Ambassador 11: The Forgotten War

by Patty Jansen

Veyada did not like to talk about elephants.

  “Personally, I’m not a fan of monkeys,” I said.

  “No.” That sounded like a solid agreement.

  “What about squirrels?” I asked.

  “Squirrels are all right. But they can still be annoying, like they all got into the aircraft and made a mess of the lunch things. I don’t get why all these creatures have to poke their noses into our affairs.”

  “Food.”

  “I guess. I just object to it being my food or even being the food.”

  I was still trying to convince him that the elephant that chased him over the fence hadn’t been wanting to eat him, but I suspected that was a losing battle.

  We continued slowly across the plain, our way lit by the headlights from the buggy.

  Sage was right. The creek bed was quite close, down a mild slope. It consisted of more rocks and boulders, and as far as I could see, no water. I didn’t see much of the promised grass either.

  There was no sign of Ynggi. I didn’t see any animals. No rabbits, no coyote. The night was deathly quiet and dark.

  The only thing I could hear were the soft voices of Reida and Anyu who sat in the back of the buggy and were logging our progress.

  Then there was a shout in the dark.

  It sounded like Junco.

  Reida shouted at us, “He’s coming your way. On the other side of the creek.”

  I directed my light at the far side of the gully, where little clumps of grass clung to the stony ground.

  First an animal ran out across the beam of light at incredible speed. It was the size of a cat, had big powerful legs and enormous ears.

  The rabbit.

  Then Ynggi followed, also at incredible speed. He had devised a weapon by tying a piece of string to a rock.

  Pengali kids in Barresh used these improvised slings to catch meili out of the air. The rock would flip around the animal, pinning its wings together with the string and bringing it down. Meili were poor eating, so elders frowned on this behaviour as being cruel and undesirable. But kids did it, anyway.

  Ynggi threw the rock. The string went neatly around the rabbit’s neck, ensnaring the animal. It tried to get away but could not, jumping and kicking around. Ynggi reeled in the string and jumped on top of it.

  Then he rose again, holding the animal by the foot.

  On his back, on another piece of string, dangled a second rabbit.

  The dog trotted after him.

  Ynggi moved the tip of his tail down, and the dog sat down. They both looked like kids caught doing something naughty.

  “Well well,” Junco said. “That was quite something. I have to admit I’ve never seen anyone do that before.”

  Ynggi gathered up his two rabbits, dusted himself off and came across the creek bed. He was in traditional Pengali gear, which meant little clothing and no shoes. He had cut open his shin and one of his toenails was bleeding. This was very different country from where he was used to running around barefoot.

  He went to Sage. He bowed and presented him with the two rabbits.

  “Are these for me?” Sage asked, sounding a little puzzled, looking at me.

  “I think so. The Pengali have a powerful tradition that involves offering food in reparation for misunderstandings and mistakes. They always bring fish when they come to visit me at my apartment. They don’t feel happy if they can’t bring food to an important meeting.”

  “Reparation?”

  “About attacking your dog.”

  “I don’t mind about the dog,” Sage said. “They seem to have made up, anyway.”

  “I told him that, and I told him that the animal probably has a reaction to him because of his smell, but that doesn’t matter. He needs to do what his tribe would consider the right thing. Even though the tribe is not here, he believes that they can see him if he acts dishonourably. He will have thought that by accidentally attacking your dog, he did something improper.”

  “Hah. Don’t worry about it. The animal is stupid anyway, and it was a good lesson for him. I’ve long thought that sooner or later the stupid thing is going to have his nose bitten by a coyote.”

  “I have told him that, but that doesn’t matter. Because if he is convince the tribe will think that he did something wrong, which he did, because he disrespected something that was someone else’s property, then he will have to make repairs. The rabbits are yours. He would be honoured if you took them and if you told him you were going to eat them.”

  “I will certainly do that. Those look like good specimens. I’m amazed how he caught them.”

  Sage took the rabbits and said to Ynggi that he appreciated it.

  The dog followed him, holding its tail low as Ynggi did.

  Nicha was right. There were some tail dynamics going on between Ynggi and the dog. Just like the Pengali kids and the squirrel.

  Sage chuckled. “Well, I guess we’ve all learned something. I’ll put these in the cool box and will skin them tomorrow. I’m of a mind to make me some mittens.”

  “Does he like them?” Ynggi asked.

  “Yes. He’s happy.”

  I was going to say something else, but a thunder-like rumble in the distance made us all fall quiet. The sound echoed over the desert plain.

  We all looked at each other by the glow of the buggy’s headlights.

  “What the hell was that?” Sage said.

  “I think that’s thunder,” Reida said.

  “It sounds different,” I said.

  “Thunder only sounds that way in Barresh because of the nearby rock wall of the escarpment.”

  I had to grant him that. Thunder sounded very different in Barresh. Quite scary actually. “But there are no clouds.”

  Both Sage and Junco studied the sky.

