March to the Stars

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Roger sank into the water and sighed as the chieftains filed out.

"That went well," he said, hooking an arm around Despreaux.

"Perhaps," the Gastan said. "Perhaps."

"What's wrong?" Roger asked. "I think the plan will work. Things will go wrong, but we should be able to implement the basics, no matter what."

"My father fears for our people," Pedi said. She and Cord had remained silent throughout the meeting, but they'd been a presence nonetheless—the adviser to the prince and the Light of Mudh Hemh, who was now his benan. There was something else going on there, as well, but Roger was unsure what it was.

"We'll take fierce casualties in the final attack, if it comes," the Gastan said finally. "The deaths of warriors. That is what concerns me, because it is only through warriors that the people can continue, that... new life comes into the world.

He glanced over at his daughter, then away.

"I'm missing something here," Roger said.

"I think I've got it," Dr. Dobrescu said. "It's like the Kranolta, Your Highness. Gaston, pardon me if I'm blunt. What you're afraid of is that whereas females, like Pedi, can carry many children, it's only through the warriors—the males—that children can be made. Is that correct?"

The Gastan sighed and gestured.

"Yes. When a male lies with a female, only a few pups are produced. But if two males lie with the female, more are produced. A female can carry... oh, maybe six or eight, with difficulty. But a male can never... give more than three or four. So if the males fall in battle, from whence comes the next generation?"

"You have to remember, Your Highness," Dobrescu said, after carefully deactivating his toot's translator program, "that Mardukan 'males' are technically females."

"And they implant eggs rather than injecting sperm," Roger said, also in Imperial. "Got it. And since they only come into season twice a year..."

"We have lost more warriors than females to the raids," the Gastan said, "and we already feel the effects of this long war. If we lose as many as half of our warriors—and in a great attack, that is possible—we may be doomed even if your plan succeeds. The Krath will just outbreed us."

"Co-opt them," Eleonora suggested. "Let them 'immigrate.' The Krath are overcrowded. Let them trickle up into the mountains. Have them rebuild Uthomof."

"Perhaps," the Gastan said with an edge of doubt. "It's been suggested before. There are outer villages that have been so stripped by the raiders that they're empty. We don't want the Krath Fire Priests, though."

"Priests can be... adjusted," Fain said. "You may be faced in the near future with more prisoners than you have population. Before they leave, ask the best of them if they want to move up here. Make them Shin, not Krath. If they keep their religion, make sure it renounces sacrifice. You should make that a condition of the peace treaty, anyway."

"I'm still confused about that," Kosutic said. "According to Harvard, it's a recent innovation, and it doesn't fit his data on their religion at all. I'm guessing that it's human cultural contamination, but from where and why is the question."

"It started in the time of my father's father," the Gastan told her. "Initially, it was solely among the Krath, but in my father's time, they started raiding us for Servants of the Fire. Part of that may have been because the warriors of Uthomof had raided all the way to the outskirts of Kirsti. The first of the Shin Servants were taken in punitive raids, but it has grown steadily ever since."

"It was among the Krath, at first?" Kosutic asked. "They didn't start by raiding you?"

"No, not at first. Later... it's more from us than from them, now."

"Eleonora?" The sergeant major looked at O'Casey. "Human sacrifice and cannibalism?"

"In civilizations? As opposed to, say, tribal headhunters?"

"Yeah," the Armaghan said, slipping deeper into the water. "Aztecs. Kali..."

"Baal, if you count ritual infanticide," the chief of staff said with a quizzical expression.

"Baal!" Kosutic sat upright and slapped her forehead. "How could I forget Baal? I bet that's it!"

"What's 'it'?" Roger demanded.

"Where to start?" sergeant major asked.

"Start at the beginning..." Pahner suggested with a slight smile.

"Gee, thanks a lot, Sir!"

The priestess settled back in the water once more, frowning thoughtfully.

"Okay," she said finally. "The worship of Baal is old. Baal is an only slightly 'mixed' god; he's mostly a cattle god, and he only added a human form later. The Minotaur is probably related to his worship, and there are some very significant pre-Baal religious motifs in pre-Egyptian culture.

"One of the major aspects of the worship of Baal is ritual infanticide. Children, infants younger than eight weeks, are wrapped in swaddling clothes and put in fires that burn within a huge figure, usually that of a bull but sometimes of a minotaur-looking human. These are frequently children of high-caste couples.

