Koban: The Mark of Koban

by Stephen W Bennett

  “Where does it come from, how is it made?” It was still too loud, but not as startling.

  “I think made from brain chemicals..., blue birds fly up your nose and eat worms.” Mixing in a bit of dream nonsense seemed reasonable.

  “What are blue birds?” Crap, now he’d led them into goofy land.

  “Birds are pretty, I like birds.”

  “Does the chemical come from birds or worms?”

  Change the subject. “No, it comes from brains. I miss home and I have to pee.” That last was certainly true!

  “How is the drug concentrated?”

  “I wish I was a smart scientist. I would know how…, (mumble) I need to pee.”

  “Can the drug be given to many warriors at once?”

  They were worried about mass battlefield effects?

  “I don’t know…, It might work that way. I only did it twice by myself…, I want to pee, need to wake up soon... (mumble).”

  “Stay asleep!”

  Sure, shout an order at a sleeping person to make them stay asleep. He’d created a stupid myth he might have a problem maintaining.

  He stirred on the bed, stretching as he often did as he awakened. He rolled over, rubbed his eyes and sat up. “Was there somebody here? I thought I heard a loud voice.” Nothing.

  Going over to the slop bucket they provided, he raised the covering board and emptied his bladder into the odorous mess. Then he went back to his bed. This time he really went to sleep.

  Reynolds was awakened twice more by overly loud questions, apparently when he was snoring, based on his raspy feeling throat. He sat up each time and asked “What?” with no reply. Now he was worried he might really talk in his sleep, revealing that this whole charade was something he’d made up to stay alive. He could get a good ironic laugh out of that, as they lopped off limbs and tasted them right in front of him.

  Several days later, he learned that his supposed nighttime rambling had pushed Pendor into making a decision. One that Reynolds couldn’t see working in his favor, despite extending his life as a relatively pampered prisoner for a time.

  “My sub-leaders found three small robot spy devices inside, and four just outside this bunker. They all exploded in small pieces when discovered, after sending a short encrypted radio signal. I believe your Army knows you are alive, and they may have learned that you have agreed to help us learn the secrets of this new sleep drug. You spoke in your sleep, telling us you want to escape, and that they should rescue you. Neither of those things is possible, but the small spy machines can explode, and one could find its way to you and kill you, before you can help us.”

  Damn! This sounds like they’re going to move me. He was more right than he expected.

  “You will be joined by other prisoners, and all of you will be sent to a place where our best K’Tals or members of our slave races can study your brains, to find how to block the sleep drug before it is perfected for wider use.”

  He had now managed to drag other captives into his fabrication. He considered speaking up to spare them, and accept his own untimely and unpleasant death. However, he recalled that the Krall never released a human prisoner except by death. A few had escaped, but they never simply turned anyone loose. His ludicrous story might actually keep them alive longer, so he kept silent. It wasn’t as if he had a real secret to risk revealing to the enemy.

  “May I ask where are we going?”

  “Off this world,” was the short, disturbing answer.

  “Is K1, your base, a nice place this time of year?” That was his guess, for maximum security.

  “Telda Ka was proposed, the world you now call K1, but Tor Gatrol Kanpardi does not think the biological technology to study the human brain chemical is present on our base. He will send you, and enough humans for experiments, to the former Malveran home world, in space that we fully control.”

  He didn’t want them take him from Poldark. “I can safely provide you with my help from a stealth ship in orbit here, or from one of your other bases on Poldark. What if I think of something that is here that could help you?”

  “Our biology K’Tal and slave experts are not here. It is only a three-week journey, in human time, to the other world. For a war of many generations, that is not long to wait for information. I replaced Toltak with a member of my own clan as my aid. Her Tanga clan leader on Poldark is sending her to their base world, to return with more trained novices to fight here. You will travel in her Clanship. She will deliver you on her way.”

  Swell. “She wants me dead. If I’m alone with her, I will have a fatal ‘accident’ before I arrive.”

  “Her clan’s honor is involved with your safe delivery. You will not be harmed.”

  With a sigh Reynolds asked, “How many days do I have before I leave?”

  “I came to take you to the shuttle.”

  “Gee. Don’t I get to pack first?” he asked.

  It was wasted sarcasm, as usual. “All you have are your coverings, and they are on your body.”

  ****

  The Clanship had been in the Jump Hole for five days when Toltak entered the open deck area where she housed the seventeen humans. Reynolds had discovered, upon boarding the ship, that sixteen young men and women would accompany him. There was eight of each gender. They appeared selected specifically for youth, health, and vigor. They were recent captures, in a flash raid on a large city, resulting in a high number of deaths on both sides.

  As a member of the military, Sergeant Reynolds, as they addressed him, was the older and more experienced man at fifty-two, and appeared to know why they were there. He was as up front with them as possible about what the Krall might do with them experimentally. He omitted the part about the phony story he had told the Krall, because that detail wasn’t going to soothe their fears, or help him keep their hopes alive if they felt they couldn’t trust him. He carried a huge load of guilt around.

