The City Who Fought

Chapter Nineteen

"Shall I perform an autopsy, Great Lord?" the eunuch medico asked in its shrill whine.

Belazir t'Marid looked down at the bodies in their separate bags. Separate bags, but who knew what went where? One bag might be a few parts short or extra, for all he could tell.

"Creature," he said to the eunuchs, cuffing one aside, "when men have their skulls crushed by heavy blows-as these have-and their eyes gouged out-as these have-and their throats cut to the neckbone-as these have-and their bodies cut to pieces, as these have, then generally speaking, as a rule, they die. An autopsy seems somewhat superfluous."

The noble's voice was even and pleasant, as it usually was, but the slave medico sank deeper and deeper into a crouch of abasement with every word, as if they were blows from the powered whip normally used on such. At the last, all the eunuch could do was whimper.

"Cease," Belazir said. "Now, this other; in that, I have interest."

The medico sealed the bags containing the body-parts of the two dead Kolnari and hastened to the intact casualty. Relatively intact. He stroked a hand down the opaque material, and the stuff turned utterly transparent.

"Whatever killed him, he was not pleased with it," Belazir remarked to Serig, looking at the dead man's bulging, staring eyes. Shifting to the interrogative tense: "Creature?"

"It is uncertain, Great Lord. Either the electrocution or the explosive decompression would be fatal, of course. Here, the dart struck. See, a burned patch, high on the shoulder, towards the angle of the jaw. As he was turning to confront that which killed him, it struck from the rear."

"Blindingly obvious," Belazir said facetiously. "Go. Preserve the bodies."

"And what do you propose to do, t'Marid?" the third Kolnari noble present said.

"Do, lord Captain t'Varak?" Belazir said, turning with an expression of perfect courtesy.

T'Varak's presence provided a welcome distraction. A kin-enemy was always more entertaining than outsiders, if more predictable. He waved a languid hand about them, at the dew-cool grass, at the holos far overhead that mimicked the blue cloud-scattered sky of Earth. The temperature was far below what Kolnari preferred, but they could endure anything down to and below freezing without undue discomfort. None of them needed to wear more than briefs and shipbelt for utility. For status, the nobles wore long open-necked robes of watered silk, jewelry of fretted silver, and homeworld fire opals. Their hair was brushed to shining shoulder-length waterfalls, pinned back with combs of sea-ivory and precious metal, and the knife-sharp feathers of Kolnari birds.

Belazir stretched. His robe was severely plain, dazzling white with gold and indigo trim.

"I shall enjoy the beauty of this place. So fair, and so tragic because soon it will perish as if it had never been." He added a classical quotation on transience and death in the three-tonal scale.

Anger glowed from the other man, lambent as hot metal. He might have been Belazir's twin, except for a hair-clip of gold rather than silver and the petulance of his expression. Belazir t'Marid never showed an enemy his frustrations.

"Three of my men are dead, t'Marid," he said.

"Dead!" agreed Belazir in a mild tone. "One slain from ambush, another two destroyed hand-to-hand, by scumvermin. Of course, to be caught so carelessly, they became little better than scumvermin themselves. Far better for the Clan that they were cut off before they could breed." Or breed much; Kolnari became fertile early. "Culling by the universe, not so? They will leave no sons of disgrace to propagate lines of weakness amid the Divine Seed."

For a moment, he thought Aragiz would attack him here, while Belazir was in clear command, with Serig at his side and armored crewfolk from the Dreadful Bride at his back. If he did, he was better culled out of the Divine Seed. That was the point of the delicate insult, of course. Back on Bethel, old Azlek t'Varak had taken off his helmet a moment too soon and lost his head by such precipitousness. That had been a scandal of some note, shadowing the prestige and honor of all his sons-Aragiz t'Varak not least. The t'Varak were always hotheads, Belazir thought, amused at his own pun. Azlek had been all of fifty, though; time enough to be slow and senile. Aragiz should know better.

He did, though barely. "You should bring the scumvermin here under better control," Aragiz said in a bland tone which matched Belazir's. "Kill a few hundred. A hundred for one."

