by John Carr
From the ground car, Diettinger called Logistics Center to establish a datalink to his personal workstations in the car and the aircraft in which he would be traveling. With the link, he would begin drafting the plans for a fleet which, he knew, would never exist off-media. At least it would help to take his mind off his growing dread.
Diettinger’s preoccupation had prevented him from noticing the security officer who followed him to the car, entered his own vehicle and then followed him to the flight center. Frequently, the security officer’s lips moved slightly, as if he were talking to himself.
Twelve
I
Diettinger enjoyed air travel; he never failed to find an ironic comfort in the presence of a breathable, positive-pressure atmosphere outside his cabin, however thin that atmosphere might be.
He had been in flight for a little under two hours, passing from day into the night of the western hemisphere. The equator, too, had slipped beneath them, unseen and unmissed.
Population centers blazed with light, the occasional industrial zone a glittering grey expanse dotted with jewels of lights, landing fields and launch pads. Sprawling agricultural areas, emerald tiles under the golden lace of the automated cultivation grid, the patents for which had made Sauron an economic superpower within the Empire. Those patents had long since been seized by that Empire as enemy assets - not that it mattered, now.
One area under their flight path extended into both day and nightside. A vast carpet of mountainous forest that extended to the sea, it was enclosed by walls discernible at 30,000 feet and was the terminus of dozens of transport lines to surrounding population centers. None of those lines penetrated their destination. A Wild Zone, Diettinger realized.
Wild Zones were all that remained of the indigenous ecosystems of Sauron. They dotted the surface of the Homeworld, and the rites of passage that took place within them were the closest thing Sauron had to a state religion.
Since its discovery six hundred years before, Sauron had revealed itself to be one of the more merciless crucibles humanity had come across in its colonial exploration of space. Tanith might have proven a close match, but its mass-colonization period never attracted anything like the sort of grimly determined malcontents from Earth as had Sauron. Protected from CoDominium Bureau of Relocation forced relocatees by powerful corporate backers, Sauron had not been subjected to mass immigrations of criminals and welfare recipients to overburden the new colony, like most CoDominium planets. Sauron citizens were still choosy about the quality of their neighbors. They liked to point out this fact when asked to explain how their colony could survive one year - let alone prosper over six hundred - on a world with an ecology disturbingly close to that of Earth’s late Cretaceous period.
But that was all a long time ago, Diettinger thought, watching the great mass of night-blackened green pass beneath him. However large the Wild Zones, they are still only glorified zoos. All the great saurians are penned and tagged, culled by ritual hunts for the eldest children of the colony Firstholders; Sauron’s initial colonists and the core of her aristocracy. The giant, protein-rich herd insects are gone completely, only their genotypes remain as matrices for food synthesizers. All of Sauron is ordered, tamed, regulated.
He was not so foolish as to consider it dull. Memories of his own moment of truth in a Wild Zone had long since made that impossible...
Armed with only an explosive harpoon, Diettinger and several other young Saurons his age had drawn lots for different sectors of a Wild Zone, seeking out a kill. Loup-garous and Nightfangs were fast and agile ambushers, and killing either with the weapon Diettinger had chosen would have been impressive enough. But none were in the 2,000 acre hunting area he had drawn, and on the tenth day he saw the reason why; gnawed bark and the potent spoor of the Grizzly he’d now been stalking for three days.
The Sauron Grizzly was named after one of Old Earth’s most powerful mammalian predators, but it was not a mammal. Half again the size and with twice the bad attitude of its Terran namesake, Sauron Grizzlies were six-legged reptiloids with some mammalian characteristics. Homoeo-thermic and partially covered with fur, the egg-laying predators were crafty, strong and fast; they were the most dangerous Sauron predator in the size range that most concerned humans. Any of the bigger carnivores - and there were plenty of those, too - were more likely to step on a human than eat them.
