by Pat Kelleher
“Come,” it said before stopping. It looked at her, tilting its head to one side like a curious dog, its long antennae waving in an agitated manner. Then it did something Edith had not expected. It knelt before her, touching its head and thorax in reverence.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Shall They Return...”
PADRE RAND VACILLATED all night. It had just been a dream, a hallucination, nothing more. How could it be anything else? Then he looked around at the small chamber, here in an edifice of arthropods on an alien world. The comfortable boundaries of what was and was not had shifted. Anything seemed possible. Here, so far from Earth, God had spoken to him, as He had to His people of old. He had asked something of him and the padre wondered if he would find himself wanting.
He hadn’t truly understood the function of the rite last time. The Khungarrii called it the Kirrijandat, the cleansing, a ritual ordeal meant to be a symbolic pupation for Urmen, a casting off of old ways, a rededication. If he wanted to, he could see it as a re-Baptism, a Confirmation. But for God to ask this of him? Now he comprehended the night terrors. But if it was the Lord’s will, then so be it.
The plant door dilated open and Chandar waited outside the small chamber.
The padre got to his feet with a groan as he felt pins and needles prickle his feet and calves.
He nodded to the Chatt. “It’s done,” he said.
“This One has spent the night meeting with members of the Shura. They are willing to consider a supplication of the scents,” said Chandar as the padre joined him. “Sirigar now knows that this One has something of importance to say, but does not yet know what. Many of the Shura are convinced by Sirigar’s words, that the Queen’s illness is the taint of the Great Corruption spread by the Tohmii. Singar will call for the scentirrii to march once more and eradicate your clan for good.”
“Where’s Nurse Bell?” the padre asked.
“Your djamirrii is safe. Do not forget she carries hidden about her the sacred salve that will be your salvation and the liquor that might be this One’s. This One has sent for her.”
Chandar led the way along an inclined passage, taking them up into the further reaches of the edifice. Streams of Chatts went about on unknown business: scentirrii and dhuyumirrii, mostly, with the odd workers and Urmen. Two tassel-robed dhuyumirrii approached from the other direction. One bumped into the padre, and a small vial dropped to the floor in the collision. It shattered and oozed oil.
“I’m terribly sorry,” the padre said, almost as a reflex. “Here, let me—”
He looked around, but they had slipped away.
Chandar let out a long, low, wet hiss.
The padre, wheeled round to see several worker Chatts step out of the passage shadows, blocking their way. “What’s going on?”
“Sirigar is trying to prevent our appearance before the Shura,” wheezed Chandar.
“I thought I was marked with Khungarr scent, I thought you said they couldn’t harm me.”
“Normally, no,” said Chandar, eyeing the workers. “But the scent can be masked. A stronger chemical decree can negate it.”
The shattered vial. One smell being used to hide another, thought the padre.
The workers began to circle, their long mandibles snapping together rhythmically.
“It is how this One became crippled, when Sirigar once before thought this One a threat to its plans,” said Chandar as they watched the worker Chatts advance.
Chandar hissed, expelling its euphoric benediction in the hope of stalling the workers. It failed.
Several workers leapt upon it, barrelling it into the ground. The padre thought he heard a carapace crack.
Another lunged at him. He had done a little boxing in his youth, and now he put up his fists for the first time in years. He swung a right uppercut under the guard of its open mandibles, connecting with the soft mouthparts. They mashed satisfactorily under his knuckles. The Chatt stumbled backwards, its mandibles slicing empty air.
“Hah!” cried the padre.
His initial spark of triumph was soon doused as another Chatt sprang at him. The padre was thrown off balance and the pair crashed to the ground. It crouched over him, its splayed long-fingered hands pressing down on his chest.
“Dear God in Heaven preserve me!”
Its smooth facial plate was vacant of any expression. Mucus dripped from its mouthparts onto his face as it opened its mandibles and placed them either side of his head. As the pressure on his temples began to increase, the padre screwed his eyes shut and prayed.
