Koban Universe 2: Have Genes, Will Travel

by Stephen W Bennett

  “Why’s that? I said we’d meet with you. I just didn’t guarantee we’d work for you.”

  The man pointed down the alley, at the other street. “I saw the confrontation from the bar entrance. When it didn’t lead to real gunplay, and you met with them by that truck, I figured you hashed out your differences and had taken the money Gregos offered. Those men were his cowhands.”

  “Nope, no deal yet. I had another surprise meeting with Egerton earlier tonight. I have not accepted any offer yet, and no specific amount of money was discussed. We were on our way to meet with you. Are there others waiting for us there?”

  “Not like what happened with Gregos’ men. Not a possible ambush if you don’t accept our offer and decide to take theirs. At least not tonight.” He flashed a nervous smile at the last admission.

  “Your honesty is appreciated. I actually think they only intended to take me to meet their boss, but they might have also decided to attack you if they knew where we were meeting.”

  “You only think that? You didn’t pick their brains, or whatever it is I hear you people can do?”

  “Ah. You did your homework on us. Then you may have heard that we aren’t omnipotent mind readers.”

  “In theory, if I don't want you to know what’s on my mind, all I have to do is not think about what I want concealed, or not let you touch me when I do. Not much chance I could stop you from touching me.”

  “Wrong theory. You probably can’t help thinking about a subject I bring up to you, although what we have is called contact telepathy. Where you’re wrong is that with very little practice you can think of whatever you want, but simply decide you don’t want me to know. It’s little different from refusing to answer a question aloud. We call it blocking. I’ll know that you did that, but not why. We normally respect other people’s privacy, if we don’t suspect there’s a threat against us, and I’m not always trying to read people.”

  “I learned someone can even make up a thought that’s a lie to fool you.”

  “Yep. Humans are good at that. You’re not making it easier for us to trust you before we discuss what you wanted to hire us for, but telling us this is actually a point in your favor. I don’t think you’d have enough skill yet to guard your thoughts completely, nor would those people you’ve confided in previously be able to that.”

  He agreed. “Ok. I may have some secrets I don't want to reveal, but I do know we need help countering the hundred or so men the big ranchers have hired, and some of them are outright killers. They are turning us into killers just to survive, and to keep our property. We don’t like it, but we won’t roll over and let them win.”

  “Mr. Chastain, why don’t we get off the open street and have our meeting before you’re seen with us?”

  “What? I don't get introduced to your blue partner first?”

  There was a chuffing sound from Kit, her equivalent of a laugh. “My name is Kit. I’m pleased to meet you Mr. Chastain. My brother here was raised on a wild planet without the benefit of a social upbringing, which other civilized humans take for granted.”

  Chastain smiled. “Call me Jeff. I’ve never spoken to an alien before. Do we shake paws, sniff butts or what?”

  “Well, if you want to get formal you could pet my neck while I pee on your boot.”

  Chastain looked at Ethan with a quizzical expression. “The neck’s where her telepathic frill is located isn’t it? She’s tricky.”

  “You have no idea,” Ethan replied.

  The three of them headed for the feed store and the scheduled midnight meeting. Kit offered a private Comtap opinion. “I think I smell a man we may be able to trust.”

  “I’m thinking the same thing.” Ethan agreed.

  Chapter 4: Hired and Terminated

  Surrounded by the musty smell of bags of animal feed in a warehouse located behind the feed store, Chastain introduced Ethan and Kit to three other men that had gathered to provide moral and protective support for Chastain. They were all members of the Stock Growers Association, but unlike the affluent members of the CCA, they had no private club, not even personal private offices within their local headquarters.