In drawing his lot for a hunting area, Diettinger had stumbled into the territory of a big male, extremely territorial and, he knew from his research on Wild Zone predators, only slightly less dangerous than a mother Grizzly guarding her egg clutch or newborns.
His parents’ reaction, when he’d contacted them aboard the Proctors’ observation floater at the base camp, had not surprised him: “Slightly less dangerous, Galen?” His mother had sounded almost amused.”I remind you that there is no such qualifier as slightly less dead.”
His father added, “Son, you are commended on your sense of societal obligation and your willingness to set an example as a Firstholder; but do not forget the First Principle.”
Military in tone, the First Principle was more than a military axiom. Keystone of Sauron society, family and strategic thought, the First Principle expressed a virtue that was uniquely Sauron, one that had made the inhabitants of Sauron System the most economically productive and militarily powerful world of the Empire. Put plainly, it said: Subjugate the ego to the battle plan.
Diettinger knew that his parents understood. His declaration to the Proctors of a Sauron Grizzly as his chosen prey was no exercise in bravado; judged by Sauron values, such a risk would have earned contempt rather than adulation. But the lot Galen Diettinger had drawn was for a very specific sector within this Wild Zone area; that the sector happened to contain a Sauron Grizzly meant it would have very little else in the way of predators. Until Diettinger made his kill, he would be relatively safe from any other dangerous fauna. “It was luck,” he told his father with a grin.
His mother had smiled on hearing the good-natured barb; Saurons as a rule did not believe in luck, only in probabilities, and so Diettinger’s hunt continued, to the moment when he came upon the grizzly’s tracks once more, and realized that it had doubled back and was now stalking him.
Almost within the same moment, he felt himself being watched. He did not recheck the charge at the tip of his harpoon; he had checked it already. Slowly lowering the weapon to a ready position, he moved in a widening spiral into a clearing perhaps ten yards wide, attempting to locate his opponent by smell. A Sauron human’s olfactory sense was equal to that of an Old Earth foxhound, but the antediluvian Wild Zones were filled with thousands of overlaid smells, each as pungent as the other. Like the beasts they hunted, Saurons could not rely on scent alone, and as he put his back to a tree six feet behind him, Diettinger saw the Grizzly, watching him. Waiting for him. At the same moment, he felt a faint tingling in the soles of his feet, lost in the rumble of the predator’s explosive rush toward him.
Head down, eyes locked with his, the Grizzly charged, its four hind limbs driving it unheeding through the thick brush, a scaly, furred juggernaut, its two forelimbs swatting aside trees with trunks the thickness of a man’s leg.
Diettinger was dimly aware of the background hum of the Proctors’ observation floater. He knew that he could drop his weapon and the Proctors would obliterate the Grizzly with the floater’s on-board weapons - and along with it, any chance of his ever inheriting his parents’ lands and titles. Not an option...
The Grizzly had smashed through the wall of forest growth, its armored back peppered with branches and splinters from trees shattered in its progress. Diettinger knew that it should, according to pattern, check its run at him, compensating for any defensive leaps its prey might attempt. It did not.
The animal’s mass would not allow it to change course at its current speed; Diettinger shifted his weight to jump out of its way... and nothing happened. He found, suddenly, that he could not move.
Not
an option, he thought once more. As the Grizzly dropped to all six feet for its final rush, Diettinger jammed the base of the harpoon into the ground by his instep and threw his weight forward, aiming the head of the weapon with all the skill of an ancient Swiss pikeman.
A mammal, marginally smarter, might have flinched, but Sauron Grizzlies ate everything. The harpoon’s explosive head went past the gaping jaws to bury itself in the base of the animal’s skull...
. . .and did not explode.