"Prior to the development of civilization in the Turanian and Terrane regions, the area was a hunter-gatherer paradise. But a tectonic shift—a change in Terra's axial inclination, actually—in about 6000 b.c.e., caused a severe climate change. The Sahara was created, which was a desert where the Libyan Plains are now. Civilization developed rapidly in response, as the hunter-gatherers were forced to change their lifestyles to adjust to the climate changes.

"Now, the first evidence of the cult of Baal arose practically in tandem with civilization. Aspects of it were found in very early Egyptian society, although the sacrificial aspects are ambiguous. But it was definitely found in the proto-Phoenician cattle herders and fishermen in the Levant. The Phoenicians, of course, carried it far and wide, and it might have influenced the shift from Tolmec self-sacrifice to Aztec human sacrifice. Certainly they were in contact with the Tolmecs, as well as the proto-Incans and the Maya; the Phoenician logs that were, ahem, 'recovered' from Professor Van Dorn in 2805 proved that conclusively."

"One of the classics of ideological bias," O'Casey said with a laugh. " 'Analyzing them for authenticity' indeed! If his research assistant hadn't called the authorities, he would've destroyed all the tablets."

"Exactly," the sergeant major agreed. "But at least it finally ended the two hundred-year reign of the Land-Bridge Fanatics in anthropology. Now, the rationale for infanticide is still occasionally debated. Infanticide is practiced by every society, and it's often supported more by women than by men..."

"Excuse me, Sergeant Major," Despreaux said with a frown. "Every society? I don't think so!"

"Ever heard of abortion, girl?" the Armaghan snapped back. "What in hell do you think that is? I'm not arguing for or against infanticide, but it's the same thing. The point being that there's a widespread human drive towards it. But that doesn't explain the ritualization, which is only found in certain cultures, and most notably in the cult of Baal. In 2384, Dr. Elmkhan, at the University of Teheran completed the definitive study of the rise of Baalism. He analyzed results from over four thousand digs throughout Terrane and Turania and came to the conclusion, which to this day is hotly debated, that it was a direct response to population problems in the immediate aftermath of the climatic change."

"Ah, bingo," Roger said. "The Krath population problem!"

"The Krath population problem" Kosutic agreed. "My guess is that it was cultural contamination—and not accidentally, either. There was a satirical piece by an early industrial writer about the Irish... . What was his name? Fast? Quick?"

"Swift?" Pahner asked. " 'An Elegant Solution' or something like that. 'Let them eat their young.' "

"Yes," O'Casey agreed. "But what Swift didn't realize was that there were societies where, for all practical purposes, that was what happened. In fact, one of the major factors influencing the rise of Christianity in Roman culture was its proscription against infanticide. There is a drive towards it, but it is not widely supported. Roman matrons, given the choice of saying 'My God forbids it' jumped on board by the thousands. It was that proscription, along with the acceptance of the Rituals of Mithras as the standard Mass, that created the Catholic church."

"The Rituals of what?" Despreaux asked plaintively. "You're going too fast."

"I'm just sort of sitting here with my jaw on the table," Roger told her with a snort. "I'm not even trying to understand half of it."

"The Rituals of Mithras," Fain put in, lifting up so that more than just his ears and horns were out of the steaming water. "One of the conversations the Priestess and I had. As a political ploy to gain the support of the Roman Army, the early Christians took the entire series of rituals from a religion called the Mithraists and turned it into their Mass."

"If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the early Christian church was very impressed with the Mithraists," Kosutic said sourly. "But at that point the Christians had two of the major political forces in Rome on their side: the Army, which switched to Christianity in droves as soon as they saw that it was just Mithras in another guise; and the matrons who no longer had to throttle their excess children. The rest is known history—the Emperor converted, and it was all over but the shouting. And let me tell you, that was ferociously argued—and occasionally warred over—for nearly two thousand years after it could be debated in public. But in the end, the preponderance of evidence pointed to that being the pattern, rather than his mother telling him he had to do it.

"On the other hand," she noted, "it has little or nothing to do with the Krath, other than as an example of the intersection of religion and politics."

"Can I ask one thing that's bothering me?" Roger said.

"Ask away, Your Highness," the sergeant major replied.

"You used the present tense a lot when discussing the cult of Baal and its sacrifices," Roger said carefully. "And I recall you saying something about 'the Brotherhood of Baal' among the Armaghans..."

