by Allen Steele
By late afternoon, we’d entered hill country. Flat-topped mesas rose around us, with massive stone pinnacles jutting upward between them; the jagged peaks of distant mountains lay just beyond the horizon. I drove until it was nearly dusk, then pulled up behind a hoodoo and stopped for the night.
Dr. al-Baz pitched a tent while I collected dead scrub brush. Once I had a fire going, I suspended a cookpot above the embers, then emptied a can of stew into it. The professor had thought to buy a couple of bottles of red wine before we left town; we opened one for dinner and worked our way through it after we ate.
“So tell me something,” Dr. al-Baz said once we’d scrubbed down the pot, plates, and spoons. “Why did you become a guide?”
“You mean, other than getting a job as a blackjack dealer?” I propped the cookware up against a boulder. A stiff breeze was coming out of the west; the sand it carried would scour away the remaining grub. “Never really thought about it, to be honest. My folks are first-generation settlers, so I was born and raised here. I started prowling the desert as soon as I was old enough to go out alone, so…”
“That’s just it.” The professor moved a little closer to the fire, holding out his hands to warm them. Now that the sun was down, a cold night was ahead; we could already see our breath by the firelight. “Most of the colonists I’ve met seem content to stay in the city. When I told them that I was planning a trip into the desert, they all looked at me like I was mad. Someone even suggested that I buy a gun and take out extra life insurance.”
“Whoever told you to buy a gun doesn’t know a thing about the shatan. They never attack unless provoked, and the surest way to upset them is to approach one of their villages with a gun.” I patted the utility knife on my belt. “This is the closest I come to carrying a weapon when there’s even a possibility that I might run into aborigines. One reason why I’m on good terms with them…I mind my manners.”
“Most people here haven’t even seen an aborigine, I think.”
“You’re right, they haven’t. Rio Zephyria is the biggest colony because of tourism, but most permanent residents prefer to live where there’s flush toilets and cable TV.” I sat down on the other side of the fire. “They can have it. The only reason I live there is because that’s where the tourists are. If it wasn’t for that, I’d have a place out in the boonies and hit town only when I need to stock up on supplies.”
“I see.” Dr. al-Baz picked up his tin cup and mine and poured some wine into each. “Forgive me if I’m wrong,” he said as he handed my cup to me, “but it doesn’t sound as if you very much approve of your fellow colonists.”
“I don’t.” I took a sip and put the cup down beside me; I didn’t want to get a headful of wine the night before I was going to have to deal with shatan tribesmen. “My folks came out here to explore a new world, but everyone who’s come after those original settlers…well, you saw Rio. You know what it’s like. We’re building hotels and casinos and shopping centers, and introducing invasive species into our farms and dumping our sewage into the channels, and every few weeks during conjunction another ship brings in more people who think Mars is like Las Vegas only without as many hookers…not that we don’t have plenty of those, too.”
As I spoke, I craned my neck to look up the night sky. The major constellations gleamed brightly: Ursa Major, Draco, Cygnus, with Denes as the north star. You can’t see the Milky Way very well in the city; you have to go out into the desert to get a decent view of the Martian night sky. “So who can blame the shatan for not wanting to have anything to do with us? They knew the score as soon as we showed up.” Recalling a thought I’d had the day before, I chuckled to myself. “The old movies got it wrong. Mars didn’t invade Earth…Earth invaded Mars.”
“I didn’t realize there was so much resentment on your part.”
He sounded like his feelings were wounded. That was no way to treat a paying customer.
“No, no…it’s not you,” I quickly added. “I don’t think you’d be caught dead at a poker table.”
He laughed out loud. “No, I don’t think the university would look very kindly upon me if my expense report included poker chips.”
“Glad to hear it.” I hesitated, then went on. “Just do me a favor, will you? If you find something here that might…I dunno…make things worse, would you consider keeping it yourself? Humans have done enough stupid things here already. We don’t need to do anything more.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” Dr. al-Baz said.
