by Alma Boykin
Luckily for Rada, she didn’t have an early meeting with King-Emperor Dai-dosk. As it was, she found Zabet in the main room finishing the first pot of tea and waving an ornately painted talon at her mammal. «Congratulations. I’ve had to tell half the Defenders and two-thirds of the servants that those are not your remains down below. You missed pre-dawn drill, and the silly reptiles put two plus two together and got eleven.»
Rada finished buttoning her shirt, shaking her head as she sat down on a cushion beside the breakfast table. “And how many actually thought I’d be involved in that sort of thing, hmm?”
«What sort of thing? All anyone found was a body so mangled they’re still not quite sure who’s missing.»
Rada blinked with disbelief, slipping into Trader. “Ne g’karlak?”
Zabet shook her head and made an Azdhagi emphatic negation with her weak-side forefoot. Now Rada’s morbid curiosity really wanted to see what the remains had looked like. If they couldn’t be identified quickly, that meant the hide had disappeared, and probably other large chunks as well, which suggested—
Rada went absolutely still. Her fur rose of its own accord, and the skin on her neck and under her hair crawled. “Oh fewmets. Dear lord, that’s . . .” She shook all over, trying to get her fur to settle. The tea tasted bitter, and she knocked back two more cups, scalding her mouth, before she got the metallic taste off her tongue. She preempted Zabet’s question, warning, “You really do not want to know, Boss. Take my word for it.”
Zabet tipped her head to one side, round ears flipping back as her whiskers waved up and down. Then she straightened up. «If it upsets you that much, you’re right, I don’t.»
Behind shields, Rada whispered, No, you don’t. It’s been a dozen centuries since the last case of cannibalism among the Azdhagi, and I only know that because I found it while looking for something else in the archives. The Azdhagi had, at one point in their development, eaten certain parts of defeated enemies raw. At the time she found it, Rada had noted the story and moved on. Now, well, her fur threatened to fluff again, and she worked hard to stay calm and eat her breakfast like a civilized sapient creature. I wonder who the female was? Probably learn that soon enough, too.
After a little administrative soothing, and once she’d electronically signed yet more budgetary paperwork, Rada put on her formal swordbelt and reported to the lesser audience chamber. The location warned that Dai-dosk planned an official meeting, King-Emperor to Lord Defender. As she waited for her liege to appear, Rada wondered what he wanted. She’d not irritated any of the Great Lords recently that she knew of, no one had a feud with her at the moment, Zabet had managed not to cause any new diplomatic incidents, and the Defenders were on budget for once. No foreign ambassadors had made the mistake of treating Rada as a court female, instead of recognizing her legal status as male. I thought Lord Kirlin was going to rip that fool’s foreleg off—Rada heard the door to the Imperial quarters open, and she dropped to one knee, head bent until her forehead touched her other knee.
Heavy steps made the wood of the dais creak. After a rustling of fabric and hide, she heard a deep voice order, “You may rise.” Rada stood, bowed, and came to parade rest. The King-Emperor reclined alone on his throne—no bodymen flanked the dais as they usually did. That set Rada’s curiosity on fire, and she waited, body still, mind going a dozen directions at once.
The large reptile studied his Lord Defender. His nostrils flared as he sniffed, but he did not detect anything odd about Lord Reh-dakh—as he thought of Ni Drako. Perhaps a bit of incense? Dai-dosk dismissed the observation for the moment. “We have decided to send you on, let us say, a surprise inspection.” He reached back with one hind talon and flicked a switch built into the throne. A holographic projection appeared, showing a planet. Lord Reh-dakh’s facial fur shifted a little as the Lord Defender studied the projection. Four micro-moons rotated into view and the bit of the Lord Defender’s facial fur rose.
“Deklali, Imperial Majesty?”
“Correct. You have been there?”
Reh-dakh made a negation. “No, Imperial Majesty. I have not visited any of the Azdhag worlds save for this one.”
Dai-dosk allowed his steel-tipped neck spines to rise a fraction of a centimeter in surprise, and he rubbed under his muzzle with one talon. “Interesssssting. Perhaps—” he cut the thought off with a sweep of his tail. “In the future. For now, you and your concubine will go to DeShan’s system, to Deklali, and inspect the forces stationed there.” He stopped, waiting.
