The Goddess Denied (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 2)

by Deborah Davitt

  Birth-control had taken a few years of testing. Adam knew more than he really wanted to about this, thanks to Saraid and Sigrun’s involvement with the fenris, but apparently, it was a once-daily treatment in the form of a . . . dog biscuit. The females could take it, or not, as they wished, and some few had asked to have themselves spayed after they had already had a litter of puppies. The problem with this was the fenris’ ability to heal. Like a jotun, they could regenerate even a lost paw or eye, given time. That meant that a hysterectomy wasn’t a permanent method of birth control. So, the vast majority of them opted for the daily treatment. Vaccinations were apparently almost nil; they weren’t susceptible to rabies, heartworms, or other diseases.

  Today, Adam had two meetings that he didn’t want to miss. The first was an eleven antemeridian conference out at the university, with Kanmi, Minori, Sigrun, and someone named Dr. Larus Sillen. Kanmi had told him that this was his birthday present, however much in advance it might be, and that he could thank them for it later.

  Adam headed to the campus, which was north of the sprawling Little Nippon neighborhood, in and around the tangle of skyscrapers far to the west of Old Town Jerusalem that made up the commercial heart of the city. He parked, and found someone who could guide him to the appropriate building, and frowned when he found it. This wasn’t Kanmi’s normal stomping grounds, in the brand-new Thaumaturgy building, or in the new library extension being built to house the Magi contributions. Now that he was really looking at the address, he thought he recognized it, though he’d never set foot in it. He’d mailed any number of his correspondence courses here, decades ago. Ben Avrim Hall. The High Energy Physics and Astronomy building.

  Inside, he found his way through gray hallways and past illogically-numbered doors, until he found the lab to which he’d been summoned, and tapped at the door. “There you are,” Kanmi said, quietly. “The presentation’s just started. We saved you a seat at the front.”

  Adam moved into the darkened room, and took a seat between Minori and Sig, and just stared for a moment. Standing on a stage in front of a projector was a fenris. One wearing, to Adam’s total disbelief, wire-frame spectacles. There was a calculus set up to his left—a ley-powered one, with a spherical visual output device. The fenris periodically nosed the controls to switch which slides were being shown on the main screen, and explained, in everyone’s minds, We know from the 1975 AC Mars landing that there is suitable bedrock for habitations in the Cydonia region. This region is located in the transitional area between what we believe to be ancient ocean beds in the north—mostly dunes of red sand, today, all low in elevation, though high in latitude—and the southern chaotic region, pockmarked as it is with craters.

  My proposal is akin to the existing L’banah colony. There are ample buttes and mesas in the Cydonia region, into which we could tunnel. Not only would examining the rock strata be intriguing, in terms of understanding the geological—pardon me, areological processes—that formed these terrain features, but we would be digging into deep enough rock to provide natural radiation barriers for personnel and equipment. The fenris paused, and flipped slides with his nose again. The biggest impediment for colonization efforts is the same as experienced on the moon: a lack of water. There is evidence in the terrain of major outflow events in the past, and that water must have gone somewhere. Aquifers may exist under the surface, and core drilling in the Cydonia region has potential for finding that missing water; it is, again, close to the vanished oceans. However, the polar region itself may hide the water as ice, under the cap of frozen carbon dioxide, in which case, a transportation system would have to be devised to make any long-term colonization feasible.

  Adam was sitting motionlessly, his eyes wide, and had taken Sigrun’s hand in his own. This fulfilled of many of his dreams of space travel, and seeing a fenris discuss this was icing on a very rich cake.

  “Why can’t we just bring water with us, like we did to L’banah?” someone at the back of the room asked.

