Going Interstellar

by Les Johnson

  And then silence. But only for a moment.

  The HQ troop’s two APCs—one creaking fearfully—arrived, swerving to either side of the remaining three command cars. They disgorged dirty, mostly bandaged troops who fanned out professionally, expanding the safe perimeter. The troops meticulously checked each possible hiding place, even prodding suspicious patches of ground for concealed firing pits. When they encountered other enemy bodies scattered about the area—a mix of helots and huscarls—they bayoneted any that did not quite look dead enough. No head-shots, though: they were too low on ammunition to waste it on executions that a blade would accomplish just as well.

  Huscarls boiled out of the deck- and turret- hatches of the other command cars, fresh worry—even panic—etched over the strain and exhaustion on their faces. Harrod hur-Mellis looked down as they clustered around the skirts of his vehicle. “Senior Intendant,” one almost cried up at him, “what are we to do? With the General killed, we—”

  “Calmly, Siffur. Think for a moment: just because a vehicle bears a General’s pennant, does it guarantee there is a General inside?”

  As if on cue, the Lord General Pathan Mellis rose up from the hatch beside Harrod’s.

  The panic on the faces ringing them became dismay, then confusion, then relief. “General,” burbled Siffur, “you live!”

  Mellis sneered down at his helot. “Of course I do, dolt. Do you think I am foolish enough to ride in a command car that advertises my presence inside?”

  As the Senior Intendant of House Mellis, Harrod had much experience not letting his inner reactions alter the neutral expression on his face. This served him quite well now, as he thought: No, you are not so foolish as that—at least not after I pointed out the prudence of false-flagging our weakest vehicle. Not that Harrod would ever remind Pathan Mellis that his Lordship’s supposed masterstroke of foresight had actually originated in a lesser mind. The Evolved expected even their highest-ranking servitors to remain abjectly deferential and compliant—a life-preserving lesson forgotten by too many new Intendants. Increased interaction with their masters often led them to assume an equal increase in allowed familiarity: this was an invariably fatal error.

  Pathan was already giving orders—a task at which he excelled, Harrod allowed. “Helots, remount. Security teams are to collapse back upon their own APCs. Nedd!”

  The huscarl, senior among the car commanders, came stiffly to attention. “Yes, lord?”

  “Your regional secure set is still working?”

  “Yes, lord.”

  “Get me an update. Immediately.”

  “Yes, lord!”

  Pathan surveyed the southern horizon; Harrod’s eyes followed those of his lord. Columns of black smoke seemed to be holding up that part of the sky.

  Behind them, syncopated thunder rolled: House Mellis’s mobile artillery. A moment of silence, then high whimpering screams overhead, then silence again—and finally, flashes along the southern horizon. Two seconds later, the ragged rumbles of the barrage passed over them.

  “This race is too closely run,” Pathan said in a worried tone.

  Harrod knew not to say anything.

  “Last week, our position was secure. But with all the neutral Houses now declaring for the HouseMoot, we are dangerously overextended. As it is, neither our forces nor those of House Shaddock can be sure of reaching our capitals in time to defend them—not when we have to fight our way back home through the forces of House Verone.”

  The price of endless warmaking, and overreaching, Harrod ached to say, but did not dare to.

  “Lord Mellis!” It was Nedd. His tone augured news they did not wish to hear.

  “Report, huscarl.” Like all the Evolved, Pathan Mellis was always supremely cool and collected—even as he prepared to hear tidings of certain disaster.

  Nedd did not disappoint their dire expectations. “Lord, our right flank, the armor of House Shaddock—”

  “Destroyed?”

  “No, lord. Slowing. It has fallen behind the center of our van and—”

  Thunder mounted behind them once again—but the timbre and pace of the detonations was more strident, pulsed in sharp fits and starts.

  Nedd—mouth still open—stopped, speechless, to stare at the sound. “My lord—battle! How could the HouseMoot forces have so quickly—?”

