Under the Yoke

by S. M. Stirling

  "Sharkmouth markings," she whispered, mostly to herself. Gaping red-and-white grins painted on the metal, with clutching hands and screaming faces drawn between the teeth. At Chantal's quick glance she continued: "Draka fighters and ground-attack aircraft have them."

  The gunboats halted over the middle of the Loire. The nun had seen a few helicopters before—both sides had been using them by the end of the War—but it still seemed somehow unnatural for objects to hang in the sky like that. She swallowed through a dry throat; in the cockpit of a helicopter one of the bulbous helmets moved and the gatling beneath followed it, tracking with a blind, mechanical malevolence. The noise was overwhelming as the war-machines hung above the water, the pulsing wind of the rotors thumping against the side of the car and raising a skidding ground-mist of dust, leaving circles of endless ripples on the surface of the river. A howling like wolves in torment echoed back and forth between the stony walls.

  Above, on the cliff, the maquisard machine-gun spat at the Draka helicopters. A burst sparked off the armor-plate nose of the left-hand vehicle; its neighbor turned slightly, corrected back.

  "Down!" Marya cried, dragging the French girl with her as the first dragon-hiss and flash of rocket fire caught her eye. The flare often-round pods being ripple-fired stitched a line of smoke between the warcraft and the stone; and where the line met granite, the side of the cliff exploded. She was deafened and dazzled for a moment; the steel beneath her shook, and a section of the cliff-face slid free onto the road. Rocks hammered down, starring the high-impact glass of the car and denting its metal; there was a fresh chorus of shrieks from the truck ahead as jagged fragments tore through the bullet-weakened canvas. Marya looked up through the windshield as another piece the size of a piano toppled away, hit a crag and split with a tock sound exactly like that of a pebble dropped on flagstone multiplied a thousand times.

  One fragment bounced high, hung twirling at the apex of its curve, and dropped straight down to crush the truck's engine-compartment with a crang of parting metal. Thick distillate-fuel spilled down from the ruptured tank, then caught from some edge of hot steel and burned with a sullen orange flicker and trickles of oily black smoke. The other half of the stone was pear-shaped, wobbling through the air toward the car and missing it by a handspan before bounding down the gorge. Silence fell, or so it seemed as the rockslide ended. Shots, screams, the roaring thutter of the gunboats' engines as they soared by overhead with slow insolent grace… Then true silence as they landed and the fighting ceased.

  Draka airborne troopers were dropping down the face of the cliff from rock to rock in an easy bounding scramble; she could hear them editing to each other, yipping hunting-cries and laughter that sounded harsh and tinny to her battered ears. She looked at them and blinked the grit out of her watering eyes, turning to Issac and checking the bandages, hoping there would be no prisoners.

  "We got about eight of them," the Tetrarch said to Tanya. South along the road there was another hiss as the extinguisher sprayed foam on the smoking hood of the truck; the oily stink of burnt distillate and overheated metal was in the air, the universal scents of machine-age war.

  The Tetrarch was Eva von Shrakenberg; a cousin, daughter of Tanya's father's eldest brother. A mild surprise, but their family was old, prominent, and had always produced more than its share of officers. The Draka were not a numerous people, the Landholders even less so; you were always running into familiar faces. Eva's sister Ava was the tetrarchy's senior decurion; twins ran in the family too.

  "Interrogation?" Tanya asked.

  "Oh, we'll keep one or two. Up to the headhunters, really." A lochos of Order Police had flown in with the airborne troops.

  They were walking back past the wrecked truck; Ogden and Sarah had unreeved the coffle's common chain from the eyebolts and pulled the serfs out to sit in the vehicle's shade. The Polish nun was working on the wounded, with the Airborne medic standing by. Tanya's nose wrinkled at the familiar smell; the flies were there already, the gods alone knew where they all came from; there were even a few ravens circling overhead or perched waiting in the trees. Chains clanked as the serfs saw her and stirred.

  "How many did we lose?" she asked the senior overseer.

  Ogden looked up. He was leaning against the tailgate and honing a nick out of a long fighting-knife, the ceramic whetstone going screet-screet on the steel. There was a nostalgic smile on his face; Ogden had been with her husband during the War, a reconnaissance commando.

  "Three kilt daid," he rasped in his nasal north-Angolan accent, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the shrouded bodies in the truck. "Two like to die. Woulda been mo', but that towhaired wench got 'em patched quick. Saved Issac's ass, too."

