War World III: Sauron Dominion

by Jerry Pournelle

  “Anyone game?”

  “That smells gamey,” Barak observed. “We can’t live a lie like that.”

  Kemal grimaced, and Sannie looked sick: conspirators confronted with the results of their inept schemes.

  How like Mother she looks, when Badri saw the truth crash down upon her and no idea of where to hide or how to live with the shame.

  She was a proud woman, that Judge. And she had raised a fine son, done much good for the Pale. Was she to be dishonored now?

  “What other choices have we?” whispered the Judge, no Judge now but a woman who feared the ruin of her world.

  Aisha stepped forward. “My choice,” she said. “Exile. I left the tribe when I learned that the poison in my blood disgraced it.”

  She reached forward and seized Chaya’s hand. It was, most surprisingly, cold. She slipped the ruby from her own finger and placed it back upon the older woman’s hand. “Your husband gave you this. You gave it to me when I left Tallinn. Take it back now, and don’t feel you dishonored the vows you made. Heber has a fine son to his name.”

  “No one need know,” she hissed. “Not that. We can tell the truth. The truth is that this is a scandal. It discredits us all.”

  “Can’t have a discredited man as kapetein, can you?” Barak asked. “The election will have to go elsewhere. Maybe to Old Barak. He’ll kill me if he gets stuck with the job.”

  “Anyone who wants it deserves to get it,” Chaya said. “You would have been a good kapetein. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. So, cousin, you aren’t finished yet, are you? Are you suggesting we all exile ourselves till the trouble dies down?”

  “Until we avenge the disgrace the Saurons have set upon us. The bloody Saurons, who have made us break our laws and most sacred oaths. I see no reason why Barak ben Heber cannot be Barak ben Heber,” she went on rapidly. “You never saw your husband’s body. Maybe he wasn’t dead when ...”

  Chaya’s laugh sounded like a file on iron. “Sister, you reason like a true Ivritl”

  “He cannot be kapetein, then. Fine. That is the law. But there are laws above the laws. And one of them is the law of blood. My father’s blood lies upon the gates of Nurnen, and no one has avenged it. I swore to, but my kinsfolk brought me here instead. I hoped”--oh how I did hope, Aisha realized with a pang as she thought of Karl Haller’s weathered face and kind, djinni-shrewd eyes--”for a refuge and for aid. Now I do not ask for help. I demand it!”

  “You’re in no position to demand anything,” Kemal observed.

  “Am I not? I am the only one not touched by what has gone on tonight. And I offer you a way of wiping out the stain on your honor. Ride with me to Nurnen to save my father’s bones from their disgrace! Or, in the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate, and the livingkind, I go alone and fight Saurons till I die!”

  Barak’s growl of assent was not the only one Aisha heard.

  “I saw your mother, lady, in happier times,” Kemal told her. “Whether or not you succeed in this madness, you honor her. I ride with you.”

  “And I,” said his companion. At Kemal’s glare, “Your father would cut off my ears, not to mention anything else, if I came back without you. And it will be a good raid, a fine story.”

  Chaya stared down at her ring. “I do not think I could bear to hear myself called ‘Your Honor’ one more time. I’ll come. And Juchi was my brother.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” Barak bared his teeth. “Sannie-girl?” He held out his hand, and Sannie took it and carried it to her cheek.

  “I’ll make it up to you,” she promised. “I will. A pledge between Eden and Ivrit--we’ll have it yet.”

  Aisha glanced out. The sky was lightening. Below the bunker, the heat-shapes that meant a crowd lay waiting. No doubt, they planned an attack, just as they had so many years ago.

  “I’ll lead,” said Chaya. “And I’ll explain. Once the new kapetein is named--and a new Judge--we can ride.”

  “And when we’re through?” asked Sannie. “Do we come back?”

  Kemal raised a brow at her. “Do you truly expect to live to return home? We wipe out the offense to our blood in blood,” he said.

  “We try,” said Aisha, who always had.

  She slipped out of her jacket. “Give me your saber,” she ordered. Sticking its blade through the soft, pale leather, she handed her improvised flag to Chaya. “Just in case.”

  It was bad law, Chaya said after her resignation, and worse precedent, but the investigation of the shooting at Ruth’s Bunker probably set a record in terms of speed and efficiency. It wasn’t that anyone lied precisely. . . .