  Pathan glanced at Harrod, who nodded, and explained to the dumbfounded huscarl. “You do not hear the attacking forces of the HouseMoot. Although it is the sound of battle, it is also the sound of treachery. House Shaddock evidently fell behind our van with a purpose; they have fallen upon our mobile artillery and our rearguard.”

  Nedd gaped wider, if that were possible. “But without the artillery to clear the way before us—”

  “—we will not break free of the encircling forces. Quite correct. And exactly what they planned, I’m sure.” He turned to Lord Mellis. “Orders, my lord?”

  Mellis surprised Harrod—first by shaking his head, and then, actually smiling at him. “No, Intendant: I will be giving the orders here myself. You will be taking the jet-pack and making a report to my great uncle, the Overlord—if you get through the anti-aircraft fire.”

  “But lord, the jet-pack is reserved for your use onl—”

  “I dictate its use, and this is the use I decree.” He let his voice slip lower, buried to all ears but Harrod’s under the idling hum of the armored car’s engine. “Intendant, this battle is over. I will draw the van and left flank together and we will attempt to press forward, but House Verone’s helots are as thick as mites on a molting fen-cur. Without artillery, we will need luck and the favor of the Death Fathers to fight through all their rocket teams. And I suspect there’s huscarl armor behind them, probably with air support for the final blow. Do you agree?”

  Harrod could only nod, speechless in the face of the Lord’s calm diagnosis of their terminal military condition.

  “So you shall be our courier and analyst both: you are our best mind, and have intimate familiarity with the details of this campaign—better than I. Besides, you are our House’s leading technical historian, are you not?”

  “Lord, with respect, it is not my place to claim such—”

  “You are. You know it. So does the whole House. Which will soon need you to ready the Ark, unless I am much mistaken.”

  Ready the Ark? Had it come to that?

  Pathan had not paused. “So you must go. And I must stay. This I decree, Harrod hur-Mellis.”

  Harrod did not question his lord; to do so could still earn him death, and even if it did not, would be a pointless waste of time. The jet-pack was man-handled out of the passenger bay of the less-battered APC, was perfunctorily tested, and was propped up for him.

  As Harrod backed into the unit, he felt the shoulder and waist braces lock into place, and the jets shudder and heat with the pre-burn. He stared at Lord Mellis, and wanted to say something—anything—but did not have any words, not even an idea where to begin.

  Pathan smiled at him again. “Yes, Intendant, some of us Evolved are actually willing to die in service to our own Houses—not just send lesser beings to their ignominious dooms.” He gave a signal to the flight techs. “We Evolved are born to dominate. But sometimes, to dominate requires a readiness to die.” Pathan’s smile became rueful. “Perhaps you believed otherwise, Harrod?”

  As the jet-pack’s thrusters bloomed, and the lager of battered vehicles dropped away beneath him, Harrod had to admit: yes, lord, I did believe otherwise.

  But not anymore.

  — 2 —

  On the HouseMoot side, the room was furnished with opulent hangings, sybaritically luxurious chairs, comely helot servants, refreshments, creature comforts and conveniences of every kind. Opposed were the furnishings of their own side: hard, simple chairs and a bare floor. The humiliation was complete—as was ever the case when a House went to war and lost utterly, rather than reaching a negotiated settlement. Overlord Bikrut Mellis—who sat beside Harrod
now—had suffered just such a defeat.

  Seated directly across from them was Overlord Verone, an Elder of the HouseMoot, flanked by his victorious generals. Verone’s presence was a bad sign: Elders were notoriously (and rightly) preoccupied with the risk of assassination, and were rarely present in a situation where a defeated foe might, conceivably, attempt a suicidal act of retribution.

  That Verone was here at all signified two things. Firstly, he had little, if any, fear of House Mellis attempting such an act. Secondly, he was too bent upon overseeing the House’s dissolution to pay heed to whatever trepidations he might have had. This predator wanted to play with his prostrate and bloodied prey before tearing its throat out in ferocious exultation.

  Beside Harrod, Overlord Mellis’s voice was calm, but overly precise in elocution. “Let us conclude this.”

  “In good time,” Verone said with a nod and a smile. “We have not yet addressed all the issues.”