The Grizzly’s weight bore the shaft eighteen inches into the ground and a foot out the back of its head. Even without the charge, the harpoon must have hit something vital, for the Grizzly began to spasm; it seemed to have lost most of the control of its anterior limbs, but had no difficulty in catching Diettinger in its forepaws, mostly because he made no attempt to get away. Instead, to the horror of his parents, he drew the long hunting knife from his belt and buried it deep in the top of the animal’s armored skull, a difficult feat even with a Sauron’s strength, and utterly beyond the capability of any human norm.
The Grizzly dropped, bearing Diettinger down beneath its weight even as two of the Proctors dropped out of the floater and ran to his side.
“Heir Diettinger,” one of the Proctors said as they reached the steaming, two-ton carcass,” We of the Proctors are evenly divided as to whether you are utterly fearless or a complete fool.”
Against regulations, his parents too had left the floater and were helping to lift the still-shuddering carcass of the dead Grizzly off their son. His mother grasped his shoulders and tried to pull him out from beneath the animal, and while the strength in a Sauron mother’s grasp nearly matched the tenderness, she succeeded only in tearing the fabric of his clothing.
“He’s still pinned,” she told the Proctors calmly.
While his mother supported him, the two Proctors and his father pushed the Grizzly completely to one side, revealing Diettinger’s legs. Both of the young Firstholder’s feet were literally pinned to the ground by another of Sauron’s charming variations on natural selection: blackgrass, a carnivorous colony plant which grew in a lattice structure an inch or so below the ground surface, with spines which shot up from beneath the sod to impale small prey - and did a very good job of ensnaring men’s feet and ankles, as well.
“Had I tried to move,” Diettinger explained as one of the Proctors knelt to cut his boots free of the blackgrass, “at best, I would have fallen. I calculated that only standing my ground would give me any chance to live.”
“Good choice,” the Proctor said, starting on his other boot. “Sauron Grizzlies are too heavy to set off blackgrass; and too strong to be fazed by it, anyway. Sometimes,” he nodded toward Diettinger’s kill, “the smartest ones learn to herd or lure their more stupid prey into patches of it for that very reason.”
Diettinger saw the look in the Proctor’s eye as the man sheathed his knife and stood. He had failed to fully research all his possible Wild Zone encounters, concentrating only on the most obviously dangerous. He had survived in spite of his oversight, and that was an important part of the ritual too, but most importantly, he had learned his lesson. He would never again confront an adversary without knowing the enemy’s measure in full.
He stood up and looked at his father.”I must admit that I did not expect the harpoon to fail.”
“It didn’t,” his mother said. She had gone to inspect the harpoon’s tip, jutting from the rear of the Grizzly’s skull.”The force of the Grizzly’s impact was so great that it crushed the detonator.” She gently tossed the warhead to the far side of the clearing and, drawing her sidearm, shot it. The impact detonated the charge, leaving a three-foot crater.
When she rejoined his father at his side, both smiled, embraced their son; their eyes shining with relief - and pride.
“Whatever the reason, Heir Diettinger,” one of the Proctors told him at his Evaluation, ”You stood your ground. Impressive, young man. Your inheritance is approved.”
Diettinger did not attempt to suppress his smile of satisfaction. He had been sixteen years old for less than twelve hours.
Probably not the first time a lack of options has led to an erroneous impression, Diettinger reflected, smiling at the reminiscence. He was in a rest state which Saurons called “first stage sleep,” similar to a human norm doze, but allowing far more perception of outside stimuli.
II
Three days after his return from the Wild “Zone, Diettinger was in his room at home, working. Scores of documents required his review and signature as part of his new legal status as Heir to his parents’ estate, and he was dealing with them as thoroughly as he did with every other responsibility.
He heard his mother’s footsteps on the stairs, heard her turn toward his door, and he put down the sampling stylus with which he had been drawing his own blood and tissue micro-samples for the latest stack of documents.
Wiping his hands with a disinfectant cloth, he stood and inclined his head as she entered.
“Good afternoon, Galen,” she regarded the papers briefly, then returned her attention to her son’s face, the even grey eyes mirroring her own in both hue and affection.”We have official visitors.”