The next day, we found the shatan. Or rather, they found us.
We broke camp and continued following the Laestrygon as it flowed south through the desert hills. I’d been watching the jeep’s odometer the entire trip, and when we were about fifty kilometers from where I remembered the aborigine settlement, I began driving along the canal banks. I told Dr. al-Baz to keep a sharp eye out for any signs of habitation—trails, or perhaps abandoned camps left behind by hunting parties—but what we found was a lot more obvious: another suspension bridge, and passing beneath it, a shatan boat.
The canal boat was a slender catamaran about ten meters long, with broad white sails catching the desert wind and a small cabin at its stern. The figures moving along its decks didn’t notice us until one of them spotted the jeep. He let out a warbling cry—“wallawallawalla!”—and the others stopped what they were doing to gaze in the direction he was pointing. Then another shatan standing atop the cabin yelled something and everyone turned to dash into the cabin, with their captain disappearing through a hatch in its ceiling. Within seconds, the catamaran became a ghost ship.
“Wow.” Dr. al-Baz was both astounded and disappointed. “They really don’t want to see us, do they?”
“Actually, they don’t want us to see them.” He looked at me askance, not understanding the difference. “They believe that, if they can’t be seen, then they’ve disappeared from the world. This way, they’re hoping that, so far as we’re concerned, they’ve ceased to exist.” I shrugged. “Kind of logical, if you think about it.”
There was no point in trying to persuade the crew to emerge from hiding, so we left the boat behind and continued our drive down the canal bank. But the catamaran had barely disappeared from sight when we heard a hollow roar from behind us, like a bullhorn being blown. The sound echoed off the nearby mesas; two more prolonged blasts, then the horn went silent.
“If there are any more shatan around, they’ll hear that and know we’re coming,” I said. “They’ll repeat the same signal with their own horns, and so on until the signal reaches the village.”
“So they know we’re here,” Dr. al-Baz said. “Will they hide like the others?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” I shrugged. “It’s up to them.”
For a long time, we didn’t spot anyone or anything. We were about eight kilometers from the village when we came upon another bridge. This time, we saw two figures standing near the foot of the bridge. They appeared unusually tall even for aborigines, but it wasn’t until we got closer that we saw why: each of them rode a hattas—an enormous buffalo-like creature with six legs and elongated necks that the natives tamed as pack animals. It wasn’t what they were riding that caught my attention, though, so much as the long spears they carried, or the heavy animal-hide outfits they wore.
“Uh-oh,” I said quietly. “That’s not good.”
“What’s not good?”
“I was hoping we’d run into hunters…but these guys are warriors. They can be a little…um, intense. Keep your hands in sight and never look away from them.”
I halted the jeep about twenty feet from them. We climbed out and slowly walked toward them, hands at our sides. As we got closer, the warriors dismounted from their animals; they didn’t approach us, though, but instead waited in silence.
When the owners of the John Carter hired a basketball star to masquerade as a shatan, they were trying to find someone who might pass as a Martian aborigine. Tito Jones was the best they could get
, but he wasn’t quite right. The shatan standing before us were taller; their skin was as dark as the sky at midnight, their long, silky hair the color of rust, yet their faces had fine-boned features reminiscent of someone of northern European descent. They were swathed in dusty, off-white robes that made them look vaguely Bedouin, and the hands that gripped their spears were larger than a human’s, with long-nailed fingers and tendons which stood out from wrists.
Unblinking golden eyes studied us as we approached. When we’d come close enough, both warriors firmly planted their spears on the ground before us. I told Dr. al-Baz to stop, but I didn’t have remind him not to look away from them. He stared at the shatan with awestruck curiosity, a scientist observing his subject up close for the first time.
I raised both hands palm out, and said, “Issah tas sobbata shatan” (Greetings, honored shatan warriors). “Seyta nashatan habbalah sa shatan heysa” (Please allow us human travelers to enter your land).