"The Brotherhood does not practice human sacrifice," Kosutic said, then waggled her hands. "As far as I know. Although they do have the occasional death under the 'enhancement' rituals, which might count. They certainly do not practice ritual infanticide. The Church of Ryback, on the other hand, has a variety of Baalian influences."

"The Saints," Pahner said. "I wondered when you'd get to the point."

"The Saints," the sergeant major said with a nod. "There are various... word choices and phrases in the Church of Ryback that indicate to comparative theologians that it was influenced by the New Cult of Baal, which was formed—and died—during the Dagger Years. Also, the Rybackians have various sub-cults, which are, ahem, more 'fundamental' than others."

"I notice that you say 'ahem' when you're trying not to say something," Roger observed. "What was that 'ahem'?"

Kosutic sighed and shook her head.

"There are... rumors that are generally discounted about some of the sub-cults of Ryback eating their young. Personally, I don't put much faith in them. You hear that sort of thing about all sorts of hated sub-groups. But... I also wouldn't put it past them, either. Anyway, you can imagine their reaction to the overcrowding of the Krath. Never prove it, though."

"And we could be wrong," O'Casey pointed out. "There's the whole influence of the spaceport, the original survey team, the previous group of archeologists... It could have been any of them, or spontaneous serial development, for that matter."

"Oooo, like pyramids?" Kosutic asked with one eyebrow arched.

"Well..." O'Casey blushed faintly and actually wiggled in the water. "In this case, it's at least possible. I know that archeologists still have a bad reputation from that, but in this case it's possible. Cannibalism is endemic in every culture except the Phaenurs."

"Who don't even have wars," Despreaux whispered to Julian.

"Oh, they have them," the intelligence sergeant replied. "They just don't get noticed."

"They're empaths," she protested quietly. "How could empaths have a war?"

"You've obviously never had a Jewish mother-in-law," Julian told her under his breath.

"Sergeant Major, you're clearly having fun," Pahner interjected. "But I'm not sure that knowing where the Krath got the idea for sacrifices gets us. I think we need to concentrate on the tactics for a little bit, here."

"I think that's straightforward," Roger said. "We'll write a message to Jin. The Gastan sends it via his runners. When we get the explosives, Nimashet builds the shaped charges, we blow the mountain, and then we call for the Krath's surrender."

"And in the meantime, Your Highness?"

"Well, in about five or six days, we start assembling teams and training," Roger said. "And until then, I intend to drink some wine and sit in a hot tub with my girlfriend. I suggest you do the same. Well, except the girlfriend part. You can abstain from that."

"Thanks so very much, Your Highness," Pahner said.

"No problem," the prince replied. He held out a flask and cup. "Wine?"

Temu Jin looked at the message, then at the messenger.

"Do you know what they're going to do with it?" he asked.

"I don't even know what 'it' is, human," the Shin runner replied curtly. The runner appeared to be almost a different species from the Gastan. He was as tall as any Mardukan Jin had ever dealt with, and had weirdly long fingers and shortened horns. Combined with the four arms and widely spaced eyes, it made him look like a mucous-covered insect. "All I know is that there are four more of us waiting. And we are to take packages from you. We wait until the packages are prepared."

"Come on, then," Jin said, with a gesture.

The meeting was taking place at the back of the spaceport, as usual. Now Jin descended the slight slope from the edge and headed to the nearest Krath hamlet, a tiny burg called Tul by the locals. The majority of the few off-planet visitors stayed on the port reservation. The few who didn't usually exited by the main gates, and thence down the road to the Krath imperial city, called, with surprising imagination, "Krath." Very few humans, or any other visitors, for that matter, came to Tul.

On one level, that made it a bad place to hide purloined materials. The sight of a human face there was a dead giveaway that something was going down. On the other hand, the bribes were lower, and the local farmers and craftsmen reminded him of home. As long as he kept up the payments, they were unlikely to go squealing to the taxmen, who were their only contact with the central government.

And it was convenient for the purpose—which was to build up a cache against the day he needed it.

Originally, the caches had started as insurance against the possibility that Governor Mountmarch might decide he could dispense with the services of one Temu Jin. Jin was well aware that he was deep into the "knows too much; not close enough to the inner circle to be trusted" category. Life on the frontier was cheap, and the only law was the governor. If Mountmarch wanted him dead, it was a matter of a nod. Against that almost inevitable day, he'd started smuggling the odd weapon or ammo pack out of the port. And when he'd realized how easy it was, he'd upped his depredations to using whole pack teams of Mardukans to smuggle material out.