"T'Varak, t'Varak," Belazir murmured. He bent and plucked a flower, sniffed deeply of it. "There are fifteen thousand or so scumvermin on this great fat-dripping morsel that the Clan-and Father Chalku, by the latest message-yearns to pop into its ever-hungry mouth. And, if the scumvermin suspect that almost all of them will die when we are done, some one of them will sabotage this station and rob the Clan of that feasting, for all that we can do. Despair makes even scumvermin brave. Hope brings forth their cowardice, each one hoping for himself."

A songbird swooped by. Belazir's band snapped out like a trout rising to a fly and caught the tiny creature within the cave of his hand. He brought it up under Aragiz's nose as the soft feathers brushed his skin, in rhythm with its heartbeat.

"I have them in my fist, cousin," he went on. "Shall I open it-" he suited words to action "-and let them go?" The bird flew away.

"Blood calls for blood," Aragiz said. "Avenge our blood, or you are no Clan leader."

"Blood-call can wait a few days," Belazir said, his voice flint-hard as the two men stared face-to-face. "Until the transports arrive," he added negligently. "Eight days to load and leave, and watch this station vanish in a spark of fire as we go. Because Father Chalku's message giving me mandate over all the High Clan in this action has already come, has it not?"

"It has," Aragiz said. "Be glad, O cousin, be very glad of that!"

"Be assured I am," Belazir said ambiguously. "And now, Lord Captain, load your ship with choice loot. Let you and your fighters enjoy themselves as they will among the scumvermin, so long as they do not reduce the slave work-output." He dropped his voice to a whisper. "Do not obstruct me, t'Varak. Not until you can bring the Clan a prize like this."

"No. Not yet."

Belazir watched him go. "Serig," he said, "behold. Never underestimate an enemy."

"Aragiz, lord?" Serig said incredulously.

Belazir threw back his head and laughed merrily. "No, no. I should have specified; never underestimate even a scumvermin enemy. As that dolt does. This station's two leaders, they have between them a three hundred percent increment upon poor Aragiz's sum total of wits. He has the technique of a tunglor."

That was a metaphor for the younger Kolnari, who had never seen homeworld. In Kolnar's seas, there was an animal-more or less an animal-that concentrated the abundant transuranics from seawater in a specialized section of its gut. It sucked in water and sprayed it on the heated chamber that resulted, expelling it behind as steam for propulsion. Tunglor massed in at about the same as the Dreadful Bride, and they attacked by rising from depth at fifty or sixty knots and ramming with their metal-sapphire-fiber prows, never deviating from the shortest course. Belazir's ancestors had made themselves nobles by hunting tunglor, hunting them to gain plutonium for weapons and powerplants.

"As you do when you take your pleasure," Belazir went on, slapping his companion on the back of the neck in mock reproof.

Serig grinned slyly. "It's not as if they were women." He omitted the "lord" in this brief instance, speaking man to man. "And how will you take this Channa creature?"

"With slow care, fool, as all true pleasures should be savored: wine, a woman, revenge. And on the Dreadful Bride, when we have left," Belazir said.

Serig raised brows in surprise. "You think her worthy of bearing slaves, lord?" he said.

"Many." The male offspring would be castrated-that was how such as the medico were made-and the females bred back to the Divine Seed. In four or five generations, with careful testing, they could become Kolnari of the lowest caste.

"I will need some pleasure to relax me after our labors," Belazir added.

Serig nodded, needing no further explanation. They would have to destroy and leave for Bethel immediately. The Central Worlds Navy would be all over these stars as soon as they learned of the destruction of SSS-900-C. The Clan would run a long, long way, to wait among unpeopled, unsurveyed systems while they assimilated this treasure and bred the strength to use it. Empty systems held raw materials and energy in plenty, if you had the tools, and the universe was unimaginably vast. That voyage would be a giant step nearer the good day when it was the Central Worlds' scumvermin who were the scattering of fugitives, and the Divine Seed the power that bred and covered world upon world upon world. A long, if necessary, flight would be tedious.