The warrior on the left replied, “Katas nashatan Hamsey. Sakey shatan habbalah fah?” (We know you, human Ramsey. Why have you returned to our land?)
I wasn’t surprised to have been recognized. Only a handful of humans spoke their language—albeit not very well; I probably sounded like a child to them—or knew the way to their village. I may not have met these particular warriors before, but they’d doubtless heard of me. And I tried not to smile at the mispronunciation of my name; the shatan have trouble rolling the “r” sound off their tongues.
“(I’ve brought a guest who wishes to learn more about your people),” I replied, still speaking the local dialect. I extended a hand toward the professor. “(Allow me to introduce you to Omar al-Baz. He is a wise man in search of knowledge.)” I avoided calling him “doctor”; that word has a specific meaning in their language, as someone who practices medicine.
“(Humans don’t want to know anything about us. All they want to do is take what doesn’t belong to them and ruin it.)”
I shook my head; oddly, that particular gesture means the same thing for both shatan and nashatan. “(This is not true. Many of my people do, yes, but not all. On his own world, al-Baz is a teacher. Whatever he learns from you, he will tell his students, and therefore increase their knowledge of your people.)”
“What are you saying?” Dr. al-Baz whispered. “I recognize my name, but…”
“Hush. Let me finish.” I continued speaking the native tongue. “(Will you please escort us to your village? My companion wishes to beg a favor of your chieftain.)”
The other warrior stepped forward, walking toward the professor until he stood directly before him. The shatan towered above Dr. al-Baz; everything about him was menacing, yet the professor held his ground, saying nothing but continuing to look straight in the eye. The warrior silently regarded him for several long moments, then looked at me.
“(What does he want from our chieftain? Tell us, and we will decide whether we will allow you to enter our village.)”
I hesitated, then shook my head again. “(No. His question is for the chieftain alone.)”
I was taking a gamble. Refusing a demand from a shatan warrior guarding his homeland was not a great way to make friends. But it was entirely possible that the warriors would misunderstand me if I told them that Dr. al-Baz wanted to take some of their blood; they might think his intent was hostile. The best thing to do was have the professor ask the chieftain directly for permission to take a blood sample from one of his people.
The shatans stared at us for a moment without saying anything, then turned away and walked off a few feet to quietly confer with each other. “What’s going on?” the professor asked, keeping his voice low. “What did you tell them?”
I gave him the gist of the conversation, including the risky thing I’d just said. “I figure it can go one of three ways. One, they kick the matter upstairs to the chieftain, which means that you get your wish if you play your cards right. Two, they tell us to get lost. If that happens, we turn around and go home, and that’s that.”
“Unacceptable. I’ve come too far to go away empty-handed. What’s the third option.”
“They impale us with their spears, wait for us to die, then chop up our bodies and scatter our remains for the animals to find.” I let that sink in. “Except our heads,” I added. “Someone will carry those back to the city in the middle of the night, where they’ll dump them on the doorstep of the nearest available house.”
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
I didn’t. The professor was scared enough already, and he didn’t need any stories about what had happened to explorers who’d crossed the line with the shatan, or the occasional fool stupid enough to venture onto aboriginal territory without someone like me escorting them. I hadn’t exaggerated anything, though, and he seemed to realize that, for he simply nodded and looked away.
The shatan finished their discussion. Not looking at us, they walked back to their hattases and climbed atop them again. For a moment, I thought they were taking the second option, but then they guided their mounts toward Dr. al-Baz and me.
“Hessah,” one of them said (Come with us).
I let out my breath. We were going to meet the village chieftain.
The village was different from the last time I’d seen it. Since the shatan became nomads, their settlements are usually tent cities which can be taken down, packed up, and relocated when necessary. This one had been there for quite a while, though; apparently the inhabitants had decided that they’d stay at the oasis for some time to come. Low, flat-roofed adobe buildings had taken the place of many of the tents, and scaffolds surrounded a stone wall being built to enclose them. But if the place had a name, I wasn’t aware of it.
