lips to his. Her breathing deepened. “I find I don’t care. It’s been too long.”
Wartime romances, spawned in the middle of death and adrenaline... he’d seen them get the juices flowing in horny young troops, but he’d thought himself above all that.
How wrong he was. Suddenly, there was nothing there but her, and his desire. He swept a workbench clear and lifted her onto it. “I don’t care, either.”
Later, he held Cam’s hand as they stepped out of the tool room. Across the grassy deck, near the great engine housings, the Breakers got to their feet from where they’d been sitting, staring expectantly. The Furmians broke out in applause, lightly striking the backs of their left hands with the palms of their rights, and the Breakers joined after a moment’s hesitation. Gurung felt as if he should blush and take a bow.
Cam led him to the waiting assemblage. “Chief Gurung Pel-Camdian is now my Senior Husband in fact and in name. That means he’s your new boss—and Pam, he’s your new father.” She repeated these words in Furmian.
The young woman lowered her head. Gurung expected her to be resentful, but she only looked relieved. In this case, the Furmians’ patriarchal culture made things easier.
Cam switched on her handcomm, which began yelling at her in Furmian. She spoke sharply into it, listened, and then spoke again. When she’d ended the conversation she said, “Everyone follow me. I mean... Husband Vedayan, I suggest we all pay Senior Dromian a visit in the control center.”
“Absolutely. Lead on, Engineer Camdian.”
“First, your knife.”
Gurung raised his eyebrows and handed the kukri to her. She carried it to a workbench with a spin-grinder, which she activated. “Sorry about this, but it’s necessary.”
When Cam placed its razor-sharp edge against the spinning disk and blunted it, he winced, but said nothing. She must know what she was doing. She also rounded the point slightly before handing it back. “This is how we keep our dueling blades. Less likely to kill. If you kill your opponent, your life is also forfeit.”
“I understand. But... without the likelihood of death, what keeps a leader from being challenged repeatedly?”
“If you lose, you may never challenge again... and you and your wife and her other husbands, if any, are all exiled from the Homeship. If you’re lucky, another Homeship will take you in. If not, you are Outcast.”
“That’s a big risk.”
“Yes.” Cam caressed his cheek. “But in this case, I would find it easy to leave here and join my new husband with his people. So I have little to lose.”
“You’re a clever woman, you know that, Cam?”
She blushed. “On a Homeship ruled by men, a woman has to be clever.”
“I understand.” Gurung reflected on his own people’s marriage customs. Although the ideal of romantic love was widespread, the truth was that many married for pragmatic reasons and hoped for love to take root and grow later. His one true love had been cremated according to custom, her soul freed to move on.
Now was the time for practicality, and for dharma.
“Let’s go depose Dromian. Husband.”
The troop of more than fifty aliens and locals marching resolutely through the ship excited comment wherever it went. Children giggled and pointed at the Ruxins, the few Furmian men they saw scowled and furrowed their brows, and many women stared with curious interest. It occurred to Gurung that most of the three thousand Furmians killed in the attack four months ago must have been fighting men, leaving a lot of widows without husbands and young women without prospects.
As they walked, Cam briefed Gurung in low tones about the procedure for challenge. She seemed to take it as a given that he’d beat Dromian in a fair duel, but he resolved not to be complacent. Also, though he didn’t raise the point, Furmians had a reputation for breaking rules, even their own. As long as they got away with it, a Furmian’s tricks and gambits were admired, not discouraged.
The two men guarding the control center merely gawked as the Furmian women and teens marched their prisoners through the open double doors and into the spacious, gymnasium-sized room. Security was obviously lax, at least where locals were concerned. Everybody knew everyone else, of course.
Unlike the other decks, this one was free of plants, animals, and soil, resembling a real ship rather than a flying habitat. It was hardly shipshape, though. Gurung wondered if that was something he’d be able to change... assuming this all worked out. If it didn’t, well... who wanted to live forever, anyway? The cycles of life would continue without him.
Dromian stood on a raised dais in the center of the room, from which he could call orders to the consoles arranged in circles around him. Form followed function; Gurung found most bridges or control centers followed one of two patterns: the boss in the center of circles, or at the back of a room facing forward, in either case looking over the shoulders of his officers. The Furmian Senior stared over the heads of his staff from his vantage point, eyes narrowing as the people trooped in and filled half the space.
He grasped the rail at the edge of the platform. “What’s the meaning of this? Cam, these aliens should be making repairs.”
