by Chris Walley
As Merral’s diary bleeped, Lloyd stuck his head in. “Sir, the Library has just been locked.”
Merral glanced at the screen and saw a flashing message: Intrusion Alert! Library and Admin-Net closed.
What do I do? Merral’s fingers moved to a set of buttons in three different colors on the wall. Red was reserved for imminent or actual hostilities, orange would evacuate everyone to the war room, and yellow would allow them to stay on alert in their present locations.
“Yellow,” he said aloud as he pressed the third button. “Lloyd, I’m going upstairs.”
Grabbing his diary, Merral ran past the flashing screens of terminals and bounded up the stairs to Corradon’s office. Is this is it? Does the war start now?
He found the representative seated at a screen, his face drained of color, his eyes flicking across data. Clemant stood behind him, peering over his shoulder.
“Commander! What’s going on?” Merral heard the strain in Corradon’s voice, saw his shaking hands, and realized how shallow his self-assurance seemed to be.
“Library and Admin-Net are down. An intrusion. That’s all I know,” Merral panted. “I’ve put the FDF and the irregulars on yellow alert.”
Clemant looked at the screen. “Ah, Sentinel Enand has just sent a message. He is on his way. And the satellites report no signs of an attack. The Dove is still fifteen million kilometers away. And the Basic-Net is up and on line.”
Five minutes later, Vero hurried in, his face beaded with sweat and carrying his briefcase.
“What happened?” Corradon asked him.
Vero sat down on a chair by the desk and wiped his brow. “There was, apparently, an attempt at an intrusion. The Dove of Dawn no doubt.”
“Have we lost anything?” Clemant growled.
“No. Shutdown occurred within a second. They can have extracted nothing during that time.” Vero pulled from his briefcase a small transparent box with a gray wafer inside. He handed it to Corradon. “The key, sir.”
The representative took it with care and peered at it.
“Better keep it safe,” Vero advised. “Without it, not even all the king’s horses and all the king’s men will put the Library back together again.”
Corradon and Clemant stared at him.
“Oh, never mind. Just don’t lose it.”
“I won’t. When do I use it?”
“Not until we are totally sure what the Dove is up to.”
An hour later they received a message from the Dove of Dawn. “In the process of trying to assess the damage done to your planet by the insurgents we seem to have inadvertently triggered the defenses of your Library. We apologize.”
Corradon’s response was to say that the apology was accepted. The yellow alert level was withdrawn, but the Library and the Admin-Net stayed closed.
On the following day the gleaming ship entered Farholme orbit and received clearance for one of its shuttles to land at Langerstrand strip at three the following afternoon.
On the morning of the landing, Merral and Lloyd took the western road out of Isterrane. They could have flown to the Langerstrand Peninsula, but Merral had good reason to travel by road. From the moment Langerstrand had been chosen as a landing zone, he had ordered feasibility studies on defending Isterrane against any attack that might be mounted from there.
With the sun already high in the cloudless sky, they crossed the great arc of stone and cable that was the Walderand Gorge suspension bridge.
A small FDF unit was positioned on the far side, but Merral had Lloyd drive past and stop higher up the road. There they scrambled up to a viewpoint.
Merral stared at the great bridge and the crags around. Yes, we might be able to hold off an attacking force here and, as a last resort, blow up the bridge.
He squinted through the growing haze across the gorge, seeing the faint shapes of the westernmost suburbs of Isterrane on the far side. But it is too close. In winter, with the Walderand a raging muddy torrent, a long-lasting defense could be made, but not in late summer with the river reduced to a series of muddy channels. No. Any defense would have to be farther away.
They drove for a few kilometers along the Western Trunk Road as it cut through the harsh shattered ridges of the edges of the Manukli Range and then turned southward along a narrower road signposted Tezekal, Langerstrand, and Lariston Coast Road. Soon they were out of the mountains and on to a low and featureless plateau whose baked ocher soils bore only a few dry and dusty trees. For twenty minutes they drove west as the road skirted the high, wooded, and brooding massif that formed the southernmost outpost of the Manukli Range until a low ridge with a saw-edged silhouette came into view.