"So, leave me," Belazir said. "See to the preparations for the transports. Now I will speak with the two scumvermin."

Their Kolnari guards seemed incapable of letting them just walk through a doorway. The prisoners were always propelled over the threshold with a hearty shove. Thus far Channa and Amos had managed to keep their feet, which seemed to inspire ever more energetic pushing. Channa wondered if the two guards bet money on which of them would stumble first. Such treatment irritated her and it must infuriate Amos beyond endurance, since he was born noble among a ceremonious people.

The last door gave onto the nature deck, one of the jewels of the SSS-900-C. Amos straightened then, almost smiling. The deck covered several hundred hectares; lakes, several small wooded areas, and meadows. A stream wandered from savannah to a miniature rain forest, through prairie and into the softly informal confines of a classic country-house garden, here by the entrance. Herons stalked through the reeds by the river, alert for the fish that leaped after dragonflies. The smell was overwhelmingly green. Off in the middle distance, a herd of small deer browsed. The air was full of birdsong. Normally there were parties of picnickers and the shouts of children. Now a plasma gun swung down before them.

"Wait the Great Lord's pleasure, scumvermin," the amplified voice of the Kolnar said.

Oh-oh, Channa thought, with a sinking stomach. That sounds bad. She and Amos had discussed what to do under interrogation, but she had doubts about his ability to keep control of his temper.

As for me, I'll live through what I have to. And I'll dance on their graves, she thought grimly. She had been one of the first to take the new virus.

"Buck up, kid," Simeon's voice whispered in her inner ear. It had the odd gravelly tone he adopted in tense moments. "Remember, I've got no fixed sensors in there, so the implants will have to do. I'm with you, and I'll give a running translation of anything the pirates say in their jabber. Okay? And from the structure of their language, the phrase they just used means something like 'front and center.' "

"Got it," she subvocalized.

They jumped back against the wall smartly when a Kolnari bossman came through, looking as if he would rather walk over them. For a moment, Channa thought it was Belazir, and then caught the few subtle differences which told her he was not. Simeon's voice confirmed it. Serig followed, a minute later. They both cast their eyes down, to avoid showing the raw desire to kill they shared.

"Now, scumvermin," the guard said.

"Ohhhhh, am I getting sick of hearing that word," Channa subspoke.

"You and me and Simeon-Amos both," Simeon agreed. The Bethelite had the button in his ear, but he hadn't been able to train a sub vocal level that was inaudible. The Kolnari didn't hear all that well at the margins of audibility and had no reason to use sensitive hearing devices.

Belazir had set up his command post beneath a huge oak tree. He lolled at his ease on a reclining chair, a wreath of fresh wildflowers adorned his hair, dappled shade moving on his sleek skin and the priceless silks of his clothing. On one side of him was a mobile console and a table scattered with notescreens, printouts, small pieces of equipment. Also some artwork which Simeon recognized, garnered from galleries and the museum.

One piece Channa did not remember and the brain could not name, a flamboyant carving in some bone or ivory of a… submarine with fangs? jet-propelled spearfish? Whatever, it had the same air of ruthless speed that a striking hawk might.

"Ah, your eyes light on the tunglor," Belazir said affably. As always, the sheer physical presence of the man struck her like a blow. "From homeworld… Kolnar."

The guard behind them reached out an arm to force them down.

"No, to one knee will do," Belazir said easily. His Standard was better, even in these few days. "Do you wish refreshment?"

He waved to his other side to the table where food and bottles of wine rested, patently supplied by the Perimeter Restaurant. The young waitress was from the Perimeter, too, although there she had worn clothes.

"No, Master and God," Amos and Channa said in meek unison.

Belazir smiled and held out his hand. The waitress put a water-glass tumbler of Mart'an's famous apricot-brandy liqueur into it. He drank it off in ten long swallows and Channa knew a moment's wild hope.

Simeon's voice was sour. "No joy," he sent. "I checked with Chaundra. They metabolize ethanol so fast he'll only be mildly buzzed."