  “How can we, when you refuse to accept our ritual submission?”

  “Eradicating the genetic moiety of your House by marrying it off into others is deemed unacceptable by the HouseMoot’s senior Line Mistresses. They have assessed the genetics of your Lines and consider such an alternative to be—unwise.” Verone’s smile grew.

  It was a smile that meant his excuse was just so much cur-shit. None of the Houses that had taken the Moot’s part in the late conflict had ever expressed a single reservation regarding the viability—even the extreme desirability—of House Mellis’s Evolved breed Lines. No, this was simply the latest slash in the House’s now-fated death of a thousand cuts. House Mellis was not to be defeated, or even dissolved as an entity: it was to be extirpated, root, branch, and seed. Partly as an act of vengeance, partly as an example to others who would defy the decisions of the HouseMoot, and partly because of an atavistic belief that any House that had been so completely defeated must somehow be flawed at its core, in the very germ of its genetic essence.

  House Mellis’s aged Overlord, Bikrut—264 standard years was impressive, even for an undilute Evolved—showed neither impatience, nor anxiety. “So if there is to be no ritual dissolution, what do you propose?”

  “I do not propose: I decree. And upon your House, I lay the decree of Exile. You are to remove your Lines from this world and this system. Any that remain behind shall be expunged.”

  Bikrut swallowed. “You cannot be serious.”

  “But I am, Overlord Mellis.”

  “You said we were meeting here for negotiations, not imposition of the Rite of Exile. Had I known—”

  “You would have acted no differently. Your House is crippled; you have no choices left. Or perhaps you would prefer that we simply continue the war to its inevitable conclusion, Overlord Mellis. After all, wholesale extermination of a House is not without precedent—”

  “Enough.” Bikrut’s interruption came out as a bark. “We are defeated, but we are not without the means to compel your respect. Even now.”

  Verone’s smile only dimmed a bit. “Ah. Your nuclear arsenal. Hardly large enough to destroy more of us than of you.”

  “So you think.”

  “So I know. But the gambit is well-played, Overlord Mellis.”

  “The confidence you place in your intelligence is ill-advised, Overlord Verone.”

  “Is it? I know just how much rare earth has been mined over the past three and a half centuries. And I know where every gram of it has gone—and resides. So what could you possibly have that I do not know about?”

  “Fissionables that did not come from the rocks of this world, but were already in our possession when we arrived here.”

  Verone’s smile faltered. “There is no record in our Exodate’s landing manifest of—”

  “And who was in charge of the ship that brought us to this wasteland three and a half centuries ago, Overlord Verone? Which House was most expert in spacefaring when we were all exiled to this world? Who, therefore, kept the real manifests?”

  Verone’s smile had vanished; the generals flanking him no longer looked amused.

  “Shall I provide the answer you already know? Intendant—” Bikrut spoke sideways, without so much as glancing at Harrod—“who built and crewed the Ark that brought us here?”

  Harrod cleared his throat. “At the time that the Fifth Exodate was launched, House Mellis was charged with constructing the Ark, and overseeing its operations during the fifty-three year journey from Ifritem Qua—”

  Verone made an impatient gesture toward Harrod. “Enough. Silence.”

  Harrod swallowed. “With respect, my Elder Overlord Verone, but I was commanded to speak by my bond-holder. To obey you above him means my death.”

  The Elder narrowed his eyes at Harrod. “To continue to speak means your death, as well.”

  Harrod could not help swallowing again. “With respect, Elder Overlord, it is written in the Words of the Death Fathers that, ‘the servant who dies obeying the holder of his bond is a servant without flaw.’ I must honor my bond-holder and the Words of the Death Fathers, Overlord—even unto my death.”

  Verone’s narrowed eyes relaxed, but stayed fixed upon Harrod. His words, however, were aimed at Bikrut: “He is a fine Intendant.”

  Bikrut sounded as though his belly might contain a seething vat of acid. “He is adequate.”

  “He is more than that. It was folly not to have already Raised his seed into one of your Lines by completing his Intendancy.” Verone pointed. “I would have him. If you agree to transfer his bond to my House, it would make your lot easier, here.”