Without warning, the crushing pressure eased and the weight from his chest lifted. It was a moment before he dared open his eyes. His attacker was crouched motionless before him. The others likewise had abandoned their attack and were sunk low in submission, their mandibles open, their antennae waving gently, rhythmically, in unison.
The padre heard a woman’s cry.
Nurse Bell. Dear God, no. They’ll take her as well. He wouldn’t let that happen.
“Padre!”
“Bell, run!” he called out. “Run! Run!”
He scrambled back away from the now-motionless Chatts until he was against the wall of the chamber.
Chandar lay against the other side, its head slumped on its chest plate, its mouth palps hanging limply, bubbles frothing through them as it breathed. A thick bluish fluid oozed from wounds in its soft abdomen, where one of its vestigial limbs had been ripped off. Its claw lay discarded on the floor nearby.
The padre and Chandar exchanged weary, pained glances, each alive, but neither knowing how.
Rhengar entered the chamber, and several spear-carrying Scentirrii filed out either side of it.
“You. So it’s come to this, has it?” said the padre with bitter recrimination. “Assassination?”
Rhengar regarded him blankly. “Yes.”
Breathing heavily, the padre braced himself, glaring at the Chatts’ general with outright defiance. He’d given these creatures the benefit of the doubt. But now he realised he’d let his Christian nature be swayed by these soulless things—for how could they be anything else on this world?
“Come to finish the job, have you?” he said brusquely. “Then do it, but spare Bell. She’s just a nurse. You know ‘nurse’?”
Rhengar crouched by the shard of vial on the floor, waving his antennae over the fading evaporated spill.
“The musk of the Sanfradar, a predator. It breaks into edifices to devour the young. The workers reacted instinctively. They thought you were a danger. They would have torn you to pieces.”
Dazed, the padre leant against the chamber wall until the place stopped spinning, the Chatt workers’ confusion now his. “Then why didn’t they? What stopped them?”
“I did, apparently,” said Nurse Bell, stepping from the safety of the passage shadows into the chamber, a shy smile of embarrassment on her face.
“You did? But how?”
She strode over to him. “Padre, you’re hurt.”
He obliged by bowing his head and smiled apologetically. “I think I banged my head again. I’m all right.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” she said, gently examining his head. “Nothing’s got through your skull yet.” She looked him in the eyes. “Has it?”
The padre met her gaze. “I’m fine,” he said.
Rhengar gave orders to the remaining four scentirrii, who stood guard round the chamber while Nurse Bell went over and knelt to examine the injured Chatt.
“Is it safe?” it asked, the words coming in pained gasps as it struggled to regurgitate enough air for speech.
She continued to examine his abdomen. “It’s safe,” she said. “But you’re not.” She turned to Rhengar. “We must get Chandar somewhere I can treat its wounds.”
Rhengar stooped to pick up the wounded Chatt and directed them down a maze of side passages that eventually led to a chamber. It left two of the scentirrii outside as guards; the others it dismissed. It set Chandar down and looke
d at Nurse Bell.
“Chandar must speak before the Shura soon, if you wish to save your clan.”
She wasn’t going to be bullied. She didn’t even look up from her examination of Chandar’s abdominal wounds as she spoke. “I’ll do what I can. I’m not promising any more.”
She bound Chandar’s wound where his vestigial limb had been, winding the silk bandage around his abdomen. She was able to disguise most of the bandage with Chandar’s own ceremonial silk shoulder throw, as she wrapped its excess around its abdomen.
“There,” she said, sitting back on her heels.
“It is done?” asked Chandar.
“Yes, for the moment, so long as you don’t exert yourself.”
The padre, who had been watching her work, finally spoke. “You said it was you that saved us.”
“I’m rather afraid it might have been,” she said with an apologetic shrug as she got to her feet. “The Khungarrii Queen gifted me with some sort of royal jelly, anointing me with her own scent. From what I gather, it’s rather like getting the keys to the city.”
“An anointed Urman,” said Rhengar. “This One cannot recall such a thing. However, the royal odour is unmistakable. Every Khungarrii knows it. But we must keep it secret a while longer.”