As far as anyone would be able to tell, it was just a regular black-market operation. He sold Imperial materials to the Mardukans, and in return he had a nice Mardukan servant and trade goods, which he used to purchase materials from docking spacers. In reality, the majority of materials weren't being sold, but stored in bunkers. Each time he sent stuff down, he also sent along payments to the mayor—either human goods, or Krath coin. And each time he pulled stuff out, he paid more. He had backup caches in the hills, including a full set of armor, for which he had the codes, and a heavy plasma gun. If he had to fight to get the rest, he could. But he'd never had any trouble with Tul. He thought of it as his little war-bank.

And now it was time to make a withdrawal.

They came into the village the back way, through the turom fields, stepping carefully around the round balls of horselike dung. Like much of the continent's architecture, the mayor's house was a squat construction of heavy basalt rocks. It was built more like a fortress than most, and its back door was constructed of half-meter thick planks that didn't respond well to a standard knock. Which was why Jin drew his bead pistol and pounded on the door with its handgrip, swinging the gun like a hammer.

After a few moments, the door swung open to reveal a wizened old Mardukan female. Jin had never been sure if she was the cook, or a mother-in-law, or what. It probably didn't matter, but it nagged at his sense of curiosity. She was always the one to answer the door, no matter if he was early or late.

She looked at him, looked at the Mardukans with him, made a motion to wait, then closed the door. After a few moments more, it was opened by the local Krath leader.

"Temu Jin, I see you," he said. "You bring Shin to my door?"

"I need to get a few things."

"Of course," the mayor said with a gesture of resignation. "I fear that the authorities are becoming too interested in this affair."

"I'll do my best not to let you get caught up in it," and Jin said. "I treasure your security as much as you treasure my gold."

"Perhaps," the mayor muttered, then beckoned for Jin to follow him and led the way through the darkened town.

The route took them to an abandoned basement which had been hollowed out and reinforced on one side. The hollow, in turn, had been packed with boxes, and Temu Jin started checking packing lists.

"Cataclysmite," he muttered, shaking his head. "What in hell does he want two hundred kilos of cataclysmite for?"

Despreaux waved the cup of wine away as Julian filed out of the door.

"Not for me, either."

"Don't make me drink it all alone," Roger said. "Besides, it's good for healing bones. It's got calcium in it."

"That's milk, you goof," Despreaux said. She chuckled, but then she sobered. "Roger, we have to talk."

"Uh, oh. What have I done now?"

"I think..." She stopped and shook her head. "I think we should stop seeing each other."

"Look, you're my bodyguard," Roger said. "I have to see you."

"You know what I mean."

"If it's the fraternization thing, we'll handle it," he said with a frown. He was beginning to realize that she was serious. "I mean, we've been... well... friends for this long. If it was going to go wrong, it would have before now."

"It's not that," she said, shaking her head. "Let's just leave it, okay? Say 'thanks,' and shake hands and be friends."

"You're joking," he spat. "Tell me you're joking! What ever happened to 'eternal love' and all that?"

"Some things... change. I don't think we're right."

"Nimashet, right up until we got to Mudh Hemh, you thought we were as right as— Well, I can't think of a metaphor. Very right. So what's changed?"

"Nothing," she said, turning away and getting out of the water.

"Is it one of the Marines?"

"No!" she said. "Please don't play twenty questions, all right?"

"No, not all right. I want to know what's changed."

"You did, Your Highness," she said, sitting back down on the edge of the water and wringing out her hair. "Before, you were prince Roger, Heir Tertiary to the Throne of Man. Now, you're either a wanted outlaw, or the next Emperor. And you're not willing to settle for wanted outlaw, are you?"

"No," Roger said balefully. "Are you?"

"I don't know," she sighed. "There's been so much death, I'm afraid it's never going to end. Not even get better."

"Hey, yo, Sergeant Despreaux," he smiled. "You're the one who carried me out of the battle in Voitan. Remember?"

"Roger, I haven't fired a shot in combat since... Sindi. Yeah, I think that's it. That little 'holding action' of yours before the main battle."

"What?"

"Remember when we were coming out of the temple in Kirsti? Who was the only person with ammo?"

"You were," Roger replied. "But... I thought you'd just been very conservative with your fire."