“That is Tezekal Ridge and that must be Tezekal Village,” Merral said, gesturing at a hazy cluster of white-walled houses atop the northern edge of the ridge. “From the maps, the road drops from there through a gorge down to the Edelcet Marshes. It’s the best potential defense point. We could even put an emergency strip just here.”
They turned off the main road and drove along a dusty track past fields with olive trees and citrus orchards to a small encampment of troops that lay in the shadow of some jagged rocks.
Captain Tremutar, a soft-spoken man with a wiry physique, led Merral and Lloyd up a hot and narrow winding track to the crest of the ridge. At the top, they stopped to regain their breath and surveyed the hazy view ahead, shading their eyes against the sun with their hands.
Three hundred meters below lay the wide, flat expanses of the Edelcet Marshes with their multicolored mosaic of reed beds, lakes, and salt pans. The marshes passed southward into the blue waters of Hassanet’s Sea while to the north they came to an abrupt end against the thick tree-covered slopes of a steep and rugged escarpment that led into the heights of the Manukli Range. Checking the map, Merral found the escarpment was called the Hereza Crags.
In the far distance, beyond the western edge of the marshes, the Langerstrand Peninsula shimmered in the heat. Merral traced the path of the road down through a deep gorge to the left of Tezekal Village, and along the foot of the Hereza Crags.
“Acceptable, Sergeant?”
“Yup,” Lloyd answered. “If it came to a fight, sir, here would do. They can’t cross the marshes and the slopes look impossible. So they’d have to use the road. And we overlook that. The Bodyguard’s Handbook talks about the high ground. We’d have it.”
Merral gestured up to the right, where the eastern continuation of the Hereza Crags rose high above the village. “But we are overlooked here. Is that Mount Adaman, Captain?”
“Yes, sir. Two thousand meters high.”
Lloyd squinted at it. “Tough for any army to climb that.”
“Krallen are different. But I suppose it’s a risk we have to take,” Merral said. He turned to the lean soldier next to them. “Captain, you’ll be hearing formally from Colonel Leopold Lanier soon. But I want defenses here. Get started.”
Lloyd and Merral drove slowly down the road as it snaked through the razor-sharp gray and brown lava cliffs of the gorge. Even with the sun high overhead, Merral found Tezekal Gorge a dark place, full of shadows.
As a vulture wheeled above in slow circles, its rough calls echoing off the rocks, Merral had a suddenly terrible presentiment of fighting, of shed blood and the cries of men. He shuddered. “A grim place, Sergeant. Even now.”
“Yup.”
In a few minutes, they exited the gorge and were on the flat road at the edge of the marshland. Merral had never been to the Edelcet Marshes before, but knew it as one of the places where ducks, geese, and other waterbirds congregated when the heart of Menaya was frozen solid in the winter.
As they drove past, Merral saw birds on the water and ghostly white egrets in the trees at the water’s edge, but forced himself to turn away and look up the slopes, trying to see the nature of the ground under the trees—mostly scrubby oaks, tall dusty cypresses, and a variety of pines.
“It’s a cursed business this,” he said.
<
br /> “I agree, sir. But any special reason for you saying it here?”
“Because, Lloyd, I should be spending my time here looking at God’s good creation and instead, I find myself considering how we might best kill things.”
Half an hour later they stopped at the gate in the new wire fencing that surrounded the Langerstrand strip. Behind it, Merral could see hectic activity.
“Welcome, Commander,” said the guard as he waved them through. “We are almost ready for the visitors.”
“Good,” he said, but as they drove on through the bustle, a question nagged him: Are we?
20
The Dominion shuttle landed in the early afternoon of the same day.
Merral, along with the other members of the contact team, watched its landing from under the awning of a tented pavilion. The vessel, an elegant craft in a plain white livery, descended at a forty-five degree angle and landed delicately in the exact middle of the runway.
“Showoffs,” muttered the representative for the southern islands, and Merral remembered that she had been a pilot.
Corradon was driven out in a six-wheeled passenger transporter and walked over to the vessel. Four people descended from it and, after exchanging bows and handshakes, were transported back to the pavilion.