"Well," the pirate said in that voice like a bronze bell that purred. "There is business. The matter of the attack on the Divine Seed of Kolnar."

"He's not too upset, I think," Simeon told them. "Heartbeat absolutely Kolnar-normal, no pupil dilation. Got an idea the victims may have been from one of the other ships. Play it polite-firm."

"Lord and God," Channa said. "The criminals will be found and punished."

Subvocal from Simeon: "You hit his funnybone with that, Happy. He's killing himself laughing inside."

Channa went on. "I've made several general broadcasts calling for obedience, Master and God."

"So you have. I notice, too, that it is always you and not your companion… colleague?"

"Simeon-Amos is-" Channa fell silent as the Kolnari's hand indicated that Simeon-Amos should answer.

"I am the junior, Master and God," Amos said, eyes fixed on the ground.

"Look at me, Simeon-Amos." The stares met for long seconds. Then Belazir gestured again, turning his attention back to Channa. "Well and good. As we expect to hold the station in our fist for some time, these acts of stupidity must cease."

"Lying through his teeth, babe."

"You sent messages desiring audience, Channahap," Belazir went on. He rose, like a black fountain tipped with white gold, the loose sleeves floating back from his arms like wings. He looked down from his near two meters of height. "Continue."

"Master and God," she said, in a tone as empty of any but the formal semantic content as she could make it, "your troops fornicate like-" she paused to search for a word "-rottweilers."

"Big chuckle at that one, Channie." Simeon was furious.

Belazir crossed his arms. "Why does this not seem complimentary?"

Channa looked up at him. "They bite," she said emotionlessly, covering her disgust, "all the time."

"Then the sc-the chosen ones should not resist their fate," Belazir said. "It is our custom when we meet resistance."

"They don't resist!" Channa said sharply, then managed a taut smile. "Should we bite back?"

A rustle went through the line of armored troops behind Belazir and the cluster of officers with feathers and jewels in their hair. The noble silenced them with a toss of his head.

"I would not recommend it," he said sardonically. "The custom to which I refer is that of enjoying the fruits of victory. A most ancient custom, surely, even you must know of it? Make another of your speeches. Outline their duties. A hard, sincere effort to please. Then they shall be caressed as they labor, not savaged."

"Master and God, when you bruise the fruit too much, it goes bad! The problem is that I have a hundred people in sickbay being sewn back together and under medication due to human bites and various other wounds. Initially, there were three hundred sick to begin with, not counting the ones who've been flogged."

"Are they injured?"

No, apart from shaking and crying and waking up with nightmares, she thought. The Kolnari had a whip that did something to the nervous system. "Master and God-" however she tried, she couldn't quite keep the sarcasm out of that. "-the problem involves vital work positions which are left empty. This isn't a planet. It doesn't run itself. Everything has to be done without error. Fatigue leads to error, error leads to failure, and failure can lead to death. I cannot do the impossible, order me however you want."

"Now that," he said, "is the wrong tone." Suddenly he was much closer, and took her chin between thumb and forefinger. "Entirely. Do you understand, Channahap?"

"Yes," she murmured, "yes, I understand." Time seemed to slow.

He smiled. "Excellent. However, your remarks, if not the manner in which they were delivered, are reasonable. I shall give orders that my troops be… gentler with their slaves. After you have emphasized the proper attitude toward their duties."

Channa's eyes widened.

He actually laughed this time. "Yes," he assured her, "that, too, is our custom. Those of you that please us or are useful will leave this place on our ships." He watched her absorb this privilege.

"Walk with me," he said, putting a hand under her arm. She jerked slightly at the contact, like the touch of a live conductor.

Amos started to follow. A servo-powered gauntlet closed down on his skull, so gently that it would not have cracked an egg. A duplicate of the one that had crushed his sister's skull. Wind blew through the trees above them, making the leaves move in a dance that contrasted to the stillness of the humans below.

"A strange way to spend so much effort," Belazir said, as he nodded to the landscape around them. A chuckle passed his lips. "Preferable to expend effort and strength on this than on weapons."

"Who does he think built his ships and the weapons they're carrying?" Simeon whispered in her ear.