"I hadn't fired at all!" she snapped. "Not even when that bastard almost took your head off on the back stair!"

"But—" Roger stared at her, stunned by the revelation. Then he shook himself. "Kosutic had me covered," he said. "Besides, what does that have to do with never seeing me again?"

"Nothing," she admitted. "Except that you're not going to just let bygones be bygones. You're going to go charging back to Imperial City with blood in your eye. And you'll either overthrow Jackson, or die trying. Right?"

"Damned right!"

"So, you're either going to be dead, or the Emperor, right?"

"Well, Mother is probably competent—"

"But when she dies, or abdicates, you're the Emperor, right?"

"Oh."

"And do you think that the Emperor can just marry any old rube farm girl from the back of beyond?" she asked. "Sure, when you were just Prince Roger, it was like a dream come true. I figured I'd be a nine-day celebrity, and then we'd find some out of the way place to... be Roger and Nimashet. But now you're going to be Emperor, and Emperors have dynastic marriages, not marriages to girls from the out-planets."

"Oh," he repeated. "Oh, Nimashet—"

"You know I'm right," she said, wiping at her eyes. "I saw the way O'Casey was looking at me. I'm willing to be your wife. I'm even willing to be your girlfriend. I'm not willing to be your mistress, or your concubine. And those are the choices available to Emperor Roger and Sergeant Nimashet Despreaux."

"No," he said, wrapping his arms around her knees. "Nimashet, I'll need you. Even if we succeed, and that's not a given, I'll need you to be there. I... you're always at my back. Maybe you're not shooting anymore, but you're still there. Even when Cord isn't, you're there. You're like my right arm. I can't make it without you."

"Hah," she snorted through the tears. "You'd still be cursing your enemies with both arms and legs hacked off. And drown them in blood to kill them. You don't know when to quit. Me? I do. I quit. When we get back and everything is done, I'm turning in the uniform. And until then, I'm going to see Sergeant Major Kosutic about putting me on noncombat duties. It's beyond combat fatigue, Roger. I just can't focus anymore. I may be at your back, but that's because you're wiping everything out in front of you, and at your back is the safest place to be. The only problem is that I'm supposed to be your bodyguard, not the other way around."

"You've saved my life..." He thought about it. "Three times, I think."

"And you've saved mine as many," she replied. "It's not a matter of keeping score. Just, let it go, okay? I can't marry the Emperor, I can't guard you worth a damn, and I'm not much good for anything else. I'll head back to Midgard, buy a farm, find a nice stolid husband, and... try not to think about you. Okay?"

"No, it's not 'okay'! I can see your logic, sort of. But if you think I'm going to release you to go hide on a farm, you've got another think coming. And unless there's a clear reason for a dynastic marriage, I'm still going to marry you, come hell or high water. Even if I have to drag you into the church, kicking and screaming!"

"You and what army, Mister?" she asked dangerously. "If I say no, I mean no."

"Look, none of this is settled until we get to Terra," Roger said. "Let's just... bank it right now. We'll pull it out and look at it again when things settle down. But I don't care if you're not one hundred percent in close combat. Who's making the shaped charges?"

"Me," she sighed.

"And who's going to be managing the demolitions?"

"Me."

"And when we get back to Terra, can I trust you to hang in there and do whatever needs to be done to the best of your ability, as long as you don't have to kill anyone?"

"Yes," she admitted.

"Can I go get any old joker off the street that I can trust? Or any of the Marines on Terra? No. I'll need every single body I can trust. And you're a body that I can both trust and admire," he finished with a leer.

"Gee, thanks." She smiled.

"You told me a long time ago that we might not get to retire to Marduk. That Mother might have other plans for us. Well, the same goes for you. Unless we're all killed, I'm going to have things I need you to do. Only one of them involves marrying me, and we'll discuss that when the time comes. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Does this mean I can't wrestle with you in the water?" he asked, running his hand up her side.

"If you get this cast wet and short it out, Dobrescu will kill you," she pointed out.

"It's okay. I'm a faster draw than he is."

"Well, since you put it that way," she replied, and slid down into the water and leaned forward to kiss him.

"Your Highness," Bebi said, leaning in the door. "Captain Pahner's compliments, and he'd like to see you in his quarters."

"I think I'm beginning to detect a pattern here," Roger snarled under his breath.

"Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and three times is enemy action," Despreaux replied huskily. "So far, it's just coincidence.

"So far," Roger replied. "But I have to wonder."