Cam remained silent while Gurung spoke. “These aliens were happy to help fix your engine, Senior Dromian. In return, you ordered
us taken hostage and our women beaten.” He gestured at the four Breaker women, who’d been briefed to present themselves as disheveled and hurt—even though the Bug had restored them to health already. It was important to play to the Furmian audience, to make Dromian look bad—worse than he already did.
Fortunately, he was unpopular already.
Dromian gestured expansively and spoke sarcastically. “I apologize for doing what was necessary—securing skilled personnel for our Homeship. If you work hard, we’ll release you after we get out of this Divines-forsaken place. If not, you’ll be punished.”
“Beaten, you mean. Tortured, maybe? Is this how you treat guests of your society?”
“You’re no guests. You privileged majority humans look down upon us nomads and our traditions. You sneer at our farm animals and our primitive ways—oh yes, we’ve all heard the whispers and seen the showvids about us, docuvids that make us into curiosities. When we approach your systems you call us vagabonds and criminals, guilty until proven innocent. No, it’s you who treat us badly, the guests of your society—only your beatings are administered to our honor, in the media across human space and the Middle Reach. So spare me your condescension. We don’t need it.”
Gurung could see how Dromian held onto power—he was a clever speaker, twisting words and meanings. Gurung wasn’t, but he’d found in his forty-seven years of life that only one weapon, properly applied, could counter such spin.
The truth, as simple as possible, hammered home.
“We’re not the humans you’ve dealt with before. We came to help. We acted honorably with you. In return, you attack our women. Is that what a good man does?”
Dromian opened his mouth, no doubt with some smooth reply, but Gurung was ready. “No!” he shouted, stepping forward and pointing. “I say you have dishonored your people and your position. I challenge you for leadership of this Homeship.”
Behind him, Cam had been speaking Furmian into her handcomm. People began flooding onto the bridge as the words was passed throughout the ship. Gurung could hear many whispering and translating for those who didn’t speak Earthan.
“You have no status to challenge me, outsider.”
“He does,” Cam said in a strong voice. “He is my Senior Husband. We married and consummated this last hour. I have twenty witnesses.” She gestured toward her people.
“That’s ridiculous.” Dromian’s eyes shifted side to side, clearly assessing the mood of the crowd. “It’s a trick.”
“If it’s a trick, it’s a good one,” an old man said. Off to the side, he seemed like a man who seemed to be of high status, from his rich, neat clothing and gold-plated sidearm. “Or do you think my esteemed cousin Camdian and her family would lie?”
“This is a conspiracy against me!” Dromian cried. “It’s a coup!”
“It’s lawful. If the human—if Cam’s Senior Husband wishes to challenge you, he is within his rights. You must accept, or step down. Which do you choose?”
Dromian licked his lips and paced the edge of his platform, surveying the hundreds crowding into the room. “We’re under executive rule. I refuse on that basis.”
The old man looked around. “I see a quorum of the council. I propose executive rule be ended. It has been too long, and we must return to normalcy. All in favor, show both hands.”
He held up his hands, along with several men and women who also looked to be of high status. “Opposed?”
Dromian and three others raised their hands, but they were clearly outvoted.
“The proposal is passed. Executive rule is ended. Normal traditions now apply. Hordon Dromian, do you choose to step down, or do you accept this martial challenge?”
Dromian stripped off his jacket and threw it on the deck in disgust. “I accept.”
The older man turned to Gurung. “Human, what is your name?”
“Vedayan Gurung Pel-Camdian. Your Homeship’s chief engineer, it seems, at least for an hour or two.”
The man ignored Gurung’s attempt at wit. “I am Bundan Lin-Melikian, Senior Trader. Do you know the rules of the duel?”
“One blade each. Fight until one yields or leaves the circle. If one man dies within a day of injury, the other is exiled, with his family.” That last rule made things interesting, and reduced the chance of vicious blood feuds and death.
“Correct. Prepare yourself.” Melikian pointed. “The dais shall be the battle circle.”
Gurung stripped off his tunic and undershirt, as was traditional, fighting in trousers and boots alone. His squat, muscular body was crisscrossed with scars, the remnants of damage the Bug didn’t heal, the results of many, many combat actions and his work around dangerous machinery.
Kukri in hand, he stepped onto the platform. The arena had four quarter-circle rails and four openings. The rails had enough support poles that a man was unlikely to slip under—so one way or another, he had to get Dromian through one of the four gaps, or over a rail.
Dromian stood, bigger, taller, and much heavier than the short Gurung. There was muscle under his flab. No doubt he’d use these advantages... but what other tricks might the man have?