  Knowing Toltak would not kill or even harm him, he always met her when she came, and he did the talking for the group. All of the younger people, in their twenties, knew the general precautions required when confronted with a Krall that wasn’t trying to kill them right then. Don’t stare or make eye contact, and obey any order. Reynolds didn’t know if the other prisoners had any guarantee of safe delivery, but he didn’t want to risk any of them to find out.

  Averting his eyes, he walked up to her. He looked away because he didn’t want her to use his disrespect as an excuse to harm someone else in retaliation. She appeared slightly mollified by his improved behavior, though he knew she would like nothing better than to carve him up for the others to watch.

  “We are honored by your visit. What is it you want of us?” A week ago he would have puked before saying that to her.

  “There will be a landing soon, but is not on your destination world. I want to visit another world for one or two days. My pilot and the four warriors with me have never seen this place. I wish to hunt there with them. You will be locked inside the ship, and safe. If you do not make trouble, I will reward you with a taste of the meat we kill. It is unique. Do not think you can operate this Clanship yourself. It will activate only for a Krall, and the doors will not open for you. Do you understand?”

  “Not completely. We can’t eat just any meat you would feed us from some alien world. Is it safe for us?”

  “Yes. Humans have eaten it before, many times, and liked it. However, no human alive has eaten it for at least a Krall breeding cycle. They called it rhinolo.”

  18. A Homecoming (Koban)

  Carson, Ethan, their fathers, Commander Mirikami, and a dozen others intended to spend most of this year exploring Koban’s next largest continent, now named Jura. The boys, over nineteen and just graduated from Prime City High School, wanted a break before starting at Hub City University.

  This more “primitive” continent was isolated from the other two continents by wide stretches of ocean. Cenozo was the continent where Hub City and Prime City were located.

>   The third and smallest continent, Paleogene, connected to Cenozo via a geologically recent land bridge. The formerly isolated dominate life forms of those two land masses were still mingling and adjusting. The scientists from the Flight of Fancy were responsible for the odd names of the three continents, rather than named by explorers as was sometimes the case on Earth.

  They had named Cenozo after the Cenozoic era of Earth, due to the similarity to the types of animals that had evolved there, and that they saw every day. That era on Earth was when diverse animals like deer, cats, pigs, tapirs, rhinos, elephants, horses, owls, shrews, hedgehogs, and rabbits had evolved. Koban had equivalents on that largest continent.

  The existence now on Cenozo continent of the dinosaur-like whiteraptors, and their smaller cousins, the micro-raptor screamers, was due to their migration over the Paleogene land bridge on the north west coast of Cenozo, over the last ten or twelve thousand years. They arrived, along with a number of armored dinosaur herbivores, one of which was Thelma’s Thumper. The latter animal, named after the unfortunate woman that sat on one, mistaking it for a rock, only to discover that it came equipped with a club-like tail for defense. A fatal discovery and posthumous naming.

  The Paleogene continent had remnants of dinosaur families, but it also was where moosetodons and yaks had evolved. It had been in slow transition from Cretaceous type fauna to the larger mammals of the early Cenozoic. Koban had not experienced many large impact caused extinction events, as had driven and restarted Earth’s evolution by creating niches for new species to fill. The scientists had noted the relative paucity of craters on Koban’s moon (which everyone simply called the moon, not the Moon.) The existence of older successful animals, long after newer forms developed on other continents, was a hallmark of the “clean” planetary system where Koban was located, and the long isolation periods of the three continental plates.

  Jura continent, with even more primitive and ancient animals, had been isolated from the other two landmasses for probably a hundred million years. Jura had only a handful of storm blown examples of more modern animals represented, except for birds and wolfbats, of course.

  There was continental drift on Koban, but the higher gravity, or possibly a larger iron core made the plates move slower than on Earth. The long isolated continent’s name derived from Earth’s Jurassic era, and the abundant animals there fit the name the scientists universally agreed was suitable. Dinosaur equivalents dominated, in all their varieties. However, organic superconductors had been present in their most remote ancestors, as they were for all Koban life.

  There wasn’t going to be any long dispute as to whether Koban dinosaurs were plodding and cold blooded, or fast and warm blooded. No matter what damned temperature their blood, nobody needed to stick a rectal thermometer up the rear ends of any of these beasties to solve an academic debate. They were fast, when they needed to be.

  Thad and Ethan were stalking some gray, brown, and blue spotted, large cow sized horned herbivores, which resembled Styracosaurus, members of a Koban-style Ceratopsian family of grazers found on Jura. Convergent evolution had given these particular animals a triangular spiked head shield, which protected their vulnerable necks from raptors and the plentiful K-Rex. They had a two foot nose horn and parrot–like beaks but weren’t normally aggressive. However, if threatened they would form a circle, and back their butts into the center and face outwards. That was if they felt threatened. People didn’t look large enough to be threatening, so if they became concerned over the presence of humans, the placid, generally slow moving horned creatures would run about thirty miles per hour. Not away from people as you might expect, but rather directly at what they felt was large enough to be potentially dangerous, and yet too small to stop them from trampling them into the teal colored grass and brightly colored flowers.