“I heard, mother. Forgive my distraction for not coming down earlier - ” Diettinger stopped. Something about his mother’s bearing put him on his guard.”Is something wrong?”
She moved to sit in the reading chair by his window.”Galen, as Firstholders, we enjoy privileges not normally afforded to the bulk of Sauron society, of which our material advantages are, perhaps, the least important.”
“Of course.”
“One such privilege which I have personally held most dear is our latitude in choosing a spouse.”
Diettinger smiled. Life for humanity everywhere was dangerous and hard, and nowhere was that more true than on Sauron. The difference was that Saurons, despite a level of technology as high as any in the Empire which might serve to inure them to such danger, never allowed themselves to forget it. Mortality among the earliest colonists had created the Sauron paramilitary social system, which had brought with it several social mores peculiar to this fourth world of Landyn’s Star.
Chief among these was conscriptive marriage. The legal marriage age for persons on Sauron was fifteen for males, thirteen for females. Even given Sauron’s longer year - relative to the Imperial standard of Sparta’s three hundred and sixty-two days - that meant Sauron citizens married very young. More to the point, they began their families a decade sooner on average than in any other planetary society of the Empire. Nor was it coincidence that active military duty for all Saurons, male and female, began at age eighteen. The timing was designed to allow an average of 2.5 children to each Sauron couple, and such was the importance afforded to the birth rate that males and females who had not found acceptable mates by the first year after reaching legal age were assigned them from the same Breedmaster data base that approved the more “romantic” matches arrived at by young couples or, more commonly, their families.
At sixteen, Diettinger’s grace period was now over, but he was a First-holder, which meant that he was not subject to Breedmaster assignment so long as his parents had arranged for a suitable alternative. Knowing his mother as he did, he had no doubt whatsoever that she had.
Diettinger smiled, taking a seat on the corner of his bed, facing her. “No less than I, mother; especially regarding my responsibilities of late. I apologize if my concentration on my studies has caused you undue concern, but frankly I relied on you and father to handle the matter for me.”
Julia Diettinger regarded her son with a bemused wonder; she had not failed to note the tone of gentle rebuke in his voice, even though she knew he was completely unconscious of it himself.
Julia knew there was no possibility that Galen’s reliance on his parents stemmed from either lack of interest or sloth on his part. Galen simply had absolute faith in those of his subordinates whom he came to rely on for anything, as he had come to know t
hat his parents would attend to details of his life for which he had no energy to spare. His opinion of his parents as subordinates in no way indicated any lack of respect for them, or regard, or love. In a culture of soldiers, her son was simply a born leader, and born leaders had no time to accommodate the luxuries of rituals attending the passage of authority from one generation to the next: they simply led.
“As in fact we have, Galen. Please prepare yourself for dinner and come downstairs as soon as you are finished, to greet our guests.”
There was only so much subordination Julia Diettinger was prepared to embrace, even to a born leader, when that leader happened to be her son.
Diettinger had no cause to be displeased with his parent’s prospective choices for his wife. All were Firstholders, all matched his own genetic codes perfectly and all, as he was fond of pointing out to his father, were more than attractive enough. Saurons as a people tended to conform to an overall Imperial standard of beauty, but they themselves were rarely influenced by such superficialities. Saurons believed that a person must be judged, literally, by what was inside them; and what was truly inside were their genes.
In a week, Diettinger himself had winnowed the field down to four prospective candidates, all of impeccable breeding, intelligence and career prospects of their own; to say nothing of personal wealth. When he announced his choice to his mother, she smiled at her husband.
Diettinger frowned.”Did I say something funny?” he asked.
“Your mother and I predicted you would choose her.” His father answered.”Heiress Diana Kirk will be a welcome addition to our family.”
Diettinger smiled warily, “I am curious: Why did you assume I would choose Heiress Kirk?” he asked.