  We would have to, at first, yes. And the recycling systems, and hydroponics systems first pioneered on L’banah would be invaluable in starting any Martian colony larger than a minor scientific outpost. However, L’banah is, at least, close enough to Earth that if there is any contamination of the water and air, we can resupply the colony quickly. There is currently no way around the two-year minimum space flight to Mars, and that flight duration can increase, depending on orbital logistics. The fenris’ spectacles had slipped down his snout, and a graduate assistant scuttled onto the stage to lift them back into place for him, and brought him a bowl of water, as well, from which the fenris now lapped, noisily. Any long-term colonization will require the terraforming of the planet. And that will require stocks of water that Earth literally cannot afford to move across the void of space. Some writers have suggested the use of comets. That might be feasible, but I would prefer the use of native water, if available.

  The discussion panel went on for forty-five minutes, and Adam drank in every moment of it. When the lights came up, Minori turned and looked at him, and he realized he probably had an inane grin on his face when she laughed. “All right, Kanmi-kun,” she told her husband. “I think we may have made his year for him.”

  “You did,” Adam said, fervently. “Is there any chance I could get an introduction?”

  Sigrun chuckled faintly, as the room began to clear out. “Actually . . . yes.”

  Sigrun Stormborn, as I live and breathe! It has been far too long since Gotaland. The fenris bounded down the stairs now, and dropped to his haunches, panting genially, tendrils of frost-white air curling out of his mouth as he did. Adam understood now that the fenris freezing-breath attack came from specialized glands at the back of their throat . . . and that it also enabled them to cool themselves in warmer climates. Although many had taken to having their heavy white coats trimmed by professional groomers here in the city. I thought I caught your scent in the audience. And this is your mate? I mean, your husband? Keen, blue, intelligent eyes studied Adam thoughtfully, and the professor offered him a paw to shake.

  “Dr. Sillen? This is an honor.” Adam smiled, being sure to keep his teeth covered; baring them to a fenris was tantamount to a threat. “I take it you smell Sig here on me.”

  And you on her, but it’s bad manners to discuss that, yes? A lupine grin, complete with lolling tongue.

  Sigrun choked, and Kanmi practically brayed with laughter. Adam’s grin threatened to split his face. “If I may ask without offense? Why on earth hasn’t Sari turned you into a hve . . . ah, a lycanthrope? You could type, you could write, you could . . . do everything you used to do.”

  Dr. Sillen shifted on his paws. All they could turn me into is a jotun. A jotun would have just as many difficulties typing on a human-sized typewriter. Holding a human-sized pen. I could dictate lectures and notes into a recording device, but I already have to dictate them to my assistant as is. And, in the end, I asked Saraid to skip me. To use the energy to transform someone who needed it more. I remember who I am. Down to the family name. There are those who are lost in wolf form. Whose selves are threatened. I am not one of them. He paused, and his tongue lolled out again. Besides. The physics department has dubbed me the most personable faculty-member in the building. And I can keep my students in line, merely by showing my teeth. What more could I ask for?

  “A lifetime supply of dentally-friendly biscuits and a comely young . . . hmm. Bitch is the offensive term, right?” Kanmi said, pausing.

  We prefer female to bitch, yes.

  “Then a comely young female with whom to share your life.”

  Perhaps in time. The odds are against me, however. Sillen sounded calm about that, however, and conversation turned to Mars, and space exploration once more.

  That had been a . . . more than acceptable way to spend the late morning, and into lunch. Lunch for a fenris could consist of up to five pounds of kibble, or, in Sillen’s case, four pounds of raw hamburger mixed with equally raw egg.
Human cooks insist on putting garlic in cooked foods. It rather disagrees with fenris digestion, I’m afraid. He ate quickly and neatly, sitting at the end of the table that they all shared in the university cafeteria, while Adam, with a sigh, ordered a salad with orange slices and chicken. He’d once eaten salads out of necessity on the road. Now, no matter how much jogging he did, or how many times a week he sparred, he was fighting middle age’s more gravitic tendencies, and thus, had to watch what he ate.

  As he and Sigrun left campus, this time together, Adam asked her, “So you met Larus up north?”

  “Yes. A professor’s mind, and he was an exceptional fighter, as well. Took a grendel off my back, once. Came in, tore out the ligaments behind the knees, neat as you please.”

  He nodded, and asked, diffidently, “You like him?”