  "Marya?" The nun looked from her work; she had a tourniquet around the man's thigh, and a plasma drip in one arm. "We goin' lose any more?"

  Marya nodded toward a still figure. "That man, yes. Shattered spine, multiple perforations of the intestine, spleen and liver. He is in coma. Even a good surgeon and a hospital could do nothing; I have given him morphine and prayed for him.

  'This one—" She looked down. "The bullet entered above the hip and ran the length of the thighbone. Multiple compound fracture." He was unconscious, and better so: blood oozed from the sodden trouser leg, and the exit-wound above the knee was cratered, vivid red flesh, white fat, pink shards of bone. "He needs immediate hospital care, and even so I fear the leg must go."

  Tanya looked over to the Draka medic; he nodded. Ogden walked over, wiping the long clip-pointed knife on his leather-covered thigh; his jacket hung from one shoulder, and he tested the edge on one of the sparse reddish chest-hairs that curled through the cotton mesh of his undershirt.

  "That's our plumber," he said. "Not much use, a one-legged plumber. Kill him?"

  The nun looked up sharply, her eyes going wide. Tanya looked at her for a moment, and then to the woman who sat cradling the man's head in her lap, stroking his forehead with a slow regular movement that set her wrist-shackles chiming. Young, under the cropped hair and grey prison pallor. There was blood on her hands. She must have clamped the leg herself; the wounded serf would have bled out otherwise.

  "Votre marié?" the Draka asked.

  The woman looked up. "Oui, maîtresse," she said. "My Marcel. He is a good man, my Marcel." She blinked, forced a trembling smile. "He will work well for you, maîtresse. Always a good worker, Marcel; he never drank his wages, or fought or… his skill is in his hands, fix anything, I will help him—"

  Tanya signed her to silence. "No," she said to the overseer. "A plantation isn't a prison-mine, Ogden; yo' can't kill 'em offhand like that."

  He shrugged. "Yo're the Landholder." His knife slid into the boot-sheath. "Best ah see to the lead car, might be fixable, anyhows."

  She turned to her cousin. "Favor, coz?"

  The officer nodded. "Pas de probléme, as they-uns say hereabouts." She turned and whistled for a stretcher, and Tanya nodded to her other overseer.

  "Unshackle me two bearers, here, Miss Wentworth." To the woman beside the wounded man: "They're taking him back to Le Puy; there'll be doctors for him there, and a place on Chateau Retour if he lives." A frown as she clung doubtfully. "If I was going to kill him, I'd say so; don't push your luck, wench."

  Gudrun had come up while her mother and the others spoke; walking briskly, but pale even by a redhead's standards. Tanya put a hand on her shoulder and steered her a little away. "Your first time under fire and yo' did right well, daughter." She could feel the girl straighten pridefully into an adult's stance, hand on hip, and gave her a quick squeeze around the shoulders.

  "Pity about losing the serfs just after we bought 'em, Ma," she said, returning the pressure with an arm about her mother's waist.

  "In more ways than one, younglin'." At the girl's frown she continued. "Gudrun… these are cattle, but they're ours. Ours to use, an' ours to guard; we domesticated them, an' when you tame somethin' you make it helpless. Like sheep, or dai
ry cows. Lettin' the wolves at 'em is a failure of responsibility. Yo' understand?"

  She nodded slowly. "I think so, ma… Suppose it'll make it harder to tame them proper, if they don't think we can protect them."

  "Good," Tanya said. Well, something of that lecture on the Tool that Thinks sunk in, at least. "We want these to be good cattle, submissive, hard-workin' and obedient even when they're not bein' watched. They have to fear us, but that isn't enough. Yo' have to make them depend on us; that's one reason we make the world outside the plantation bounds so rough fo' serfs. Reminds them, masterless serf, lost soul."

  Gudrun smiled. "I know that one, Ma. Carlyle." A laugh. "Why don' we keep some of those-there bush-men around, then?"

  Tanya joined the child's chuckle for a moment. "We did, sweetlin', back in the old days, in Africa. A few runnin' wild in the woods or mountains… made for good huntin', too. That's too risky here, for a lot of reasons." She looked up at the cliff-face, spoke more softly, as much to herself as her daughter. "We'll import leopards, later. Bring back the wolves, give the field-hands reason to be afraid of the dark… dangerous. That's the blood price of mastery, child; we take the freedom for ourselves, the wealth, the power, the pleasure, the leisure… we get the danger and the responsibility, too, all of it."

