Janissaries

by Pournelle, Jerry

  “They were in a hurry,” Rick said. “Would you rather be back on the hill waiting for the Cubans? Would any of you?”

  They didn’t know what to make of that. Nobody spoke of going back.

  “We can always die,” Rick said. “At least we can find out what these—people—want with us.”

  “Good advice.” The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. “You will know very soon. The exit port will open and you will please carry all your equipment and weapons out of the ship. You will be told what to do after that. Please be careful. You are, as you have been told, on your planet’s Moon. The air pressure will be lower than you are accustomed to, but there is more than enough air and oxygen for your species if you do nothing violent. Now please gather your equipment.”

  Rick felt totally drained of emotion. “Let’s get with it,” he said.

  Elliot stood a moment in indecision, then evidently made up his mind. “Get that gear together. Move!” he shouted.

  There was a cave beyond the door. Heavy material that looked like thick rubber sealed the door to the cave. The seal, which reminded Rick of the materials wet suits are made of, stretched for twenty meters or so into the cave. Beyond that the tunnel walls were made of rock, but shiny, as if it had been varnished. Rick felt it; the stuff was very hard, and he thought it had been sprayed on—probably to keep the air from leaking out through the rock walls.

  When they had unloaded the ship, the entryway door closed, and they had no choice but to go down the tunnel. It went inward and down. They had no difficulty with equipment; everything weighed only a sixth of what it would on Earth, and one man could carry ten mortar bombs without great effort.

  The tunnel was lighted, not with glowing walls as the ship had been, but with ordinary fluorescent lights. Rick examined one of the fixtures; it was stamped “Westinghouse.” Common house wire ran from light to light.

  As they went deeper into the cave, doors closed behind them. They seemed to be made from the same wet-suit material as the passage from the ship to the cave, and they appeared from the walls in a circle that closed together so tightly that it was difficult to see they weren’t solid.

  They reached the bottom of the ramp. Rick estimated that they had come nearly a kilometer. At the ramp’s end was a big cavern, as large as a basketball gymnasium, and furniture. Rick saw tables, chairs, bookcases with books and magazines. Beds and army cots were clustered at one end of the area. A table held a coffee urn and bags of styrofoam cups, and a can of Yuban coffee stood next to the urn. On another table he saw loaves of bread of various American brands; jars of Jiffy peanut butter; cans of Campbell’s soup. Paper plates and cheap plastic forks. Canned milk. Bricks of cheese; Vienna sausage; tins of sardines. There were no signs of fresh foods, meats or vegetables, but Rick was certain they wouldn’t starve.

  At the far end of the cavern was a TV set. It looked strange. Rick saw no maker’s marks, unless some curious squiggles on a plate at the bottom meant something. It had no controls at all. A man’s face looked out at them, and from the way his eyes and head moved, Rick thought the man was watching him.

  Man. Rick stood staring at the TV. The face on the screen was human. He was certain of it.

  “You are in charge?” The figure on the screen spoke without warning. The phrase wasn’t precisely a question, but it did not sound positive either. The voice held a slight accent, but Rick was certain he had never heard anything like it before.

  “As much as anyone is,” Rick said.

  “Then you are Captain Galloway. I must have information. First, is it true that you voluntarily boarded the ship that brought you here? There was no coercion from the Shalnuksis?”

  “Shalnuksis?”

  “The beings who brought you here. Were you forced to board their ship?”

  “Not by them. There were some Cubans who didn’t leave us many choices—”

  “That is my second question.” The man’s expression did not change at all. Rick got closer to the set and examined the image carefully.

  He saw a man who appeared to be in his forties. He wore a rust-colored upper garment that resembled a tunic, no buttons, a V-neck lined with blue and studded with decorations: a stylized comet and sunburst. The man’s hair was short, and his complexion was darker than Rick’s; about the same hue as an American Indian, but not quite so dark.

  “Is it true that you would now be dead if the Shalnuksi ship had not taken you aboard?” the man asked.