  “It did sound like thunder, except it hasn’t thundered here for as long as I can remember,” Sage said. “It doesn’t rain much here, especially at this time of the year.”

  “Then what was it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” Junco sounded puzzled. “Something to do with a military exercise, I’m thinking. It’s probably not as close as we think.”

  Ah yes, I remembered how my team had picked up talk about military activity. Atlantia was doing exercises. But that was an awfully long way from here. Maybe America Free State responded with its own exercises. Countries really were as childish as that.

  Whatever the sound was, it killed the conversation. Both our guides didn’t like it, even if they also acted like they didn’t worry about it. We decided it was time to go to sleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The fact that Junco and Sage worried about the unknown sound disturbed me more than I liked to admit. They knew this area and its dangers well. They clearly didn’t like what they heard.

  Most likely, it was nothing that affected us, but it might affect Sage and Junco. Military exercises could be the precursor to armed conflict. This area was relatively stable, but that was only because few people lived here. The area housed military bases and training grounds that aided conflict elsewhere.

  If nothing else, it reminded me of how vulnerable we were out here in this strange country.

  When we returned to the buildings, and before we went to sleep, I told Reida to check if he could find out anything about it.

  Reida spent some time fiddling with his equipment in the corner of the room. Anyu joined in for a bit, before he came over to my sleeping mat and told me that there was a military base not too far off and that it was his guess that there had been an exercise, but also that he couldn’t verify that because there was no connectivity. He said he’d leave the receivers on overnight to see if they could gather something from passing satellites—most notably the Exchange’s, one of which was due to fly over a bit after midnight.

  Other than the sleeping mats, Junco had also collected a tank of water which sat down
stairs in a room for us to wash, but most of us were used to desert living and I was the only one who used it, and then only not to give Junco the impression that he’d put in the effort for nothing.

  It was dark and kind of creepy in the empty building when I went downstairs. Soft sounds came out of the dark hall. It was probably peeled-off cladding flapping in the breeze, but in my mind, I saw rats and other vermin crawling all over the place.

  When I came back upstairs, many of my team were already asleep.

  I thought I’d have trouble sleeping. The mats were quite thin, the floor was hard, and the icy breeze kept prying into places where I didn’t want it.

  But my body was finally catching up with me, and thinking I’d probably lie awake all night was the last thing I remembered.

  I woke up when the window facing me was a pale purple rectangle, but everything else in the room was still dark. The members of my team I could see were still asleep.

  I went to the window, trying to be as quiet as possible, and breathed the cool, earthy air.

  The plain below stretched away from the building all the way across the valley to the gully and continued on the other side. I couldn’t figure out where we had found Ynggi last night. I thought I could see buggy tracks in the soft sand directly underneath the window, but little else.

  Not all of the mats were still occupied, so I went downstairs.

  Junco and Sage must be up as well, because the sound of their voices and the smell of cooking drifted into the factory hall.

  I found Reida and Anyu in a corner of the hall, using the metal structure that supported the roof as an antenna for the receiver.

  They seemed busy, so I crossed the hall without disturbing them.

  I stopped at the door. Junco and Sage had made a fire and sat drinking tea while warming themselves. The air was hazy with pale mist. What a peaceful, rustic scene in sharp contrast with the dystopian quality of the abandoned factory.

  Someone else from my team came down the stairs, a dark shape too far away for me to see who it was. Sheydu, probably.

  Veyada had also joined Reida and Anyu, and indeed Sheydu had appeared. They sat on the floor surrounding the transmitter. Its light was blinking. Sheydu was wearing the earpiece, pressing it to her ear. What were they listening to?

  I went back to join them.

  “Try that one,” Anyu said.

  Sheydu fiddled some more. She shook her head. “It’s gone out of range.”

  “Is anything the matter?” I asked.

  They turned around.

  “We’re not sure,” Sheydu said. I didn’t like the concerned tone in her voice. “We can’t reach the Exchange right now. The satellites are out of range or the signal is too weak. We can get some local news. The translations suggest something may have happened, but it’s hard to establish a source of reference in the local news sources. We need to understand their protocols and reporting framework.”

  Eh, yes, Sheydu. Thank you for that level of crystal clarity. “Maybe I can help. Do you want me to translate anything you’ve picked up?”

  She handed me an earpiece, and after I put it on, Anyu cycled through several frequencies. One of them played music, another seemed to be some sort of talk show. Someone was discussing “affected areas”, referring to a map I couldn’t see, because we didn’t have the accompanying visual channel.

  Then a clear voice blasted into my ear from a broadcast station that was featuring a news bulletin.

  A male voice said, “… and there has been no news from the affected area. Rescue forces have been sent in to determine the extent of the damage. We would recommend that all residents remain indoors and keep listening for official announcements.”

  Affected area? Rescue forces? Damage?

  I looked at them. “Something has happened.”

  “Yes, we agree. We got that far, but we have no idea what.”