  The guerrilla prisoners came up then, stumbling along with their elbows tied roughly behind their backs, prodded forward by bayonets whose points were dripping-dark. Gudrun wrinkled her nose at their stink; the green-coated Security troopers slung their rifles and two gripped each maquisard.

  "Phew, Ma. An' they're so ugly."

  "I've smelled 'most as bad, sweetlin'; sometimes there's no time to wash, in the field." A quick appraisal. "These look like they've been dyin' by inches fo a while, too."

  A working-party came out of the roadside scrub with poles over their shoulders and their bush-knives in hand. Tanya turned and clapped her hands for Yasmin, and the serf scuttled up with her head bowed, glancing nervously over her shoulder at the soldiers.

  "Yasmin, take Gudrun and, hmm, what's-her-name, the halfwit wench—Therese—an' walk a ways up past my car. Ahh, on second thoughts, take Tom with you too. Don't get out of Mister Donaldson's sight, but don't come back 'lessn yo're called. Understand?"

  "Aw, Ma, why can't I stay an' watch?" Gudrun said with a trace of petulance. Tanya gripped her chin firmly and tilted the head up to meet her eyes.

  "Because yo're too young. This is necessary; it's also an ugly thing. It's not for entertainment—that's a sickness an' I won't tolerate it. Were it possible, I'd kill them clean; so would yo', I hope. Understood?"

  "I reckon, Ma." A glower at the prisoners. "But they tried to hurt you, Ma!"

  "So they did; an' yo', sweetlin', which is worse. But it's 'neath us to hate them for it; we kill 'cause it's needful, not for hate, that hurts yo' inside. Remember that… and scoot!"

  Tanya walked over to the coffle. "Look at me, serfs," she said, jerking her chin back at the airborne troopers and their prisoners. "That bushman offal tried to attack the Draka; they ended by attacking you. It's always that way, we've seen it a thousand times. Now watch how we protect our own, and punish rebellion."

  The working party were hammering in the stakes by the outer verge of the road, swinging their entrenching tools and wedging the bases with chips of rock. She could feel a shiver and murmur run through the seven maquisards, and turned to watch their faces. Fear, but not real belief, not yet; that was familiar, it was not easy to really believe that there would be no rescue, no reprieve. And these were brave men, to have remained starving in the mountains for… years, probably. A glance; the squad monitor was walking down the row of waist-high poles, kicking to check their set. He nodded, and the troopers began trimming the points, fresh-cut white wood oozing sap. Their task finished, the airborne soldiers scattered; some standing to watch the serf police at their work, others beginning the climb back to their vehicles.

  One of the guerrillas shouted, some sort of political slogan. The Security NCO finished wiping his bushknife, slid it over his shoulder into the sheath as he walked back to the man, grinning. A flicking backfist blow smashed teeth and jaw with a sound like twigs crackling; the impact ran through the watching serfs with a ripple and a sound of breath like wind soughing amid dead grass.

  "This one wants to sing," the monitor said. "Him first. Mboya, Scaragoglu."

  The troopers lifted the man easily, each with a hand on shoulder and thigh, carried him out to the first length of sharpened wood. He began to fight then, kicking and twisting wildly; the serf policemen ignored his flailing and lifted him higher as they turned to face him in toward the road. Liquid feces stained his ragged trousers, and urine spread dark on their front. The sudden hard stink carried across the five meters of road, mixing incongruously with the smells of vegetation and river.

  "Shit," said the younger of the Order Police.

  "Every time," the other grunted, with a frown of effort. Shuffling their feet, they arranged the Frenchman carefully, spreading his legs over the point. "Raaht, let's put a cork in him. Not too far."

  They pushed down. The scream came then, long and hoarse and bubbling. The monitor waited until it died down, replaced by a desperate grunt as the guerrilla's feet scrabbled on tiptoe, moving in a splay-legged dance. He strained, trying to drag himself off the six inches of rough timber shoved up through his anus into his gut. Inevitable futility; the rock-tense muscles of his calves could only carry his weight for a few moments. He sank down on his heels, and the scream rose again to a wailing trill as the point went deeper inside. Then a series of tearing grunts; the sound of the wind was louder, and the noisy vomiting of one of the coffle.