“And report on the status of the protectorate, Imperial Majesty?”
“Correct.” He’d hoped the Lord Defender would not need detailed instructions, and his hopes seemed to be answered. “There are rumors. We would prefer not to have a repetition of the events of the second generation After the Great Relocation.”
Lord Reh-dakh made a complicated forefoot gesture, acknowledging both the event and the caution. “Indeed, Imperial Majesty.”
Satisfied that nothing more need be said about the matter, Dai-dosk dismissed the hologram. “Now, Reh-dakh, what happened last night?”
The mammal’s nostrils flared and he bared his fangs, extending his stunted talons as well. “Imperial Majesty, there was a mating battle.”
For the first time in several decades, Dai-dosk lost control of himself. His neck spines sprang into full anger display as his tail went rigid. “What?”
“A mating battle, Imperial Majesty. Only the second I have encountered in all my time of service here. I did not observe who was involved, either the males or the female.”
Dai-dosk shifted on the throne, looking off to the side as he lowered his spines. “We have read of such a thing, but thought it had vanished with the Relocation, if not before.”
Reh-dakh spread his forefeet, palms up. “As had I, Imperial Majesty. Who is missing?”
“Lord Pei’s third son. Lord Beeltal’s eldest refuses to leave the family quarters, and Prince Tee-shai’s daughter sent for a Healer shortly after dawn.”
The mammal’s lips moved but he did not speak. At last, after several moments of silence, he said. “Imperial Majesty, it has been so long that I do not know the legal ramifications of mating battles, especially among the nobility.”
Dai-dosk let out a long breath. Damn, but that was most emphatically not what he wanted to hear. “No one does. What became of the participants in the last such event you observed?”
“They both died, one killed in the initial fight and the other of injuries sustained when he tried to force the female against her will. He succeeded in coupling but, to be blunt, Imperial Majesty, she gutted him like a shardi on an over-fattened shootee. Their offspring was probably the second largest sergeant I’ve ever had in the Defenders.” Very unusual looking as well, and Rada suddenly wondered if Greykin had been one of his lineage offspring. Well, that was hundreds of years in the past.
“Hmm,” the green-and-grey striped reptile grunted. “You are dismissed, Lord Defender. Be prepared to leave in two days. And you will use your own transportation. We do not care to have our Lord Defender out of rapid contact, should the need arise—Ancestors forbid and forefend.” He made a complex warding-off gesture of hindfoot and tail. Rada mimicked him with her weak-side forefoot, making the sign of the cross.
For a species with comparatively limited facial expressions, the Azdhagi certainly displayed nausea and queasiness easily, Rada noted once again. Apparently no one had bothered—or deigned—to mention that Lord Reh-Dakh and Lady Zabet would be arriving in a Trader scout ship. Alternatively, Prince Tee-shai and his advisors might not have bothered looking up exactly what a Trader scout vessel looked like and the effects they had on most species. The unstable exterior, constantly shifting in shape and color, tended to induce discomfort, and even nausea, in observers. Rada had a moment of amusement watching the guards and secretary trying to look any place but at the Dark Hart. Then she shook off the unworthy emotion and led Zabet to the greeting committee.
“Lord Reh-Dakh, it is our honor to welcome you to Deklali,” the smallest male said, trying very hard to enunciate Trader.
«I’m impressed,» Zabet sent to Rada.
«I’m not, not yet.» Had he not been told that she spoke Azdhag, or was he trying to gain points? She replied in Azdhag, “Thank you. It is a great honor indeed for a servant of the King-Emperor to receive such a generous greeting.”
The secretary’s neck spines wiggled and his tail tip went rigid, telegraphing his surprise. Rada’s opinion of him dropped at least three notches, from neutral to moderately poor. Two of the soldiers exchanged sideways looks, and Rada guessed that credits would change forefeet when they went off duty. Their equipment paniers were not properly squared away, and she noted a few loose straps and buckles. One of the four carried his weapon incorrectly, and they all seemed a bit sloppy. She didn’t expect parade ground perfection, but for fur’s sake, these were Imperials, not the True-dragon militia on Drakon IV!