  The three men said they took turns handling SGA business, and felt even their office work marked them as uncomfortable subjects of interest, because they frequently observed men stationed along the street, who were clearly watching who came and went from their small office. Saying the watchers were armed would be redundant, since with rare exception, Ethan had seen few men who were not armed here. That aspect of Chisholm society had initially seemed completely normal to Ethan and Kit, because on Koban, even children went outside armed. Starting with nonlethal weapons, until they were about six, and after that with small arms until age ten. Although, unlike Chisholm, Koban had fast and deadly animals everywhere, on land, in the air, and in most waters. Even some plants had the ability to strike and paralyze or poison a careless passerby.

  Chisholm was relatively safe from natural hazards, and was an established human colony world. The sense of threat here mainly appeared to come from other people. Seeing so many people feeling the necessity of being armed against their fellow man wasn’t particularly reassuring.

  In fact, Ethan wasn’t reassured by his potential clients. “If you four less-than-intimidating men are typical of the opposition facing the hundred hired guns of the biggest ranchers of the CCA, how in hell have you stayed alive this long?”

  The three men looked uncomfortable, and turned to Chastain.

  “I think I’m safe gentlemen, these two found me on the street and escorted me here. If I were at risk from them, I’d be dead already. After I saw them handle nine of Gregos’ men without killing them, I thought they’d decided to work for the other side. Apparently not. You three should go home. You’ve never been on a raid, and you don't need to be drawn into the discussion I’m about to have with them. I wanted to have you watch my back if I needed that tonight, and you were here for me and I thank you.

  “The less you know about what those of us out on the range have done, or will do, the better for your own security. I don't like what we’ve had to do, and we need you men to stay in the clear, totally legal, making the off world marketing deals for our livestock, and the local deals for our produce, which justifies our presidential land grants. Otherwise, we’ll all go broke and lose our lands to the CCA’s open range goals anyway. Thanks for being here, and be safe as you travel home.” The three men said their goodnights, and departed.

  Once alone, Chastain immediately opened a discussion and negotiation with the strange pair. “I didn’t know an alien tiger would be one of the people I was hiring to defend us from the CCA raiders. Although, I can certainly see Kit’s advantage in being able to track them over any terrain after they raid one of our ranches or farms. But, Kit, how can you fight back against guns when they see you? I’ll be asked why I should pay you the same credits as for Mr. Greeves.”

  Kit offered a rebuttal. “You said they will see me coming. That’s not likely. When a ripper stalks prey for food, they are not seen or they don't eat. However, I must add that the ability to hit me with a gunshot, even if I’m seen, will require considerable luck, because most humans do not have the speed or skill to hit one of my people when we are on the attack. We were the source of the genes for speed and strength that humans borrowed, so that they could move as we do, in order to fight the Krall. We also fought the Krall alongside the Kobani on the ground, and those enemy warriors were certainly armed, and certainly stronger and faster than a normal human is.

  “Even without you having combat experience, I think you would agree that an armed Krall is considerably more dangerous than an armed normal human is. Ask any of the veterans of the PU army that faced Krall warriors on the ground. We rippers suffered wounded, but only a few fatalities in fighting against them. Let me propose this. If I’m killed, you don’t owe me the balance of my contract. Assuming we come to an agreement of what that pay will be. If I’m dead, I won’t care, a
nd I don’t expect you pay me all of it in advance anyway.”

  “Ok. I can accept that, and our financial backers will accept my recommendation. The initial Hub credits I offered you two, using that odd link you call Instellarnet, was one quarter in advance to travel here. You have done that. Another quarter was to be paid promptly if we came to terms on a contract. We’ll do that tonight or call it off. The final half of the sum discussed was never really a fixed amount, because what we expect of you could not be negotiated before we met you, and before you saw what we were facing. Mr. Greeves, I was favorably impressed by your arrival, which I heard about, and your actions a short time ago. What do you think about our opposition? The nine you met tonight are not their best, by far.”

  Ethan grinned. “I’d prefer if you called me Ethan, if I can call you Jeff. We’re a famously informal people.”

  “Sure.”

  “OK, Jeff. I want to know more about why you wanted to hire us, what you expect us to do for you, and what you are doing for yourselves.”