Channa shrugged in answer to both.

"Still, it is beautiful," he said. His hand traced the back of her neck, lightly enough that the pads of his fingers just touched the hairs. She shivered involuntarily.

"I am not Serig," he added, stroking the fingers down her spine and away. "This is like Earth, is it not?"

"Mostly," Channa said. Unconsciously she tilted her head to one side away from Belazir as Simeon gave her the relevant information. "A few of the plants and organisms are from Rigel 4, but they're compatible."

"Like looking back into the past," he said. They stopped, out of sight of the tables. He looked up into the sky. "Computer," he said. "Night."

The constellations of Earth's northern hemisphere blazed out, as they had not in reality since men learned to bend electricity to light.

"Yes," t'Marid said, looking upward at the false sky. "Very beautiful, but it seems too much openness. As if a body might fall upward and be sucked out into limitless space."

Well, a weakness, she thought. Many spaceborn were slightly agoraphobic. That could be useful, if Belazir had been spaceborn.

She thought a smile appropriate. "The sensation is called vertigo. I've occasionally experienced it myself when planet-side. I was born and raised on a space station, so I feel more comfortable under a ceiling."

"Something of that," he admitted. "But also… Computer. Night on Kolnar. From Maridapore."

Channa gasped in shock at the change. The dark sky overhead vanished. In its place was a glowing moon-colored cloud full of colored lights from horizon to horizon. She blinked, then realized the light was not that much more brilliant than the Terran sky. Yet this phenomenon was not a sky: it was a ceiling across heaven.

"A dozen times full Luna brightness," Simeon supplied.

Off to the north, auroras circled and moved, scrolls vaster than worlds, electric blue and white and pearl. Beneath them, on the horizon, a volcano was a glowing firestorm spout, powered by its own natural fission reactor. Something gigantic and winged slid across the alien constellations. Smaller things pursued it, diving and tearing as it fluted an intricate song of grief.

"I have never seen this sky," he said thoughtfully. "Not really. Not even a simulation as good as this." He issued a second command and the Earth night returned. "This is more restful."

"Ah… The birds won't like it if you change day to night like this," Channa said. "You'd better set it back when you leave. Master and God," she added absently.

He looked at her in astonished amusement. "The birds won't like it?" he said. "Channahap, you are a wonder. The birds won't like it, the insects will be disturbed… does this matter?"

"We brought them here, to a totally unnatural environment. If we expect them to thrive, then it's our responsibility to provide them with whatever they need. They're a part of all this," she said gesturing widely. "Without the birds and the insects, this would be sterile, a lifeless tableau. So we have to be mindful of their needs."

He nodded. "I shall leave it on night setting and dawn shall be in twelve hours. Things have changed here. Even the birds must realize it."

Channa had no reply for that bit of arrogance.

"That is the supreme law, of course," he went on, "for Earth, for Kolnar, for the universe."

She made an interrogative sound.

"Adapt! Master changing circumstance, or die unbred. The Seed-the genes, you would say-are the reality that underlies all this. Taking energy from the Dead World, growing in complexity and adaptation. All this," and, with a swift movement of his hand, he caught a dragonfly by its legs for a second, then released it, "is waves on the surface. Beneath is the Seed, seeking to replicate itself. All beings, all mind, all war and trade and art and science, mere waves on the changeless sea." He smiled kindly. "And fittest of all, of course, is the Divine Seed of Kolnar. Of that Seed, fittest is the High Clan. Which is why you long for union with it, for such immortality."

"I disagree. Lord and God."

"No, you do not. Your mind may, but that is merely the vehicle of the… gene. Watch, when we return. Your Simeon-Amos will be enraged. Naturally enough, for he suspects the immortality you offer is to be taken from his seed." He sighed and turned back towards the tables, hidden behind a line of trees. She trotted to keep pace, although he did not seem to hurry. "Enough of pleasant idleness and philosophizing. To work!"

"Simeon, why do all my Prince Charmings turn out to be toads?" Channa subvocalized. Amos stood stiff and withdrawn beside her on the people mover as it slid down the corridor. "Is he really jealous? Under these circumstances, that's ridiculous!"