Merral lined up at the pavilion entrance with the rest of the contact team. Everyone wore formal clothes and Merral found the full dress uniform uncomfortably warm.
Corradon entered, relief unmistakably stamped on his bronzed face. “Ambassadors Hazderzal and Tinternli, Captain Benek-Hal,” he announced.
A fourth person, who Merral decided was a recording engineer, had stepped to one side and was already imaging events.
Merral stared at the ambassadors. Seen in the flesh this close, both were, in their own way, eye catching. They were tall, delicately built, straight-backed, and walked with smooth, precise steps. Again he probed his brain for any sense of the presence of evil. There was nothing; no hairs bristled on the back of his neck and his spine did not tingle.
Hazderzal, his hair and beard immaculately groomed, led the way, his long white jacket swaying gently and shimmering softly as if it had somehow captured starlight.
Tinternli wore a flowing white dress with a red flower pinned to her shoulder.
Stopping at the head of the line of the contact team, Ambassador Hazderzal spoke in an elegant and sonorous voice. “Representative Corradon, the rest of you, this is a historic moment for us all and for our worlds.” He opened his hands in a gesture of benevolence. “We are delighted to meet. We could wish, of course, that it was the first meeting between our long-separated human families, but alas, you have already had an encounter with some from our worlds.”
He paused and as he gazed around, Merral had a sense of a man whose very presence was a blessing. “Here and now, we apologize unreservedly for what happened. We must take some of the blame. Had we watched over our ships more closely, had we guarded the borders of the Assembly better, then these losses might not have happened.” He shook his head ruefully. “But, alas, they did. And it is our task to remedy as much as we can of that sad episode. We will speak more of that later.”
He turned to his colleague with a grave, formal gesture.
“We have come a long way,” Tinternli said, her voice a gentle but clear murmur that reminded Merral of a summer’s wind among trees. “Our voyage has taken two months and it is gratifying to have firm ground under our feet once more. First of all, I reecho my colleague’s apology.”
As her soft, full smile appeared, Merral noticed that Corradon beamed at her with undisguised pleasure.
“Secondly, I bring you greetings from Lord-Emperor Nezhuala himself. He considered coming, but the great task of managing the affairs of the Dominion does not permit long absences. In his grace, he has bestowed on us the honor of making the first contact with you. You may be confident that we bring you his best, and his highest concern. His thoughts daily turn toward our separated brothers and sisters in the Assembly and you may be assured that, in his prayers, he mentions you.”
Corradon gave a stately bow of acknowledgment. “We are greatly honored by your presence. But may I introduce the members of the contact team?”
As the ambassadors moved down the line toward him, Merral suddenly found himself preoccupied with the idea that they might be able to read his mind. He tried to concentrate on other things, but found it impossible. He then remembered that he bore Lucas Ringell’s identity disk. And the more he tried to forget that, the more it filled his mind.
Suddenly Corradon was in front of him. “And this,” he said, “is Commander Merral D’Avanos. Of our rather, well, embryonic, Defense Force.”
As Hazderzal’s extraordinarily smooth fingers shook his, Merral noted his look of detached interest.
“Nice to meet you,” the ambassador said and then, without so much as a pause, moved on to the next person.
Tinternli took Merral’s hand next—her fingers seemed even softer—and gave him a smile of innocent enjoyment. To his surprise, Merral found himself smiling back.
“A commander, eh?” she said, tilting her head back with a wry laugh. “Oh, we have plenty of those.” She bent forward so she could speak quietly in his ear. “In truth, far too many.”
Merral felt the pleasure of being inside a shared joke, almost as if she were saying to him, “I sense that you hate your hot and itchy uniform and that you are uneasy with military matters. You and I are one on this.”
As she moved on, Merral realized that neither with her nor with Hazderzal had he felt any sense of his brain being tapped. And there had been not the slightest hint of a spiritual evil. Indeed, if anything, he seemed to sense that these were good people. It makes no sense.
They walked through to the adjacent tent where tables—one with an array of foods—and chairs were set and a small string orchestra played quietly in the background.