  You generally hunted them from the side of the herd’s direction of movement, requiring only light cover for concealment. They could smell humans, but that unknown scent didn’t alarm them. Staying out of sight was the only hunting precaution taken. A hunter of these would take a shot that dropped one in its tracks, and simply wait for the herd to move on as it grazed. Except for a slight start of surprise of the other animals at the noise, the herd would continue to eat grass and leaves, moving slowly on its way, leaving the dead member behind without another glance. They were not quite as tasty as rhinolo, but were less aggressive and far less intelligent. The two men had followed the tracks by truck this morning, finally having to catch up to the herd on foot, because they would take flight when sighting a “predatory” looking truck.

  Thad offered Ethan a suggestion. “Son, one shot from behind the neck shield, into the skull. A 50-caliber slug doesn’t need to hit the brain directly. The shock of the impact will turn it to mush. Its brain is only about half the size of your fist.”

  Ethan glanced at his dad and smiled, instead of rolling his eyes as he would have a year or two ago. His father was a far more experienced hunter, but Ethan was a TG. He was quite confident that he could take down one of these with only his Krall pistol, and probably could do it with just the large knife strapped to his calf. He knew he could outrun them on open ground for at least a mile, and if he chose not to run, could simply leap onto one’s back and ride until it grew tired. Except, he couldn’t do the latter if he had to carry his slower running father, so he cheerfully accepted Dad’s advice.

  In a fast smooth motion, which looked like a snap shot to an average person, Ethan quickly raised the heavy bolt-action rifle, chambering the large round home as he brought the stock up to his shoulder and right cheek, and squeezed the trigger exactly the instant when the gun’s sight lined up with the intended target point. The loud boom sounded out over the grassland, coming from the nearby grove of trees where the two men crouched.

  As expected, one of the smaller animals of the herd dropped to its knees, a large slug passing through the center of its tiny brain. The shields of the other animal’s heads pivoted as they lifted their heads at the report and looked around, sniffing. Then, seeing or smelling no threats, they resumed munching grass, slowly moving towards uncropped teal colored fodder ahead, walking around the deceased herd member.

  Thad offered his boy a complement. “I thought you might take the large bull for the trophy horn. You made a much better choice.”

  Ethan nodded his agreement. “We only have seventeen mouths to feed, nineteen if I count Kit and Kobalt. That smaller cow has twice the amount of meat we need. It’s going to be more tender than that bull, and I won’t catch as much grief from Kit over wasting food. She or Kobalt can let the lions know about the leftover meat.”

  Thad latched onto that new subject. “Has she and Kobalt gotten over their disappointment in the cats here? I haven’t frilled either of them since you told me their negotiations mostly flopped.”

  Ethan shook his head. “They both think the breeds of cats we’ve found here so far are…,” He paused considering. “I guess the images they gave me mean they are more primitive than rippers. The lions also were a lot less than thrilled to see two really large feline competitors in their territory. They just wanted to be left alone.”

  On Jura, the cats contacted thus far lived as long-term mated couples, and were solid tan colored. They called them lions, but they were closer to the size and lanky body type of Earth leopards, only without spots, sporting white facial markings over the eyes and sides of the muzzles. The male had a red-brown mane of bushy hair above the top of the neck frill, which tapered partway down the back, hence the use of lion as a descriptive name for the species.

  “Their aloofness may have something to do with what your Uncle Dillon said about their reduced level of socialization, when compared to the ripper pride structure. The lions occasionally meet and interact with other mated pairs, and introduce their cubs as potential mates for other cubs, and they exchange mind pictures, but they are not instinctively pack animals. It’s the concept of the pride that lets rippers accept humans
as another pride animal.”

  “That seems reasonable.” Ethan shrugged, “I don’t think we will have as close a relationship with lions here, but they definitely received mind pictures of how dangerous and vindictive humans can be if they ever attack one of us. Kit says they will accept our meat gifts as reason to avoid conflict and competition. They positively don’t want a ripper coming after them. They can run faster, but not for as long, and they would be no match for our cats when caught.”

  “I guess a truce is better than nothing, but it would have been nice to have active cooperation.”

  “Kobalt’s pictures imply that rippers might like the challenge of establishing prides in virgin territory over here, hunting completely knew creatures with different prey terror images to enjoy.”

  “Yea, it’s their raw enjoyment of the kill that’s the hardest images for most people to share with them.”

  “Well, they don’t like our willingness to kill for other than food. Those are hard images for them to accept. Yet they understand and agree with our desire to hunt the Krall and stop them from killing anything alive for sheer pleasure. The wild prides think the enemies of their enemy are friends, so we are allies against the evil wasteful Krall.”

  Thad indicated his agreement, and looked over to their now isolated meat kill. “Ok, young swift legs. Go get the truck, and I’ll start the butchering.” He pulled out his own eighteen-inch hunting blade. “We can be back to camp by midday.”

  When he heard the truck returning, it was making more noise than seemed reasonable. The electric motors and fusion bottle power plant were quiet, but the truck body rattling and wheels leaving and slamming onto the uneven ground at high speed made a lot of noise. The edge of the grove of trees prevented him from seeing the vehicle, until it came around the distant corner of trees, nearly tipped up on its left wheels in a hard right turn.

  What in hell is that kid up to? He wondered.