  “Huh. I expected you to ask me what we’ll pay you for each kill you make for us. That’s how we think the CCA pays their hit men. I know you’ve talked to Gregos men.”

  “I spoke to Egerton before that, in the Social Club. We never got into pay details with either group, because we have other criterion to consider than just pay. We may not like what you have to say either. Why do you need to hire outside help for your side? What has happened to you that you need us, and what have you been doing while waiting for such help?”

  “I’ll be frank. I won’t tell you what we’ve done, since it’s considered criminal. I will tell you why we need to do something, what the CCA has done to us. Will that be enough?”

  “Do you know anything about our mental abilities?”

  “I hear you Kobani can read minds if you make a physical connection, and that with practice ordinary people can keep their thoughts private.”

  “True. And I’d like your permission to have Kit share your thoughts about why you needed us. What has happened to the people you represent. I can do it, but as a human, I tend to interpret things I read in another human’s mind with a bit of bias. I’ll not say what my bias might be right now, but Kit is much less biased because she isn’t human. I’ll defer to her opinion, if you are willing to make physical contact with her.”

  “I know you could force that contact on me. Why ask?”

  “For one thing, you didn’t send gunmen to force me into meeting with you, or to chase us off.”

  “I did have watchers tell me where you were. I was in the back of bar, staying out of sight, to see how you behaved. To see if you were like the thugs we have to face.”

  “Not as out of sight as you thought. We both saw you, and knew you were watching us. How do you think we happened to meet up with you on the street? That wasn’t coincidence.”

  “Oh. OK. I’ll let Kit touch me and sense my thoughts. Does it hurt?”

  “Nope. But you can do the touching. Just place your hand on the top or side of her neck, on that raised low ring of flesh with the shorthaired fur. I believe you already know it’s called a frill. Any patch of her skin works, as it will with me, but her frill is the most sensitive and the nerves there connect directly to her brain’s language center, as do the nerves in my fingertips and hands. So that you know, we can send you thoughts and mental images as well as receive yours, and we can’t sense every thought you’ve ever had in a flood. We sense mainly what you consciously think about at the time. Unless you think about your breakfast this morning, or a fight with your wife, we won’t learn anything about that.”

  Chastain stepped closer to Kit, who studiously avoided showing any teeth as he did so. He tentatively placed his hand on the back of her neck on the indicated inch wide roll of what seemed to be slightly raised fatty issue, but which proved to be as hard as the muscles of her neck. His fingers easily passed through the thinner short fur and made contact with the underlying skin.

  He though he heard a question from Kit’s translator disk, but it wasn’t as deep as before, and not only was it spoken softer and more clearly, there was an image in his mind of his own pistol. She asked, “Have you ever used that gun to kill anyone?”

  Startled, he visualized the three men he and four others had tracked and caught around a late supper campfire. He recalled the gunfight that ensued and the deaths of the three men, who had resisted violently. He had fired on two of them and assumed he had contributed to their deaths. He thought of the hanging they had intended for those three men, who had cut fences, shot cattle, and had burned a ranch house with a family inside, and killed the man defending his home.

  He also leaked a thought of capturing another known CCA gunman, who he had helped capture at gunpoint, and he and eight other men had hung him from a tree. That man had been responsible for the killing of a sheepherder, and of cutting fences and chasing off livestock, dozens of which he had shot and killed. He had confessed that Nathaniel Egerton had hired him, just before they hung him.

  Unknown to Chastain, a Comtap link could provide a remote telepathic link, so that his emotions and mental images were being shared and not just the words. Kit had opened a link to Ethan as she received Chastain’s thoughts.

  “Sis, I don’t see his actions as being so different from what ours would be under similar circumstances. I wouldn’t hang them, but that sort of penalty for crimes was never part of Koban’s culture. Death by my own hand might seem appropriate to me if there was no legal system to deal with these criminals. Ask him why the men they captured weren’t turned over to the law for punishment.”