He focused his eyes on the Furmian’s knife, searching for a smear of poison or drug, but he saw nothing. The blade was heavier and shorter than his own. It was a straight line of shining metal with a single edge and a dull point. This heightened his respect for Dromian. Double-edged knives often indicated a fancy mindset relying on complex, unreliable techniques. Real blade work was simple, straightforward—and deadly.
In fact, he’d have to guard against the instinct to kill. If Dromian died, Gurung would be exiled—in essence, losing the fight even if he won. That was Furmian tradition. And that gave Dromian an edge. He’d be accustomed to injure, and to win, but not to kill. That made these duels something more like a dangerous sport.
“Are the combatants ready?” Melikian called in a formal, booming voice.
“I’m ready,” Dromian replied.
“Let’s go,” Gurung said.
“Fight with honor. Commence!”
Gurung held his point upward, in accordance with his training. In fact, the heavy kukri was more like a short sword than a combat knife.
Dromian advanced like a cargo loader, arms wide, blade held point-downward. In fact, he used the knife almost as an afterthought as he jabbed like a boxer. His long reach kept Gurung from slashing under to slice his opponent’s legs. In a killing fight, he’d slip inside Dromian’s guard and go for a vital spot to end it quickly, but not this time.
How to win without killing?
He slashed in short strokes at Dromian’s hands and arms. His edge, while dull, would still split skin and bruise muscle, perhaps even break fingers. Dromian blocked with his knife laid along his own forearm, or yanked his hands back. He tried out a few low kicks. These Gurung countered easily. He’d long ago added Muy Thai to his Kung Jiu workout, and slipped in a couple of hard kicks of his own to Dromian’s thighs, kicks that would slowly take their toll.
Suddenly, Dromian roared and charged in low, going for a grapple. Gurung slammed his pommel onto the man’s back to little effect. Gurung had been aiming for the base of the skull, but the move caught him by surprise. Dromian seized Gurung around the waist and lifted, clearly aiming to throw the human out of the ring.
Gurung wrapped both his arms around his opponent’s head and held on tight. Dromian tried to shove him over the rail, but Gurung wouldn’t let himself be peeled off.
Once it was clear he couldn’t get Gurung out this way, Dromian reared back and slammed Gurung’s back against the rail. Though he knew it was coming, the agony almost paralyzed him as the blow fell on his left kidney. Keeping his left arm locked around Dromian’s head, he levered his blade around to dig its point into the Furmian’s face. He was aiming for the eye, but Dromian jerked back and let go, slipping out from under Gurung’s grip.
The Furmian was breathing heavily already, clearly out of condition, unlike Gurung. Maybe that s
hould be his strategy—outlast the man. In the pause he became aware of the crowd yelling and hooting. He thought some of them were cheering him rather than his opponent.
Dromian shifted his grip on his blade to hold its point upward, like Gurung’s. Why? Some trick or technique? Was it a renewed willingness to stab or cut with the dull edge, risking disaster in order to win? And, as Gurung had showed, even if life was not at stake, the possibility of losing an eye was daunting.
Or of losing something else? These Furmians were proud of their families, prizing their ability to have lots of children. He wondered if a kick in the stones would pain a Furmian as much as a human. Cam’s parts had all been reasonably familiar—convergent evolution again, or species-mixing?—so he presumed Furmian men had soft parts to protect...
But no, they’d made a point of honorable fighting. He had to do it another way.
No killing. No dirty fighting. Everything went against a modern soldier’s training here.
Dromian lunged for him again, going for another grapple. This time, Gurung was ready. He danced away and slashed, opening up long bloody cuts on the man’s flung-wide arms.
Dromian was slowing. He was puffing now, and bleeding. Gurung was now certain that his best chance was to exhaust the larger man. Putting this strategy to the test, he made quick slashing attacks, refusing to get in close, circling and side-stepping.
“You dance and weave like a woman!” Dromian roared at him. “You dishonor this ring, and our traditions!”
Gurung sensed the crowd was listening. Even if he won this, he couldn’t have it said that his victory was tainted.
“Let us see, then,” he said loudly, “if Dromian can defeat a woman, or if he is too weak for even that.”
The crowd laughed. It wasn’t a full-throated roar, and there were no jeers, but they did find it funny.
Dromian’s face was darkly flushed when he came on, thrusting for Gurung’s vitals. Perhaps, Gurung thought, he’d miscalculated again. If he enraged Dromian so much that he would go for a killing thrust, that gave the bigger man a new advantage.