“Why?”
“It strengthens this One’s position, but only if this One can successfully couple it with this One’s argument,” croaked Chandar as it struggled to its feet. It held out an expectant hand towards Bell. “Do you have it?”
She nodded and fished in her haversack, bringing out the small stone amphora holding the sacred scent she had brought with her from the camp. Chandar took it with reverence. Edith pulled out another small jar. “Lieutenant Everson told me to give you this when it was time. I think it is. It’s petrol fruit liquor.”
Chandar took the bottle and uncorked it. Tilting its head back, it opened its mandibles and poured the liquor through its mouth parts.
“What is this?” asked Rhengar.
“It revives this One’s ability to scent.”
“How is that possible?”
“It is GarSuleth’s Will,” replied Chandar. “And yet more proof, if it were needed, that our olfaction is right.”
It tucked the amphora of sacred scent into the abdominal wrap of its garment, hobbled over to a small opaque roundel of plant matter, and breathed on it. Much like the door, it contracted open, revealing a view looking down on the Shura chamber.
“You may watch from here until summoned. Whatever happens, do not leave this chamber until you are sent for,” warned Chandar as it turned and limped for the door, escorted by Rhengar.
THE PADRE LOOKED down into the chamber. It was a sunken amphitheatre. At one end, a raised dais was dominated by a shallow ceremonial bowl about six feet across, a low flame burning underneath its centre. High above it, around the walls of the chamber, were window apertures that funnelled light onto the empty space at the centre of the chamber. Around it rose earthen tiers, which were steadily filling as Chatts filed into the chamber. The space buzzed with the low burr of ticking and scissoring mandibles. Judging from the tasselled silk they wore, the padre assumed they were all dhuyumirrii, like Chandar.
From an opening between two stands of tiers, Sirigar entered, wearing a light silken cloak that billowed out as it walked, its deep hood covering its head and antennae. Two acolyte nymphs followed, swinging burning censers.
The assembly fell silent as it strode to the centre and cast its gaze across the serried ranks of dhuyumirrii, almost as if challenging them to question its authority.
Chandar entered the amphitheatre, hobbling towards the imperious figure of Sirigar, whose presence dominated the chamber. Chandar cut a poor comparison, with its limp and its broken antennae; if the padre had been a betting man, he’d put his money on the thoroughbred, not the nag.
Chandar had explained the nature of the debate. It would have to openly challenge Sirigar’s stance and Sirigar in turn would defend it. But debate among the Khungarrii could go on for hours, if not days, requiring not just mental but physical stamina. Statements were accompanied by stylised movements, punctuating argument and proposition, counter-argument and denial. When they were last here, the padre heard a disparaging Jeffries compare them to dancing bees. No blows were landed, though in the far distant past perhaps it had been a more bloody affair that had become ritualised over time.
The padre hadn’t quite appreciated what Chandar had meant until he saw it.
“Are—are they fighting?” asked Nurse Bell, dismayed.
“After a fashion,” said the padre.
As challenger, it was Chandar’s place to begin by proposing the statement to be debated. It stepped forward in a low lunge, pushing its arm out, as if physically delivering the challenge, its blow not striking, but the proximity of the blow to the defender no doubt signalling the strength of feeling on the subject. The heel of its hand stopped inches from Sirigar’s facial plate. It seemed more oriental martial art than debate.
Shifting its centre of gravity, Sirigar stepped back gracefully, then responded, symbolically brushing aside Chandar’s opening statement with a sweep of its arm and a rapid statement of its own.
As the ritual debate progressed, there seemed to be an element of chess to it; forms of statement and response with which both debaters were practised, perhaps restating old arguments or theological positions, familiar forms of attack and response. The padre noted that one tactic was to lure your opponent into a physically and maybe philosophically weak position while you considered your next point. Sirigar, once it discovered Chandar had been weakened by injury, forced it to maintain a stressful position. Chandar began to lose its concentration and its theological points were blocked, struck down or conceded, one after another.