  Strolling, the monitor paced down the line of prisoners, tapping the knuckles of his right hand against his left. A block-built man with broad Slavic features, he was wearing warsaps, and the steel inserts of the fingerless gloves made a tink-tink sound. Then a thumb shot out to prod another guerrilla in the chest.

  "You. C'mon, sweetheart, yo've gotta date with the Turk."

  The troopers dragged him past Tanya; she could see that this one had gone limp, hear him sobbing with a bawling rasp. This one believed now, yes, knew that the dirty unspeakable impossible thing was happening to him.

  Ugly indeed. That's the point, she thought, watching the wide, staring eyes of the coffle. Nobody died well on the stake, or bravely. It had the horror of squalor, death robbed of all dignity, all possibility of honor.

  There are so many of them, she thought. So few of us. A kick inside her womb; she put a hand to her belly and looked back at the row of stakes with a chilly satisfaction. "So, so, little one," she whispered. There had been times in the War when she felt a detached sympathy for the men she killed. Not here, never here. This was home.

  Another kick. "I'll keep yo' safe, doan' worry, child of my blood." Tanya looked at the coffle once more, a sudden fierce anger curling the lips from her teeth, bristling the tiny hairs along her spine. Remember, ran through her. Remember, all of you, make this worth it. and Remember this forever, tell your children and your children's children. It was the ultimate argument. When you think submission is impossible, remember this. This is what raising your hand to one of the Race means.

  The executions continued at a measured pace, until only two of the captured maqui-fighters were left. The monitor stood before them, tapping a finger on his chin; their eyes were wild, and they trembled in the strong hands that gripped them.

  "Well, well. One for Abdul the Turk's lovin', one for the interrogators back in Le Puy." A stretching moment. "Yaz the one."

  His finger stretched out, slowly, to touch the man on the nose. The Frenchman's head reared back, spittle running down his chin, until the touch. His companion was shaking with hysterical relief, giggling and weeping.

  Then the first man slumped, boneless, as the serf policeman's fingertip touched his face. Laughing, the monitor pushed back an eyelid.

  "Allah, fainted," he said,
shaking his head. "Well, no point in takin' a sleepin' man to the Turk." He turned to the other. "Yo" luck's out, sweetheart."

  Tanya ignored the last impalement, watching the two women she had bought in Lyons instead. Chantal was standing with her hands pressed over her face, the fingers white as they pressed into her forehead. Marya… Marya was glaring at the execution, face pale and rigid, eyes alight with… no, not hatred, the Draka judged. Anger. A huge and blazing fury, held under tight control, and the more furious for all that.

  Her cousin touched her shoulder. "Yore transport's on its way," she said, then followed Tanya's gaze, blinked. "Got somethin' interestin', there."

  "Yes," Tanya said. "But is it an interestin' plow, or a landmine?" She sighed. "Ah, well, the work to its day."

  Chapter Seven

  Unlike many of my colleagues at the Sorbonne. I never held that structural-functionalist anthropology was incompatible with a historical approach. The Draka proved a fertile field for study…far closer study than was comfortable! They proved a perfect illustration of how a society exists as a balanced stasis of forces, each furthering its overall functioning. But here one must take a historical perspective. We often hear that the Domination is an outgrowth of Western civilization; this is both true and profoundly untrue.

  Any detached settlement is a fragment of its parent society. It may not contain all the elements of its parent and even if it does, their balance may be different: so will be the environment Thus the United States is not England: nor is Brazil Portugal, nor Argentina Spain. Yet these differences are of degree, rather than kind. It was different for the Domination: the ancestors of the Draka were a fragment of the slave-plantation society of the South Atlantic-Caribbean, itself an eccentric fragment of the western European expansion. Elsewhere, every remnant of that social formation was scoured out of existence by the forces of the nineteenth century bourgeois triumphant In their African isolation the Draka were free to develop without the constraints, the balancing forces, to which the parent society was subject; without the humanitarian phase of the Enlightenment without the softening rule of the middle classes, without the Romantics. What developed was almost a caricature of Western civilization; the rationality, the worship of technique, the Faustian power-lust… so much was obvious from study. The conquest brought me into personal contact with ruling-caste Draka. and it was immediately apparent that these were aliens. Their very faces and movements showed it; even their war machines, constrained by the universal laws of nature, were unmistakably different