  “It’s likely,” Rick answered.

  “One of your men was injured by the Shalnuksis. They have said they were merely defending themselves and did the least damage possible to the man. Is this true?”

  “Yes—”

  “Thank you. We regret that we do not have better accommodations. You are welcome to whatever you find there. You may eat now. We will have more to talk of later.”

  “Hey—damn it, what’s going on?” Rick demanded. He was talking to a blank screen.

  * * *

  They examined their prison. There was a hot plate and an electrical outlet on a long cord. The wire ran into the wall, and the hole it came out of was sealed with the wet-suit material. The hot plate had been made by General Electric. The coffeepot was Japanese, with Japanese labels. Everything in the compartment had come from Earth. Most had come from the United States, but there were articles from many other places. Some of the gear was new, much still in packing cases. Other equipment and stores had been used. There were radios and television sets, but they produced nothing beyond a few random hisses and howls.

  After half an hour, they settled in to cook dinner. There was plenty to eat; soup and canned bacon and ham, canned vegetables, and pudding for dessert. André Parsons found a water tap—Kohler of Kohler—near the coffee urn. There was a drain beneath it. Other troops found cases of warm beer and several jugs of wine, enough so that everyone had a beer and a full cup of California red. There was plenty of coffee.

  When they had eaten, they all felt better. The troops prowled about restlessly, but eventually began making themselves comfortable, using what was in their packs and whatever else they could find to bed down. Elliot pulled two of the single beds off to one side for Parsons and Rick Galloway. No one had eaten or slept for more than twenty-four hours, and soon most of the troops were sprawled onto beds and cots, or onto air mattresses on the floor.

  The floor, Rick found, was uneven at the edges near the walls, but away from the walls it was artificially smooth and flat. It felt warm to the touch.

  Rick sat with Parsons at a table near the TV set. They ate in silence. Finally Parsons said, “I see why you did not explain earlier.”

  “Yeah. Not that I could have,” Rick said.

  Parsons shrugged. “Five hours ago, I was prepared to be killed on that hilltop. Now I have eaten, I have a cup of wine and coffee to follow, and it is warm. No one is shooting me, and there is a comfortable bed. We have been lucky.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Have you thought of the implications of your television conversation?” André asked. “A human. A human who asks interesting questions. Are we volunteers? How was Corporal Mason injured? Would we be alive if we had not boarded the alien ship? All asked by a human in a voice of authority, as if he had every right to the answers.”

  Rick nodded. “I thought of that. It means somebody cares what happens to us. Maybe not a lot, but somebody cares. I keep hoping that’s a good sign.”

  “It cannot be a bad one,” André said.

  “Dammit, you’re calm enough—”

  Parsons laughed. “I would have said the same of you. Rick, I am terrified, but it would do no good to let the men see that. Obviously you must feel the same way.”

  “Yeah. But I sure wish they’d let us know what they want with us.”

  “Perhaps nothing,” Parsons said. He shrugged again in his expansive French manner. “Perhaps they rescued us for humanitarian reasons. Are we not worth it?” His smile was broad.

  * *
*

  “Captain! Cap’n, that TV’s going again. They want you.”

  Rick struggled to wakefulness. His watch showed that he had slept five hours. It seemed longer, and he felt far better rested than he would have expected from five hours’ sleep.

  A dozen men were crowded around the TV. They were trying to talk to the man—as near as Rick could tell, it was the same one who had spoken to him before—but they had no success. It was only when Rick stood in front of the set that the man responded.

  “It is time to discuss your situation,” the screen figure said. “You will not require weapons. Leave them all, and any other large metal objects, and enter the doorway which will open in the wall behind this screen.”

  As he spoke a steel plate set in the wall swung away. A rubberlike airtight door stood behind it. “Alone, please,” the screen said. “You will not be harmed.”

  “Maybe a couple of us ought to come anyway,” Sergeant Elliot said.