Nurse Bell watched in frustration. “What is Chandar waiting for? Why doesn’t it produce the amphorae?”
“It seems to be more complicated than that. There’s a ritual formality to the proceedings. I think it has to bring the argument round to it. Sirigar seems to be countering and blocking that line of enquiry. Chandar has to find new ways to introduce the point.”
“I didn’t realise it would be like this. It shouldn’t be doing this with its injury. I thought it would just be talking.”
Sirigar was well versed in the arguments that kept it in power, and practised in deflecting challenges, but it had grown too confident. In a devastating series of attacks, it forced Chandar to recant and concede. However, it was a feint, drawing Sirigar onto ground where it was less certain in order that Chandar might bring in its new evidence. Chandar, it seemed, was more cunning than the padre had given it credit for. Chandar was rallying, building a convincing argument-attack, batting away Sirigar’s increasingly feeble and desperate counterpoints.
From the reaction of the watching Khungarrii Shura, the padre and Nurse Bell could see a change in fortunes as Chandar went on the attack. Sirigar fell back, apparently unable to defend his position.
“Yes!”
“What’s happening?”
“I think Chandar is about to make its point.”
Weakened by its exertions, Chandar stumbled up the steps to the ceremonial bowl, the flame guttering beneath it. It grabbed the edge of the bowl and felt inside the robe for the amphora, the Commentaries of Chitaragar, ignoring the spreading blue stain soaking through its bandage.
Sirigar, unwilling to admit defeat, cried out harshly and several scentirrii with spears stepped into the amphitheatre. Even as the scentirrii moved forward to stop it, under the caws of protest from the ranks of the Shura, Chandar poured the sacred scent text into the bowl. The scentirrii rushed the steps, seized it by the arms and dragged it to its feet.
The oil ran slowly down the curve of the bowl toward the heated centre.
Chandar was taken down the steps towards a crowing Sirigar, its arms thrown open as it gnashed its mandibles together, addressing the assembled Chatts.
Unseen, the oil poo
led and bubbled in the bottom of the ceremonial crucible, boiling and evaporating into the air, carrying its message up on warm currents to the domed roof, where it cooled and sank down over the gathered dhuyumirrii.
The Shura fell silent as antennae twitched, absorbing the delicate notes of the ancient aroma, as shifting layers of subtext from the long-lost scent scripture revealed themselves. The Great Corruption so feared by the Khungarrii was not the Pennines. They had been used unscrupulously by Sirigar to further its power. The danger the Commentaries forewarned against was the corruption of their own faith by those who would use it for their own ends. The tide turned against Sirigar. Here was the proof that it had tried to deny, incontrovertible and damning.
Sirigar whirled round in confusion as his support fell away, until it too sensed the top notes of the ancient commentary, warning against false dhuyumirrii, and let out a harsh venomous hiss of frustration.
“By God, I think Chandar’s done it!” said the padre, turning round to Nurse Bell, but she was fleeing from the room. The scentirrii stood aside for her, but stopped the padre from following.
EDITH COULD THINK only of her patient. She raced along the passages and before she realised it she had entered the amphitheatre. She barely noticed the reaction of the Shura about her as she rushed to Chandar’s side.
“Let me see,” she said to Chandar, examining the sodden bandaging.
Chandar brushed her hand aside. “Not yet.” It raised its head, looking past her. “Look,” it wheezed.
Edith looked. Around her the entire Shura was sunk on their legs, looking down at them, at her. The Queen’s scent, she realised. She had been Chandar’s final proof.
“You are blessed. Untouchable. Even Sirigar dare not move against you while you exude the Queen’s scent.”
Chandar steadied itself and addressed the Shura.
“The Shura has seen how they have been misled, and if further proof were needed that these Urmen were not the Great Corruption we long feared, behold, this Urman djamirrii, anointed by the Queen herself. How is that possible if they were ever such a threat? The true threat has been amongst us all this time. The Shura’s attention had been falsely turned outwards, when the real threat was within.” And it pointed at Sirigar.