"It's also maybe involuntary. Your girl goes walking in the woods with Lucifer, chatting it up…"

"Absurd!"

"Beats me, Channa. But I'll never, ribbit, turn on ya. Ribbit!"

"Or turn me on, either. It's nice to know someone is still safe to be with."

Whoa! Kick me again, Channa, I think some of my ego is still unbruised.

"That is the scariest son of a bitch I've ever had the misfortune to meet," she said. Amos nodded silently.

"Simeon-Amos?"

"Yes, Channa?"

"Hold me, would you?" His arm went around her, and she melted into the firm supportive warmth of his side. "Thank you," she said.

"For what?" His tone was light.

"For not really being green and warty or eating flies."

"Ah, guys?" This time Simeon's voice came to both of them. "I just figured something out."

"What?" Amos said.

"Bad news about Bethel."

The Bethelite stiffened again, his face drawing in lines that showed what he might look like on his deathbed, in the currently unlikely event that he would live to die of old age.

"What?" Amos repeated, this time as a command.

"These scumbags-I'm not going to use scumvermin, even in reverse-they're planning to loot me bare and then blow me up."

Simeon was understandably upset if he was referring to the SSS-900-C as "me."

"That is bad news for you," Amos said, steeling himself for how that would also be bad news for Bethel.

"But if they do that, the Central Worlds Navy will find out-would find out, even if the Kolnari had pulled this hijack off the way we fooled them into thinking they had. Central Worlds'd send flotillas all through this sector and look behind every space rock. For sure, they'd inspect any inhabited system. While the Saffron system may be fardlin' remote, it's still on the maps. And the Kolnari know that, hey? So they're sacrificing their chance of stripping Bethel in exchange for the station. Means they gotta leave both, fast. So what odds they plan on doing Bethel the same way they do me, when they go? Blow it, too, and cover any traces they hadn't time to sweep under the carpet. These guys are pigs, but they're not stupid."

"Yes, I see," Amos said, barely moving his lips. "Sound strategic analysis. Thank you, Simeon."

Thanks for nothing, the brain thought dismally. Amos had had the comfort of knowing the Navy would at least rescue the survivors on his homeworld, win or lose here on SSS-900-C.

"Anything we can do about that?" Channa asked as they entered the lounge.

"Not much more than what we're doing now," Simeon said. "But it's going to be a very close run at the end. We've got to be ready, at all costs. Minutes may make the difference."

Keri Holen tried to read, but she'd been on the same page for some time now and still had no idea of its content. Trivia, she thought. Before her life was put in danger, all her friends and family's lives, she hadn't known what triviality was. It was anything that didn't have to do with keeping you alive; anything that didn't have to do with winning.

"On the other hand, fretting doesn't do me any good, either," she said. Why did I volunteer? she asked herself. Well, the risk was there anyway, and we need to get the second virus working, she thought. Not everyone was a gymnast and martial artist, either.

Frustrated, she threw the reader onto the cushion beside her and rose to pace the room. There was a soft chime and Simeon's public face bloomed on the wall screen.

"The Kolnari are in your area," he said, warning all those in the threatened sector. "Get your virus capsules in position. Don't panic. Don't argue or they will harm you. Remember, place the capsule in your mouth, bite down, try not to swallow. Good luck," he added fervently.

Keri rushed to the cabinet where she had stored her supply among other pharmaceuticals. Her hands were shaking so much the capsules flew out of the bottle like confetti when she at last got it open. Moaning, she rushed to gather them up and put them away before the Kolnari arrived. She put one in her mouth, holding it between cheek and gum.

She returned to the living area and stood watching the door, fingers twining with the tabs of her robe. She could feel her pulse beat in her lips and fingertips, she felt as though she'd been running.

The door opened.

God, she thought as she bit down on the capsule. There are four of them! The capsule dissolved with a rush of coolness. Keri smiled broadly and let the robe drop.

"Welcome to my parlor." Said the spider to the fly.