Six crewmen of the Dove shuttle entered—tall men with short hair in a variety of colors, but all with a similar air of quiet, polished reserve.
Slowly, people mingled and Merral was intrigued to see that any tension soon thawed into humor and cautious, polite laughter.
At one point, Merral found himself standing on the edge of things and looked around. Tinternli and Jenat were deep in discussion. The elderly man’s face showed a cautious admiration. Hazderzal and Corradon drifted past and he overheard the ambassador praising the musicians.
“You know, if things go the way we hope, we should have some of your players visit our worlds. A mixed orchestra? Or do I dream a dream too far?”
“We must dream, Ambassador,” Corradon replied, with a sympathetic nod. “But what better way of bridging divisions?”
As they moved on Merral felt utterly perplexed. He had been prepared for either a thuggish show of violence or a blatantly spurious attempt at being nice, but this was neither. What he was faced with was one of two things: either a deception of stunning effectiveness or a display of genuine grace and gentleness.
After an hour the captain and crew returned to the shuttle. The contact team and the ambassadors adjourned to the pavilion and sat around a large table.
“Now,” Corradon said, “let us begin our discussions. Ambassador Hazderzal, please.”
Hazderzal rose. “I know you have many questions and we want to try and answer them all. And I have to say that we do not intend staying more than a month. The journey is long and the lord-emperor is anxious to hear about you. We have a message from him for you and we will show it to you soon. But I think we ought to begin with who we are and where the Dominion has come from.” He paused, as if suddenly struck by an idea. “Incidentally, I fear that for some, the word Dominion may have overtones of tyranny and repression in your language. That is an unfortunate accident of history and a quirk of translation. Relax, friends; the reality is different. Now to our history. That history goes back to what we call the Great Separation, the tragic events of what we gather you call
the Rebellion.”
And for the next ten minutes, Hazderzal—aided by Tinternli—recounted the history of their worlds to a captivated audience. As he listened, Merral recognized the tale that he had heard from Azeras: the loss of the seventh ship, the descent of the Freeborn worlds into anarchy, and the endless cycles of troubled tension that boiled into bitter strife before, in bloodied exhaustion, collapsing back into a new, uneasy peace.
Yet there were differences in both fact and interpretation and, as the account came closer to the present, those divergences became plainer. The rise of the Dominion was portrayed as a blessed and gratefully received event that had brought badly needed stability and peace to increasingly greater numbers of people. The opposition to the Dominion was painted in the most negative of lights. The True Freeborn—the weary irony in Hazderzal’s voice as he said the name was striking—were, at worst, bandits and at best, tragic fools who did not see where their best interests lay. It was they who had stolen a transport vessel, the Rahllman’s Star, and fled to Farholme.
Merral was soon asked to speak by Corradon and, choosing his words carefully, gave a brief account of the battle at Fallambet Lake Five in which he omitted all reference to entering the ship.
“So providence punished them with a harsh—but just—fate,” Hazderzal observed with a grim look. “You are to be congratulated, Commander.”
“I take no credit,” Merral said quietly, as he sat down. “That belongs elsewhere.”
“The True Freeborn,” Hazderzal said with a solemn air, “are on the run and their forces in disarray. Yet, they are not completely eliminated and are still capable of doing much harm.”
“Let me be honest.” As he paused he seemed somewhat embarrassed at what he had to say. “Matters are untidy. We did not destroy all the True Freeborn ships. Indeed, we believe that they may have some considerable forces left. They still possess ships and powerful weapons and now that they have realized that the Assembly is open to them, they may well do you great harm. They are vindictive. At the start of our dealings together, we want to warn you that another attack on your world by them is probable. They know that there is now no home for them in the Dominion worlds. The fact that, however inadvertently, you destroyed their forces makes you at war with them. They will seek revenge and we have found them merciless enemies.” He paused again. As he did Merral glanced at the others, seeing concern on every face. “Our borders are long and our resources are stretched. The dimension you call Below-Space cannot be policed. In the discussions that follow you may need to bear that in mind.”