  “Thanks, Sarge, but I guess not,” Rick said. “If they really want us dead, they’ll let the air out of this compartment. And don’t forget that. Elliot, for God’s sake, don’t let the troops do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

  “No, sir. But when will you be back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Cap’n, if you’re not back in four hours, we can blow that door open—”

  “No. Wake up Lieutenant Parsons and tell him he’s in charge. I’ll be back.” Rick sounded a lot more confident than he felt as he went through the doorway. It closed behind him before the airtight in front of him dilated.

  There was another corridor, and no one in sight. Rick followed that for a hundred meters until it bent sharply left, then led through two more rubberized pressure doors. He emerged in another cavern, one much smaller than the one he had left. It was well lighted, and there were at least a dozen of the TV screens of the kind he had seen in the ship and in the cavern.

  There were both people and aliens in the cavern, perhaps a dozen of each. Several were studying the TV-like screens. An alien in grey coveralls, possibly the one who had spoken to him in the ship, came over to him.

  The alien was six inches taller than Rick, but the extra height seemed to be all in the legs. The torso was not much longer than Rick’s. The arms were longer than a human’s, but not so much longer as were the legs. “There,” the alien said. He indicated a door. “You would—do well—to be— careful—of what you say.”

  Rick nodded. “I understand.” If this were the same alien, and Rick thought it was, it no longer spoke as easily and confidently as it had aboard the ship. Why? he wondered.

  The door opened into an office. A desk faced the door. There were papers on the desk, along with two keyboards that Rick thought must connect to a computer. The desk held two of the flat TV screens, and there were other screens higher up. All were blank. The office had metallic square walls and floor and ceiling; a room built into the cavern. There was a rug on the floor which Rick thought was Persian; it had that pattern and look to it. There were other art objects that appeared to be from Earth: seascape paintings, a color photograph of the Golden Gate bridge, a Kalliroscope with its swirling shock-wave patterns.

  The man he had seen on the TV screen sat behind the desk. The desk itself looked Danish modern and was probably from Earth. The man stood as Rick entered, but he did not offer to shake hands.

  He was perhaps five feet ten, two inches shorter than Rick, and looked thoroughly human. He was a bit darker than Rick, face rounder, but he would not have attracted attention on any street in the United States or Europe. His expression was not unfriendly, but he looked harried, very busy and preoccupied.

  The man spoke. It sounded to Rick more like the twittering of a bird than any human speech. “A parrot in a cageful of cats,” Rick told André Parsons later. The alien answered in the same language, and the human nodded.

  “Excuse me, Captain,” he said. “Please be seated.” He indicated chairs, both of aluminum and plastic, one a normal-height chair, the other like a highchair for an adult. “Doubtless you have many questions.”

  Now there’s an understatement, Rick thought. “Yes. Beginning with, who are you?”

  The man nodded, tight-lipped, again his expression more of impatience and mild annoyance than anything else. “You would find my name hard to pronounce. Try ‘Agzaral,’ which is close enough not to offend me. I am—you do not have the occupation. Think of me as a police inspector. It is close enough for our purposes. And do be seated.”

  Rick took the normal chair. The alien went to the highchair. It fitted perfectly. “And my—rescuer?” Rick asked. It was difficult to know how to speak. There were no referents, and Rick had no idea of what would offend either the human or the alien. Obviously he should avoid terms like “this critter” or “stretchy here,” but what could he call the creature?

  “His name translates as ‘Goldsmith,’ ” Agzaral said. “Many Shalnuksi names derive from ancient occupations. That seems a nearly universal cultural trait among industrializing peoples. If you prefer his own language, it is ‘Karreeel.’ ” The last was said with a twitter that Rick couldn’t possibly pronounce.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Rick said. “An expression that we don’t always mean, but given the way we met, I certainly do. Only—”

  “Only you would like to know why he made the effort,” Agzaral said. “I listened to part of your conversation with the other officer.” He switched to the twitter-and-snarl language again and spoke briefly.