  Harrod—stunned to silence—heard many tones in Overlord Bikrut’s response: resentment, anger, bitterness, resolve. “You may not have him.”

  “Name a price—a point of negotiation. I will consider it. Favorably.”

  “You may not have him.”

  “If you valued him sufficiently, you would already have Raised him up.”

  “You may not have him because I need—I must keep—him.”

  Verone cocked his head slightly. “Why?”

  “Because he is our senior technical historian.”

  Verone’s face was radiant with perception. “Ah. Now I see. And now I see why your Lord Pathan sent this Intendant back to report instead of himself. Without this servant, your chances of restoring the Ark and completing a voyage would be much diminished.”

  Bikrut’s admission sounded as if he were uttering it while chewing on broken glass. “That is regrettably so.”

  “Which means you foresaw the possibility of Exile long before you entered this chamber. Perhaps—just to punish you for your presumption and impertinence—we should indeed resume the war against you.”

  “Then you shall learn—unpleasantly—just how many fissionables we had sequestered before our voyage to this world.”

  “Our prior home, Ifritem Quartus, was poor in rare earths. The odds that you had more than a few kilograms of—”

  But Bikrut was the one smiling, now. “Are you willing to pay the price it will cost to determine the accuracy of your conjecture, Overlord Verone? I have little to lose—whereas you stand to convert the gains of your impressive victory into a heap of radioactive ashes. But if that is your pleasure—”

  Verone sat forward. “Watch how far you press me, Overlord Mellis. We are your conquerors. The Intendant sitting beside you was the last man to escape the battlefield where your House’s fortunes died.”

  “Quite true,” answered Mellis placidly. And he waited.

  Verone leaned back, ran his left index finger back and forth across his lower lip. Then the smile returned, which Harrod interpreted as a very bad sign, indeed. “So are you telling me that you prefer certain death to Exile, Overlord Mellis?”

  Bikrut Mellis’s composure faltered. For a moment, he seemed to be choking, the words he must not utter colliding with those he had to say. Ultimately, he shook his head. “No,” he said hoarsely, “we accept Exile.”

  Verone’s smile widened; his vo
ice took on the drone of official pronouncement. “Let it here be recorded that your Exodate shall be the Sixth in our reckoning. It is so fated and decreed this 212th standard day of the 351st standard year of the Fifth Exodate’s arrival upon Kalsor Tertius. The Exodate Injunctions of the Death Fathers are upon you from this moment forth. Observe them well.” He settled back into his conversational voice. “And lest you find your long journey too lonely, I have, in my beneficence, seen fit to furnish you with companions. Huscarl, admit them.”

  Bikrut refused to be baited: he did not turn to look as Verone’s foot soldiers swung wide the doors behind them. Harrod, however, had no face to save, no pride to maintain, and twisted to see—

  Overlord Bron Shaddock strode into the chamber, head high, eyes bright. With him were two of his House’s Evolved. None of them were over eighty, if Harrod guessed correctly. Young to be the senior leaders of a House. But then again, they had slaughtered their own oligarchs to clear the path for House Shaddock’s participation in the recent war. Such was the ambition of the Evolved: even wholesale patricide came within their compass.

  Bikrut had not needed to look behind him to determine the identity of the newly entered group. “This jest is in poor taste, Overlord Verone.”

  “Then you will be pleased to know that this is no jest. As your co-conspirators, House Shaddock will share your Exile.”

  “They betrayed us. I would as soon eviscerate them as look at them. Indeed, I would much prefer the former.”

  “But you shall not do so.”

  “Why?”

  “Because now you need them as much as you need your Senior Intendant.”

  “How so?”

  “House Mellis will have control of the Ark. But House Shaddock will have control of its away-craft. You will need their access codes and cross-checks—some of which will be biometric and genetically proofed against duplication or coercion—when you arrive at your Exodate’s destination. Without them, you will be unable to descend to the planets you might find there. And beforehand, you will need their help for operations that require you to journey outside your Ark.”