Dr. al-Baz and I were footsore and tired by the time we reached the village. As expected, the warriors had insisted that we leave the jeep behind, although they allowed us to retrieve our packs. They’d slowly ridden abreast of us all the way, only reluctantly letting us stop now and then to rest. Neither of them had spoken a word since we’d left the bridge, but when we were within sight of the settlement, one of them raised a whorled shell that looked like a giant ammonite. A long, loud blast from his horn was answered a few seconds later by a similar call from the village. The professor and I exchanged a wary glance. Too late to turn around now; the inhabitants knew we were coming.
The village seemed empty as we entered through a half-built gate and walked down packed-dirt streets. No one to be seen, and the only thing that moved were hattases tied up to hitching posts. The tent flaps were closed, though, and the narrow windows of the adobe houses were shuttered. No, the place wasn’t deserted; it was just that the people who lived there had gone into hiding. The silence was eerie, and even more unsettling than the spears our escorts pointed at our backs.
The village center was a courtyard surrounding an artesian well, with a large adobe building dominating one side of the square. The only shatan we’d seen since our arrival peered down at us from a wooden tower atop the building. He waited until we’d reached the building, then raised an ammonite horn of his own and blew a short blast. The warriors halted their hattases, dismounted, and silently beckoned for us to follow them. One of them pushed aside the woven blanket which served as the building’s only door, and the other warrior led us inside.
The room was dim, its sole illumination a shaft of sunlight slanting down through a hole in the ceiling. The air was thick with musky incense that drifted in hazy layers through the light and made my eyes water. Robed shatan stood around the room, their faces hidden by hoods they’d pulled up around their heads; I knew none of them were female, because their women were always kept out of sight when visitors arrived. The only sound was the slow, constant drip of a waterclock, with each drop announcing the passage of two more seconds.
The chieftain sat in the middle of the room. Long-fingered hands rested upon the armrests of his sandstone throne; golden eyes regarded us between strands of hair turned white with age. He wore nothing to
indicate his position as the tribal leader save an implacable air of authority, and he let us know that he was the boss by silently raising both hands, then slowly lowering them once we’d halted, and saying nothing for a full minute.
At last he spoke. “Essha shakay Hamsey?” (Why are you here, Ramsey?)
I didn’t think I’d ever met him before, but obviously he recognized me. Good. That would make things a little easier. I responded in his own language. “(I bring someone who wants to learn more about your people. He is a wise man from Earth, a teacher of others who wish to become wise themselves. He desires to ask a favor from you.)”
The chieftain turned his gaze from me to Dr. al-Baz. “(What do you want?)”
I looked at the professor. “Okay, you’re on. He wants to know what you want. I’ll translate for you. Just be careful…they’re easily offended.”
“So it seems.” Dr. al-Baz was nervous, but he was hiding it well. He licked his lips and thought about it a moment, then went on. “Tell him…tell him that I would like to collect a small sample of blood from one of his people. A few drops will do. I wish to have this because I want to know…I mean, because I’d like to find out…whether his people and mine have common ancestors.”
That seemed to be a respectful a way of stating what he wanted, so I turned to the chief and reiterated what he’d said. The only problem was that I didn’t know the aboriginal word for “blood.” It had simply never come up in any previous conversations I’d had with the shatan. So I had to generalize a bit, calling it “the liquid that runs within our bodies” while pantomiming a vein running down the inside of my right arm, and hoped that he’d understand what I meant.
He did, all right. He regarded me with cold disbelief, golden eyes flashing, thin lips writhing upon an otherwise stoical face. Around us, I heard the other shatan murmuring to one another. I couldn’t tell what they were saying, but it didn’t sound like they were very happy either.