  “I admire him,” she replied, frankly. “He has a powerful sense of self, and he does not need to be anything other than who he is. A room full of people could try to tell him ‘you should be a jotun,’ and he would tell them ‘No, thank you. Let this gift pass from me, and give it to someone else. I am happy with who and what I am.’” Sigrun smiled faintly. “How can I possibly not respect that, when I agree with that sentiment whole-heartedly?”

  Adam gave Sigrun a confused glance, and let the subject drop.

  His second meeting today was more political, unfortunately, but once again shared with Sigrun. Sigrun had been in contact with Vidarr and Ima for the past eight years. Adam suspected it was equal parts genuine affection and guilt that had motivated her to stay in contact since leaving active combat, but her comments about being practically the only god-born trying to help ride herd on five hundred thousand of their people had borne unexpected fruit about six months ago, when Vidarr had told her, on the phone, that Ima was pregnant again, and that between that, and the political situation in the north becoming . . . increasingly hazy . . . they wished to immigrate. “I look at my three children, and at Ima, pregnant again, and . . . I just feel an urge to take them someplace safer.” He’d added, “And eight years of non-stop combat is enough, I think, for anyone. Time to let someone else lead. And there are enough young bucks who think they have better ideas. Let them try running the show for a while.”

  Sigrun had asked, “Why Judea? Why not . . . southern Germania? Northern Hellas? Why here?”

  “Well, Sari is there. And you all are, too. And . . . I just can’t put my finger on it. Something in my head said Judea, and I can’t say why.”

  There were several factions of jotun emerging in the north. The first consisted of people who had been children when they’d been transformed, and who were now in their adolescent years, or early twenties. Some of them had the notion that they should be attempting to stabilize the sanity of the grendels. They had noted that the only current solution to the situation in the north was genocide, and Vidarr had told them, in some irritation, that when someone’s goal was to kill you and eat you, that was tantamount to giving up all human rights. There was considerable dispute about the potential for converting grendels back to sanity; the fact that Vidarr had made the attempt repeatedly in the early years, and that Lassair and various of the gods had tried, as well, without success . . . “They’re disagreeing to disagree,” Vidarr had assessed in Adam’s living room two nights ago, back against the wall, and his long legs sprawled across the floor. “On the one hand, that we’ve gotten to a stable enough situation up there that people can afford to posture just to distinguish their camp from someone else’s? Speaks well for our efforts. I just wish they’d find something else to posture about.” Ima had been leaning against him, while their three children—Lára, Valdís, and Trygve, each over five feet in height, though only just over seven years of age—had taken seats on the couch. All three of their children were lycanthropes. The odds of a hveðungr like Ima having hveðungr children were along the lines of fifty percent. That her first ‘litter’ had all been what she was, was just an expression of the laws of probability.

  After Vidarr had spoken, Ima had rolled around, and placed her head on his thigh, lying at her full length across the floor now, and rested her hands on her swelling abdomen. “Then again,” she said now, “there are the other factions. There’s the monsters-unite party. These are the nieten, jotun, fenris, and even a few hveðungr who are tired of being considered freaks. They think that the northlands belong to those who are willing to fight for them, and that the human-normals should all leave. They advocate a more aggressive war policy, as well. They want to push out further into the countryside, and establish their own cities in the ruins of the old.”

  “What they fail to grasp is that we’ve gotten as far as we have through unity. As many different types of people as possible, all working together.” Vidarr threw his hands in the air. “Rome won’t continue to send troops or supplies to people who say ‘no, you keep all our human immigrants. We won’t take them back. In fact, have more of them.’” He looked at Sigrun glumly. “You fought up there. Would we have made any gains at all without helicopters, fighter jets, ornithopters, and humans trained to use them? How about the flamethrower units and soldiers trained to use these fancy . . . machine guns?”

  “No,” Sigrun replied, making a face. “Cutting yourselves off into separate, insular city-states isn’t the way to go. Integration is. That’s one of the biggest problems with the situation here. Our people are largely isolated in their own neighborhood, and no one on either side has to adapt.”