  Aisha had the sense that the Pale would be very glad to see the backs of everyone involved. And the fewer questions asked about their destination, the better. A few were asked, by the new kapetein, by the Hallers, especially Karl--but they were not addressed to her.

  Aisha found she was not sorry to be leaving. Always, if she had made the Pale her home, she would have had the sense that she was betraying her blood for the life it had denied her. The decision left her feeling light, as if she had recovered from another fever, but relieved.

  At the very last, only a few people turned out to see them off. One of them was young meid Erika, who ran up to Aisha and held out her fist. In it was a gold chain, with a medallion enameled in blue: the Eye that wards off evil.

  “It’s old!” the girl said. “To keep off the Lidless Eye!”

  Aisha leaned down and kissed her. “Keep it for yourself. And may Allah grant you a happier fate than mine.”

  The new kapetein, as Chaya predicted, had indeed turned out to be Old Barak, and a very angry Old Barak at that. So angry that he refused to say farewell to his old friend Chaya and his namesake.

  The former Judge was undisturbed. “He’ll shout and rant for a day or two, then cool down. He knows where we’re going. I wouldn’t be surprised if he sent riders after us. Or be sorry, either.

  “I just regret ...” her voice trailed off.

  You haven’t had much of a life, have you, Aisha? Chaya had promised her a life, a place, even a home and husband of her own. Instead, she had joined Aisha in exile and a quest for vengeance.

  Aisha shrugged, wordless. At least, when her sister and aunt’s life fell apart, she had a new purpose she could turn to. It was more than their mother had. They would not die for nothing, if it came to that.

  She ordered herself not to glance around. Karl Haller must be sick of the thought of her, much less the sight. And he had his clan, stunned by the death of their leader, to comfort. If anyone would listen to him.

  A word Aisha had heard in the Pale crept into her thoughts. Dayenu. It would have been enough to slay the Sauron. It would have been enough to die cleanly on the steppe thereafter, to find kinsfolk, honor, even, and aid for this private jihad of hers. And it was enough to find that jihad shared.

  Not much of a life? It was hers. And it was enough.

  They rode in silence up from the valley, without banners or acclaim. That too was enough.

  At the border of the Pale, a silent rider waited for them. His leathers were worn and comfortable, his armor somewhat less so, as if he seldom wore it. But he carried his weapons easily, and the fat roll behind his saddle was marked with the twisted serpents of his art.

  “And what do you think you’re doing?” Aisha shouted. She was abruptly, gloriously furious. And she was afraid.

  “The way you’re acting, I wouldn’t let the lot of you cross the street alone,” Karl Haller retorted. “Someone’s got to look after you. And you’re not the only ones who’ve made the Pale too hot to hold you.”

  Aisha glared at him. “That’s all, then.”

  His djinni’s glance always had seen too much. “For now.”

  Haller’s musky fell in with the pace of the other six. No one spoke, though irrepressible Barak gestured thumbs up.

  Now we are seven, Aisha thought.

  That, too, was more than enough.

>   From Report on Sector Seven, Citadel Intelligence, Archives, Threat Analysis Division, Ethic Substudies, by Analyst Fifth Rank Grishnak, 2920; ammend:

  . . . unfortunately, logistical difficulties constrain operations from Angband Base against the cattle territory known as the Pale, inhabited by the haBandari.

  The haBandari are a post-Sauron-contact ethnic group. Linguistic and genetic analysis indicate very mixed background, now stabilized as a neorace; see references, Ashkenazim, Leituas, Harmony/ Americ. Significant deviations from human-norm clines are traceable to admixtures of Frystaat ancestry; extreme selective pressures among the human-norm settlers of that planet produced genetic modifications comparable in a few respects to those introduced on Homeworld by the eugenics programs of the Sauron Unified State before the wars with the Empire (see genetic analysis, attached). The haBandari population is in excess of 200,000; the Pale also contains some 150,000 of the Americ-descended religio-political subgroup known as Edenites, who are associated with the haBandari in a dominance/symbiosis linkage. The haBandari speak a language of their own, Bandarit; computer analysis indicates this arose as a creolized contact-pidgin between Americ and New Hebrew, with substantial contributions from Afrikaans and Lithuanian (see linquistic analysis, attached).