  A crash, an explosion. Whatever we’d heard last night? It wasn’t a military exercise? What was the “affected area”? Crap. My thoughts wandered to Thayu and Emi. But surely they were too far away and would be about to prepare for a day on the beach. They might worry about us, though.

  Someone called outside for breakfast.

  The breakfast offering involved eggs and meat, so most of my team resorted to their supplies, even if Ynggi appreciated the eggs.

  He’d had eggs before and knew these were bird eggs, but he attempted to explain to Sage that in Barresh the Pengali ate lizard eggs. They were a bit smaller and soft-shelled. You ate them whole. Keihu would pickle them, often with the baby lizard recognisably inside. I was no fan of those.

  Since having made up with his dog, Ynggi followed Sage around everywhere, watching precisely what he did.

  I asked Sage if he had heard any local news, and he said he had not. He said he didn’t care much about what other people called “news”, unimportant gossip and other busybody stuff.

  “Townsfolk are crazy people,” he said. “They make a big thing out of stuff that’s not important, and then they wonder why there is no food on the shelves or no water in the tanks and things like that. Dumb and ignorant. That’s what they are.”

  “You weren’t worried about the sound we heard last night?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Not much point worrying about something unless I know what it is, right?”

  “True.”

  “If we worried every time something unusual happened, I can tell you, we’d have no life.”

  I hoped he was right, but clearly, he was worried and he was being cavalier about it.

  After breakfast we packed up, and handed Junco all our bags, before completing the scan of the buildings on the site.

  Sage had already left without saying goodbye. I told Junco to tell Sage that we had appreciated his assistance when the two next met.

  We finished the remaining work by mid-morning, by which time the sun was bright and the field outside had once again turned pale and dusty.

  Junco announced that we were going to see one more tourist attraction before flying back.

  “This is our best local spot,” he said. “It would be a pity for you to miss it.”

  We all got into the craft and took off for a short flight over the desert landscape.

  Again, we came over the town. The utter desolation of it made me wonder why anyone would want to live there. Maybe it looked better on the ground. Maybe it was because people were social creatures and stuck together, even if there was nothing to stick together for.

  Sage didn’t live in town, Junco said. He lived on the other side of the lake in the reserve, because he had enough native blood to do so.

  Whether that area was any prettier, though, Junco couldn’t say. I suspected he didn’t see much wrong with the town. He said people lived there because it had a lake, there was always enough water, and now that the factories had closed, governments left the townsfolk alone. Being left alone was a big thing in America Free State, I understood that much.

  We landed on a flat piece of land that again might once have been a parking area.

  We followed a paved path that led up a slight incline and then down to a viewing platform.

  It looked out over an incredible u-shaped canyon with water flowing at its very bottom. A dry wind whipped hair in our faces.

  “That is pretty,” Veyada said next to me.

  “Finally, something Asto doesn’t have?”

  He grinned.

  Deep in the canyon, the water flowed lazily around the bend past rock formations and little sandy beaches edged with a ribbon of green. There was not another person, not a bird, nor a squirrel in sight.

  I turned around to ask Reida what he thought, but the other members of my team were not paying attention to the scenery. Anyu and Sheydu were again listening to something they had picked up, trying to communicate with the Exchange, or listening in on the various local broad
casts. Their actions worried me. Thayu said that an important aspect of being a spy was to develop a good gut feeling. Coldi used the word berzhyu, which translated as “what we don’t know” and that translation didn’t do the word justice. It was used very specifically by security when they spoke of things they couldn’t prove but strongly suspected to be the case. Agents would not speak of facts they considered berzhyu until they had proof. I suspected that such a scenario was playing out right now. They knew something was happening. They might even have an idea what it was. They wouldn’t tell me until they were sure. It was very frustrating.

  I was ready to rejoin the rest of the team.

  The trip had been reasonably successful. I hadn’t found out amazing things, but little things I could work with. Enough for a report to Ezhya. Enough to figure out where the craft in Barresh had originated.

  We returned to the patch of dirt next to the road where Junco’s gyrocopter stood.

  Someone shouted.

  Sheydu, who walked in front of me, yanked her gun from under her jacket.

  She called, “Watch out!”

  Reida jumped next to me, also pulling his weapon from his belt.

  Between him and Sheydu, I noticed a couple of figures running out of a gully, coming towards us. I counted five.

  Young men, locals, judging by their clothing. They wore the same sand-coloured trousers that Sage had worn. They hid their noses and mouths under colourful scarves and the tops of their heads under wide-brimmed hats.

  Junco swore.

  “Who are they? What’s going on?” I asked him.

  The youths had stopped and faced us. One of them yelled a few words. All of them carried weapons.

  Junco cursed. “They’re idiots. Wait. I’ll deal with them.”

  He pushed himself between Reida and Sheydu, but as he crossed the space in between us and the group of five, a quad bike came out of the gully with two more men.

  It stopped on the path that led back to the gyrocopter.

  So—they wanted to steal it? They wanted our luggage?

  With the canyon at our back and a group of armed men at the front, we had nowhere to go.