  “We have need of you,” Karreeel said. His facial slits flared briefly. “We have need of human soldiers, and we went to great expense and difficulty to locate you.”

  “But why us?” Rick demanded.

  “Because you would not be missed,” Agzaral said. “And you could be taken aboard his ship without anyone seeing it. There are severe regulations against allowing the ships to be seen.”

  “Flying saucers,” Rick said. “But you have been seen—”

  “Some have,” Agzaral corrected. “Not Karreeel. The ships that have been seen were employed by students. Fortunately, none of those sightings can be proved.” He sighed. It seemed to Rick a very human sigh. “It is my unpleasant task to investigate every instance in which a ship had been seen and reported.”

  “I see,” Rick said. “And then what?”

  “We have agents on Earth,” Agzaral said. “They discredit the sighting reports.”

  “They’ve done a good job,” Rick said. He remembered what he had thought of UFO stories, and the people who ‘believed in flying saucers.’ Brass-plated nuts. “The” —he hesitated at the unfamiliar word— “Shalnuksis—are studying us?”

  Agzaral’s lips curled in what Rick thought might be a thin smile. “No. Others study Earth. Including other humans. But the—” He paused. “I will not in future stop myself when I require a term that you will not quite understand. I will simply use the nearest equivalent. There is a High Commission which regulates trade with primitive worlds, particularly with Earth, and protects primitive peoples from crude exploitation. The Commission forbids trade or other intercourse with your planet.”

  “But why?” Rick demanded. He was surprised at how calm he felt. One part of his mind wanted him to scream and run in circles, flapping his arms, but instead he found it easy enough to sit calmly and politely conversing with a human who was not from Earth and an alien who resembled a stretched-out chimpanzee with a single nostril and no neck. It was all so completely ordinary; the conversational tones, the gestures—

  “Your planet is in an interesting stage of development,” Agzaral said. “Trade will not be allowed until it is decided what—until the studies are completed.”

  “What the hell do you want with me, then?” Rick demanded.

  “I want nothing,” Agzaral said. “You are, for me, a great annoyance. Karreeel has an offer which I believe you should consider.”

  “Shoot—uh, go ahead. What’s the offer?”


  “My—colleagues—and I are merchants. More correct would be ‘merchant-adventurers,’ ” Karreeel said. When he spoke, he paused frequently, and Rick wondered if he had some kind of translating machine, so that he could think of what he wanted to say and get the English. There was no sign of wires or a hearing aid, but that wasn’t decisive.

  “ ‘Merchant-adventurers,’ ” Rick repeated. He couldn’t help remembering that the Gentleman Adventurers of the Honourable East India Company had gone out and conquered India for England, and he wondered if the aliens had a similar fate in mind for Earth.

  “Yes,” said Karreeel. “We now have a need for human soldiers. The price of mercenaries has become—excessively high. We gambled that we could find soldiers here and yet not violate—Inspector—Agzaral’s regulations. If you will agree, we will have succeeded.”

  “If we agree,” Rick said.

  Agzaral wagged his head in a manner that Rick thought strange; when he saw Rick’s reaction, he checked himself and nodded. “You are under no compulsion to accept,” he said. “When he has made his offer, I will tell you what alternatives are permitted for you.”

  “There is a planet, far from here,” Karreeel said. “It has a primitive society, much more primitive than yours. The planet can support a highly valuable crop, one that cannot be grown easily anywhere else. We need assistance in getting those crops planted and harvested.”

  Rick shook his head. This didn’t make sense. “Why don’t you grow your own?”

  The alien made a gesture with his left hand, and both his facial slits flared wide. “Why should one of us be condemned to live on a primitive world?”

  “But we’re not farmers—”

  “We do not expect you to do any farming. There is a local population. Unfortunately, the planet is very primitive, in a state of—feudalism. Our need is not farmers, but soldiers to impose a government which will wish to plant our required crops, harvest them, and deliver the harvest to us.”

  “And what makes you think we’ll be interested in living on a primitive world?” Rick demanded.