  As indicated by the population density, the haBandari practice a mixed economy, with sedentary livestock ranching on their unusually productive steppe and mixed irrigation farming in the Eden Valley, a large and relatively fertile lowland with air pressure sufficient for low-risk pregnancy among human norms. Yields are compatible with extensive investment and empirical understanding of plant/animal genetics. Research indicates highly developed handicrafts and intermediate-technology extractive-manufacturing industries, including paper, flintlock firearms, gunpowder, glass, small quantities of high-carbon steel; the above goods are exported in some quantity, mainly in exchange for raw materials. Government is an elective monarchy with oligarchic and democratic features and highly effective military forces, by cattle standards.

  My analysis indicates the extreme desirability of bringing the haBandari under our hegemony and levying genetic and economic tribute from this rich source of goods and desirable genes. Further Intelligence operations are imperative.

  From: Annual Field Intelligence Reports, Angband Base, relayed to Citadel Intelligence Division, Archives, Threat Analysis Division, Ethic Substudies, 2920; ammend:

  . . . item 17: Analyst Fourth Rank Grishnak, seven periods without reports while on detached duty with haBandari Project, presumed lost while infiltrating enemy territory, item 18: maintenance on . ..

  SHAME AND HONOR - S.M. Stirling

  Prologue

  Base First Rank Urthak nodded as he entered the Quilland Base computer room. “That will be all,” he said. The Technical Rank specialists nodded in return and left with swift silence.

  Urthak sat before the Threat Analysis computer and laid his palm on the screen. It identified him and unlocked; he gave one last glance around the dimly lit room with its blue-glowing screens, using his IR-sensitive eyes. Paranoia, perhaps, but . . .

  “THREATS TO QUILLAND BASE--RANK ORDER,” he typed. There was a second of waiting, as the computer called on the computational power of the Base mainframe, as much optical-chip circuitry as anyone had on Haven these days.

  1. THE CITADEL

  2. THE NEWLY ASSIGNED PERSONNEL FROM THE CITADEL

  3. THE HABANDARI

  4. STEPPE NOMADS, CLANS SUBJECT TO YESUGEI KHAN

  5. COSSAKI, STANITSA OF BERGENOV

  6. OTHERS TOO LOW A PROBABILITY TO BE CALCULATED

  Urthak smiled thinly. That was the good thing about computers; they had only those loyalties that you programmed into them. Unlike Soldiers, whatever the cattle thought. Sauron Soldiers could have irritatingly complicated allegiances; for example, they could obstinately insist that the Quilland Base CO should follow every minor directive that came in from the Citadel, whether it reflected accurate understanding of local conditions or not. They might construe his programming of the Citadel as a threat possibility to be treason.

  This reflects a refusal to acknowledge reality, he thought. To acknowledge the passing of three centuries. Quilland Base had been founded thirty years after the arrival of the Saurons on Haven, in the first flush of victory, when they had believed this world of refuge lay open to them like the legs of a well-trained breeder. When it seemed that the Sauron Unified State would rise again almost immediately, beyond the reach or knowledge of the Imperials who had defeated the first Sauron attempt at supreme power and destroyed Homeworld.

  Only natural that they should think in those terms, he thought. The founders had been of the first generation; from lost Homeworld, or raised by those who were. The Dol Guldur had brought fifty thousand pedigree Sauron ova, and the Soldiers of that day had supersonic transports, energy weapons, every sort of communications device. But the weapons wore out, and then the machine-tools to build replacements, and the alloys. The breeding program slowed as well, once the ova and the gene-splicing equipment was gone. Saurons produced three male births for every female, and many Sauron-Sauron crossings were not viable; a simple matter on Homeworld, where the eugenics laboratories could handle problems like that. On Haven, it meant centuries of relentless inbreeding and culling; only now were they producing numbers of Soldiers equal to the ancestral stock.

  Better, actually, Urthak mused. Less given to dying in convulsions or suffering strokes from blood that clotted too fast.