“Please follow me, my lord,” the dark-green-and-tan blotched reptile invited, turning and starting to walk away before she had time to respond.
Should I shoot him in the ass? No, not yet. In some ways this is a colony, after all, and colonials of all species tend to have less respect for rank than do those in the homeland. Rada carried her bag, Zabet had her kit in her paniers. Together they fell in behind the secretary, with the guards following.
Oddly, Zabet held her peace until they had boarded the small transport craft and were flying toward the governor’s palace. Then she tapped on Rada’s shields. «Does something seem strange to you, Pet?»
Rada had been looking around, noting the presence of a few very tall buildings and of lots of trees. Every tree stood at the same height and had the same general shape. «You mean the landscaping?»
«Yes. it seems too uniform even for cloning and gen-engineered plants.»
«I’ll ask. And you’re right.» In fact, as Rada thought a little, it reminded her of that planet that she never did learn to pronounce, where the use of bio-weapons had so ruined the plant life that everything had been scraped off, burned, and a new ecosystem rebuilt almost from the amino acids up. Traffic in the hover lane seemed lighter than she would have anticipated, but perhaps Deklali ran on a different schedule from Drakon IV. She certainly appreciated the weaker gravity. Drakon IV was only 1.2 Terran Gs, but it seemed heavier for some reason. She snorted. Probably because of the ponderous dignity surrounding the court. Great Lord Beerkali practically pulls small objects into low-Azdhag orbit when he walks by.
Otherwise what she saw appeared very much like almost every other inhabited world she’d visited, at least the ones that could support land-based oxygen breathers. She was fascinated by the true natives that she glimpsed, who were leaner than the Azdhagi and lighter of build, with full neck frills, and tails they carried curled up on their backs, a bit like snails on Ter-Tri. Unlike the Azdhagi, the D’Shandi lacked muzzles, instead having flat faces with side-mounted eyes. As Rada recalled, they were omnivores who shaded toward herbivory.
«Pet, what can we eat here?»
Not the natives, that was certain, but Rada squelched her smart-assed initial response. «Everything except the greens, at least for me. You might avoid the fermented strella fruit. The natives can eat it in small quantities, but Azdhagi and True-dragons avoid it, even the juice. It’s acidic in a bad way.»
«Good to know. I’m a little surprised the two species are so compatible.»
«So was I when I learned about them. Further proof that the Universe is stranger than I dare imagine.» The Azdhagi and D’Shandi were almost symbiotic in terms of politics and culture, which was why the Azdhag Empire had been invited to take DeShan’s System as a protectorate about the time the Azdhagi colonized Pokara. Rada thought the arrangement a touch odd, but if that’s what the D’Shandi wanted, well, who was she to argue?
As they approached the palace, Rada asked the secretary, “Where are the barracks and military district?”
He blinked. “We have no need of them, Lord Reh-dakh. This is a peaceful world.”
She tried again. “Where are the soldiers who would be called up in case of an invasion from outside the Empire?”
“We have no need of them. The defense batteries and extra-atmospheric force will stop any invader.”
Rada and Zabet shared a look, and Zabet sent her Pet an image of the two of them covering their eyes with their forefeet. Rada made the hand-sign for “agreed” under the cover of the seat back. They both knew how that holo-vid ended! As the vehicle began its approach into the palace district, Rada decided that if she saw Shi-dan’s ghost lurking in the shadows, she would not be the least bit surprised. Ye gads and little lizards, this feels just like when Shi-dan hired me to inspect Drakon IV’s defenses, over five hundred year-turns ago. She counted off issues on her claws: overconfidence, arrogance, underestimation of non-reptiles, and lack of military preparedness by local troops. Ugh.
The transport landed and the guards piled out, forming a neat row. The secretary followed, and Rada and Zabet came last, carrying their own kit. “This way, please,” the secretary said, again without looking behind him as he set off. Zabet raised the whiskers on one side of her muzzle and lowered the opposite ear in a gesture of surprise and dismay. Where were the servants? Where was a military aid and escort for Lord Defender Ni Drako?