  She did. “Shouldn’t you and your friends have handed over the criminals to the law for punishment?”

  Chastain paid attention this time, and he was positive the words came directly into his mind, and not his ears. “Is this how you two communicate with each other?” He didn’t consider simply thinking his words.

  “Yes, but we can share these kind of images as well.” She returned the mental images she’d received of the man he’d helped hang, including the twitching feet as the man choked to death.

  “You got that from me!” He blurted aloud, and she replied in kind, audibly.

  “Of course. However, I asked you why he wasn’t turned over to the law, with the evidence that you and the men with you discovered. Couldn’t you offer your testimony of how you followed him from where he committed his other crimes, and from the scene of the murder he was hanged for?”

  “You met Sheriff MacKinnon. Did either one of you have a chance to read his mind? He’s not as bad as many other sheriffs I know of, or their deputies, but he’s certainly on the CCA payroll, as are many judges and prosecuting attorneys. They won’t bring charges against the men we bring in, or else the prisoners get out on bail before trial and vanish. They’ll disappear until they raid another ranch or farm, and leave no witnesses the next time, and less evidence.

  “Two of our people, who were prepared to testify against a killer they helped catch, and both saw the killing happen, were murdered in ambushes. One was killed on his own ranch, the other one on the road to town to buy supplies. The cases were dismissed due to lack of witnesses. Most of the law on this continent, or anywhere cattle is the main business, seldom works fairly for small cattle ranchers when we oppose the big ranchers business practices, and their open range policy. Certainly it’s not fair for dirt farmers or sheep men, not anytime, no matter if they go against the big cattle owners or not. Using the land the way they do is crime enough to be run off or killed. The sheriff of Bison is an honest man, and that particular town elects their sheriff and judges. They aren’t simply hired or appointed by higher authorities that are in bed with the big ranchers.”

  “In bed?” Kit didn’t understand the reference.

  Ethan explained. “Like a husband and wife, who will provide favors to one another because they sleep together and have sex.”

  Kit chuffed. “Humans and your strange mating practices. I
didn’t know about the sexual practices between men who enforced your laws and the wealthy men who bribe them.”

  Ethan shook his head and ignored her. “Jeff, I don’t think we need to know everything that you and your people have done to stop the crimes being committed against you. I picked up enough of how the men who work for Egerton and Gregos operate, and what they are paid to do for them. I don't even need to know the actual thoughts of the men in charge, who give them their orders. I won’t pretend that I think you and the SGA are pure as snow, but the other side hires positively bad men, and their bosses issue orders that make them evil, greedy men. I’m willing to work for you at the original sum we discussed. How about you Kit?”

  She snorted her agreement, and said, “I knew that I favored working for his side even before I frilled him, but I’m more certain now, after sensing his regret at some of the things he’s had to do to protect his pride.”

  Now it was Chastain that spoke, not grasping what Kit meant. “I can’t believe you sensed that from me. I never thought I was a very prideful man.”

  The explanation came from Ethan, yet again. “She doesn’t mean you display something like arrogance or vanity. Rippers live in social societies, where between five to twenty family members live together and cooperate in hunts, much like lion prides once did on Earth. You protect your friends and family, or as we say, your pride.”

  “Then why do you say they’re like tigers, which were solitary hunters, right?”

  Ethan shrugged. “Koban wasn’t discovered by a human survey team that sent scientists to study and classify the lifeforms there before people started to live there. The first humans on the planet were random captives of the Krall, placed on there without any information about the planet or its life. When the first prisoners there saw a large, fast, and powerful cat-like predator, with graceful movements, they thought it seemed like a tiger to them, which were extinct on Earth. That general description came long before the captives knew they weren’t solitary creatures. The specific name we came to use for them later was ripper, a translation from a Krall word for them. So today we say rippers are Koban tigers.”