  And only now were they able to begin reestablishing a true unified command; Quilland Base had been an independent satrapy in fact for two centuries. Down south, Angband Base had held on on its own for a hundred and fifty years, until the cattle took it. Unity was needed, but too many at the Citadel thought in terms of the old Sauron Unified State; coldly rational, centralized, bureaucratic. Urthak snorted. On a world where horses and muskeylopes and marching men were the fastest transport? Where the remaining radios were precious relics, used only in an emergency? A network of baronies, owing loose allegiance to the Citadel and united by faith, faith in the mission of the Race--now that was possible.

  And that Base First Rank Urthak should be the founder of the most powerful baronial line, that is also possible, the Sauron thought. His fingers moved again on the keyboard:

  “THREATS TO CO, QUILLAND BASE--RANK ORDER.” This time there was no pause before the glowing letters formed:

  1. THE CITADEL

  2. DIVISION LEADER RANK DEATHMASTER BOYLE

  3. THE NEWLY ASSIGNED PERSONNEL FROM THE CITADEL

  4. THE HABANDARI

  5. STEPPE NOMADS, CLANS SUBJECT TO YESUGEI KHAN

  6. COSSAKI, STANITSA OF BERGENOV

  7. OTHERS TOO LOW A PROBABILITY TO BE CALCULATED

  Urthak blanked the screen and for a moment sat thinking before he pressed the buzzer for a runner. He waited impassively until the servant entered and bowed. “Fetch me Division Leader Rank Deathmaster Boyle,” he said.

  Boyle had been back from the Tayok expedition for a day, long enough to rest and debrief. The minutes that stretched until his second-in-command arrived were neither tense nor boring; they reminded him of his youth, of campaigning against rebel Dinneh bands up in the Tierra del Muerte country. Most of the time had been spent like this, waiting behind a rock. . . .

  “First Rank,” the Deathmaster said, saluting with impeccable correctness. He was a tall man, nearly two meters, lean as a tamerlane in close-fitting field gray, with the skull insignia Totenkopf on his collar tabs. Pale eyes under heavy ridges, long boney face, lank straw-colored hair against olive-white skin; more in the traditional Sauron mold than Urthak, whose squat build and slanted black eyes favored his tribute-maiden mother.

  “I’ve assimilated your report on the proposed Tayok Base,” Urthak said. “I note the subsistence difficulties.”

  Boyle nodded. “The valley the Bergenov stanitsa controlled is fertile, and low enough to support successful childbirth,” h
e said. Low by Haven standards, of course: on long-lost Terra it would be considered equivalent to Bogota or Addis Ababa. Valleys like that were rare outside the inaccessible coastlines and the great lowland of Shangri-La, which could only be reached from the far eastern pass dominated by the Sauron Citadel. Rare and more precious than any gold, and bitterly contested. “Better organization will increase the crop yields, but the steppe population must be reduced.”

  Urthak leaned forward and steepled his fingers, conscious that even Soldier senses would detect nothing but eagerness. The new Base must hold at least a battalion of Soldiers, a thousand fighting men with their women and children, servants and laborers. No easy burden on a world as harsh as this, and a Soldier consumed many times as much in the way of calories as an unmodified man. The enhanced abilities did not come free; the fast-burning Sauron metabolism had to be stoked, and frequently. For that matter, their dependents usually had a better standard of living than most cattle.

  “Yes. The grazing lands of the Cossaki north of the valley must be emptied. They can be leased to other nomads, those the Base takes as tributaries.”

  That was the usual arrangement, allowing favored steppe tribes to pass into a Base’s lowlands for winter grazing and to bear their children, in return for tribute of food and stock and women. Such tribes grew stronger and took the grazing of their enemies; they hated the Saurons, but knew their dependence.

  “Exterminating them would be costly,” Urthak continued. Boyle nodded expressionlessly; the casualty ratios and estimated expenditures were in his report. “I have decided that we should drive them instead. Using them as a tool to weaken other enemies before they die.”

  The Deathmaster raised one eyebrow and rubbed his chin. “Difficult; our expedition has already weakened them, and the tribes to the west would resist.”

  For a moment Urthak’s smile made his face more of a skull than the other Sauron’s collar-tabs. “We will step up our tribute expeditions among the tribes to the west, especially around Ashkabad,’ he said. “And perhaps give some direct help to the Cossaki, if they see reason.”