Instead of following him, Rada set her bag down, pulled a monocular out of its case on her belt, behind her blaster, and turned around, studying the shields around the palace landing area. Something looked odd at the corner, where the line of shield projectors bent to follow the line of a garden outside the landing area. The projectors’ locations struck Rada as strange, and she filed the observation away, as well as the appearance of the shield and the generators. They appeared standard for use within the Azdhag Empire, but that corner bothered her. Only then did she turn back around.
Zabet’s tail tip beat a rapid tattoo on the pavement of the landing area. Their guide had disappeared. Rada used the monocular to locate him, well away from the transport craft. She did not see any warning lights or evidence of arrivals or departures, so she tucked the monocular back in its case, picked up her bag, and followed, Zabet stalking along and grumbling under her breath. At least the weather felt decent, cool with a touch of breeze. They were halfway through Deklali’s spring in the southern hemisphere, with two large bodies of fresh water a few kliqs from the city on each side. A few local avians passed overhead, and Rada frowned, wondering how high up the shields went. They should be set to keep birdlife out of the landing area at all times, not just when ships were scheduled to take off or touch down. Another thing to ask someone about, she decided.
Their guide had vanished by the time they reached the main building. Rada set her bags down and turned to Zabet, baring her fangs. “Map.”
Zabet pulled a small holoprojector out of her carry harness, called up the palace map, and enlarged it to show their location. “That door, then to the area marked ‘military,’ I believe. I have tails to wring.” Zabet nodded and tucked the projector away. Then both females rearranged their bags, Rada converting hers into a rucksack and chest pouches, freeing her hands. Zabet pulled a pair of metal gauntlets out of hers, and as Rada locked the bags into the carry harness, confirming the balance, Zabet pulled on the razor-taloned metal gauntlets, close duplicates of those worn by the Palace Guard on Drakon IV. Rada tapped her sword cane’s tip twice on the pavement and nodded.
The lock on the door opened too easily. Rada and Zabet shifted to “enemy territory” mode, easing along the corridor, looking for Azdhagi or D’Shandi and finding neither. I’m having someone’s tail for supper. Roasted. With salt. The Lord Defender of Drakon IV stalked along until she found the military offices. She and Zabet took up positions on either side of the door. Rada unlatched the blade on her cane, drew it, and flashed three fingers at Zabet. The silvery-blue True-dragon nodded, her ears back and her whiskers stiff. Ra
da flashed three fingers again, then two, then one.
The private at the front desk had no idea what hit him. All he saw was motion, accompanied by a snarl, and then he had a good view of the ceiling, knocked off his bench and onto his back by something. “I get the next one,” he heard a high-pitched, oddly-accented voice calling.
The two visitors made it to the commanding officer’s work space before someone finally responded properly. Rada stopped and saluted the sergeant. “I’m Lord Defender Commander Rada Lord Ni Drako, called Lord Reh-dakh. I’m not impressed.”
The sergeant holstered his weapon and saluted in turn. “Welcome to Deklali, Lord Mammal. Sergeant Bleerr. I apologize for Captain N’kloli’s absence. How can I help you?”
“You can tell me why I was able to force the exterior lock and get this far without being challenged. The corporal in the front office was taken out by my concubine.” Zabet raised one forefoot.
The sergeant’s tail drooped, limp, and he sank a little. “No excuses, Lord Mammal. We had our heads up our elimination orifices.”
“I won’t argue with that observation, Sergeant Bleerr. Where is the Captain?”
“Meeting with Prince Governor Tee-shai about your arrival, Lord Mammal.”
«Can I have him, my lord?» Zabet broadcast to all present. She raised one forefoot, fisted it, and the hardened ceramisteel blades covering her talons sprang up, forming a set of daggers.
“No, you got Great Lord Shu’s son’s sword—and his pride. And His Imperial Majesty has to approve unless you are challenged directly, remember?” Sergeant Bleerr appeared neither surprised nor upset by the conversation. Rada heard sounds behind them and turned, finding at least six reptiles peering at her. “You have so little to do?”
Four took the hint and vanished. Two gawped at her, and she turned fully around and approached them, sword-blade still drawn. “Problem?”