  “So, we’re agreed. Asking to establish a colonia, a city of our own, here in Judea is probably a bad idea.” Vidarr’s voice lowered further, into a tired rumble. “I have twenty thousand jotun, fenris, hveðungr, and nieten. All trained soldiers, all tired of the unending war in the north. Taking them all at once out of the fight would represent a diminishment of the fighting capabilities up there, and I doubt the Judean government would leap at the notion of all of us coming here at once . . . .”

  “So you’re coming here as mercenaries, and not as immigrants?” Adam said.

  “That’s my intention. Same offer that I made to the people of Gotaland, originally. My Lindworms—” Vidarr’s name for his landsknechten company made Adam’s eyebrows go up, “will make good supplemental troops for your Wall, and for the Chaldean and Median borders.”

  Adam grimaced. “We all know that the Shadow War is just going to heat up again.” In fact, it already is. Erida moving the Magi library here is just one of the quieter moves in the unending war. “We’re going to need more troops pretty soon. The council and the governor will see that.”

  So, their afternoon meeting was with the Jerusalem city council, and the overall Judean government, including a small conclave of Temple elders. Adam was there to represent the Praetorians. The current Roman governor, Maurus Gracchus Achaicus, was present, and wore his purple-lined white toga and a mildly incredulous expression as he sat in his curule chair, listening to the monsters and the barbarians treat with one another.

  “Exactly how many jotun and fenris are you proposing to move here?” asked a Temple elder, his voice mildly aghast.

  “Twenty thousand, over five years. We would work to earn our keep. All of us are trained soldiers, including firearms experience. I personally have experience dating back to my pre-transformation work on the Raccia-Mongol border.” Vidarr’s tone held a hint of irony. “Most of my troops are trained with one-shot mini-cannons developed by engineers in Gotaland. Terrible for accuracy, which is why I’ve moved most of them to shrapnel loads. Over the past ten years, we’ve cross-trained with Legion units that provided shoulder-mounted rockets, rocket-propelled grenades, and the mini-guns typically mounted on Judean and Hellene attack helicopters. These present no difficulties in terms of weight or recoil for us, incidentally.”

  The Roman-born legate in charge of the legions tasked to the Wall leaned forward, his dark eyes suddenly intent, and Adam could almost see him licking his lips. “My understanding is that you all heal from wounds at a rapidly increased
rate?”

  “Downtime due to injury is minimal, yes. We also have internal armor.” Vidarr thumped his own abdomen, in demonstration. “Moderately flexible bone scutes, subdermal. It still hurts being shot, and high-muzzle-velocity rounds still shatter bone. We wouldn’t say no to proper body armor, though I recognize that sizing will be an issue.”

  “Wait, we’re not seriously considering this, are we?” one of the council members demanded.

  “We do not intend to reside entirely in Little Gothia,” Ima said now, her tone amiable.

  “Well, good.”

  “We intend to make our residences throughout this city, and others.” Ima’s tone shifted from amicable to steely. “Along the border towns, where the Wall itself is. Everywhere that we are stationed. Just as other soldiers and their families do. Additionally, those of us who are not directly involved in the fighting would be willing to join your gardia. Teach. Work as field medics—I am one, for example.”

  “And what about the fenris? How do they fit into this?” The tone was mildly scoffing.

  “Lára, Valdís, Trygve.” Vidarr looked over at his children. “Show them, please.”

  All three wore simple smocks today, and for good reason. Ease of transformation. All three of the children shifted form into their gangly-legged wolf forms. Each was currently at least a hundred and eighty pounds, and white-furred. And then Ima herself transformed, and the gasps in the room, followed by complete silence, were telling. We’re good at a number of tasks, Ima said, placidly. We are all trained to track by scent, even children as young as these. Most of us are trained in body retrieval, as well. It’s an unfortunate necessity in the north. Additionally, most of us are trained for stealth. And I can guarantee that your enemies have not properly understood terror until they have been hunted by a pack, after nightfall.