After Earth: A Perfect Beast (2 page)

“But you said—”

“No,” and he actually chuckles, something he rarely
does. “No, you said. You made assumptions that were not remotely in line with what I was considering. Yours was an energetic rant but one that was wholly unnecessary.”

The High Chancellor, clearly confused, bows slightly. “My pardons, Minister. I should not have interrupted you. So tell me, then: What would you suggest? Aerial assault has failed thus far to accomplish what we need. If we do not intend to send down ground troops, then what would you have us do?”

Once again the Minister is circling his pod, but this time he is doing so with enthusiasm rather than aimless wandering. “The answer has been right in front of us the entire time. I am, frankly, embarrassed that it has not occurred to me before this. We have routinely referred to these unwanted invaders as Vermin. Animals.”

“Because such they are.”

“Then why not”—he pauses, apparently for dramatic emphasis—“dispose of them through the most logical means available: with animals? Send animals to kill animals.”

“I don’t understand.” The Chancellor is shaking his vast head in confusion. “What manner of animal would you send? We cannot simply pluck animals from our ecosystem, drop them on Zantenor, and then expect them to survive. The creatures would have no chance at all. The air is different, the food sources—”

“That is exactly the point.”

The Chancellor looks lost. “Obviously, Minister, you have thought this through …”

“We create animals to destroy animals.”

“Create?”

“We have a host of data that our scientists have gathered on the Vermin.” He grows more excited as he speaks. “Their strengths, their weaknesses. How their brains function, the number of hearts they have, the number of brains …”

The Chancellor shakes his head in incredulity. “Yes, so I’ve heard. One. One pathetic little heart and brain
each—and those light-perception organs. It explains a great deal about them.”

“And we know more than enough about the Vermin to create animals specially designed for one thing and one thing only: to destroy the usurpers who have dared to occupy our Holy World. What do you think?”

“It’s brilliant. That is what I think. I am frankly astounded that no one has thought of it sooner.”

“Because it is not the way of the Krezateen,” the High Minister says. “We are not accustomed to having others do our fighting for us. But we are hampered by the strictures against setting foot on the Holy World.”

The High Chancellor nods.

“Now, though, comes the major question,” the High Minister continues. “Specifically: How long will it take? After all, my dear Chancellor, the organizing of the scientific community is under your purview. What needs to be accomplished cannot happen without your support, your dedication, and your organizational skills.”

“I should point out that there are those who will argue that introducing a new life-form to Zantenor is nearly as great a crime as setting foot there ourselves,” the High Chancellor says, “that we will effectively be accessories to a religious crime.”

“The Vermin are the crime that is currently being perpetrated upon Zantenor. We should not be condemned simply because we are trying to put an end to that crime.”

The Chancellor considers and then nods. “A valid point. You realize, however, that there are others in the Order who will not concur and may even offer opposition.”

“Let them. I look forward eagerly to killing and devouring any who refuse to perceive the matter my way.”

“That,” says the Chancellor, “is the Minister nest brother I remember.”

“Then we are in accord?”

His nest brother nods. “Very much so.”

“Then again I ask—how long?”

“To develop the creature?” The Chancellor strokes his pointed chin and ponders the question. “We need to do more than study the information on the Vermin we have gathered to this point. We need to dissect it molecule by molecule. There are many directions we could take in preparing the animal. We could opt for something as small as an insect to move in vast swarms across the planet’s surface. Or we could explore something so gigantic that it would crush the Vermin beneath its feet.”

“Even though we have been careful not to target anything on Zantenor’s surface, we have received complaints that the aerial bombardments are destructive to the planet’s surface,” says the Minister cautiously. “I’m not sanguine about the notion of a beast that would do even more damage.”

“Very well, then,” says the Chancellor. “But size does not necessarily matter. Ferocity, speed, all of these are factors to consider. Obviously, we’ll have to pore over the material we have gathered on the Vermin with more scrutiny than ever before …”

“Yes, yes, obviously.” The Minister is beginning to lose patience, but he works to maintain it because the High Chancellor is both his nest brother and a valued ally. “How long do you project the program taking?”

“Analyzing the Vermin’s vulnerabilities? Developing a genetic outline?” The High Chancellor goes on and on, listing a host of necessary steps before the undertaking may reach fruition.

The High Minister stops paying attention after a while, since the High Chancellor is clearly in his own world. Finally the High Chancellor falls silent, ponders for a few more moments, and says, “About a century.”

The High Minister considers the time frame and then says approvingly, “That would be acceptable. But you’d best hasten, then. A century is not all that much time.”

“Indeed,” says the High Chancellor. He extends a clawed hand, and the High Minister puts his own hand
atop it. “Thank you for coming to me with this concept, nest brother. I will not let you down.”

“I know you will not,” says the High Minister. And he is secure in his confidence, for the High Chancellor knows that as generous as he is when satisfied, the High Minister can be merciless when disappointed.

The High Chancellor leaves with a sense of urgency. The High Minister is lost in thought for long moments afterward, until the chanting of the Obsessives finally recaptures his attention.

He emerges from his pod and is surprised to discover that there are only six Obsessives outside. He considers this odd; they have been making such a racket that it is hard to believe that their number is a mere half dozen.

Ultimately, it makes little difference.

When he returns to the confines of his pod, there are six fewer Obsessives outside. He finds the silence, however temporary it may be, most enjoyable.

The gathering bell clangs sonorously throughout the city. Members of the Ruling Class cannot ignore it even if they are inclined to do so. They have sworn an oath to attend it no matter when it may be struck, for its tones indicate that a time of great change is about to befall Krezateen society. At least, that is the intended purpose. Should it ring without something of sufficient moment to prompt it, the individual doing the ringing is subject to immediate execution.

The High Minister, however, sounds the gathering bell with supreme confidence. He has waited ninety-seven years for this moment (the High Chancellor, good to his word, has done his best to speed matters along).

Speculation is rife within the assembly as to the reason for this unexpected summons. Word has spread quickly that the High Minister has sounded it. There is much discussion that it has something to do with the Vermin who infest the Holy World of Zantenor, but
the formidable Warlord Knahs is making very loud pronouncements that the High Minister had best not be getting any ideas that he has any authority in the matter.

“The reclamation of Zantenor is within
my
purview!” the Warlord bellows to anyone who will listen.

Not many do. The fact that Zantenor continues to be defiled by the tiny hands of the Vermin remains a sore subject in Krezateen society. Indeed, there have been many who argue that Knahs should be stripped of his title—and preferably his head—for his failure to mount a successful campaign that would reclaim the land in the name of the gods.

In the place of the grand gathering, all the faction leaders are assembled. Warlord Knahs has a prominent place among them since his position makes him leader of the House of War. But there are many other factions, many other disciplines—over three hundred of them—represented at the gathering place.

When the Krezateen address one another, it is with a combination of telepathy and audible grunts and clicks of their mandibles, and the gathering place echoes with those staccato sounds ricocheting all around. The gathering place is a series of descending spirals, with the more powerful and influential houses close to the top in order to reinforce their station.

What is to be discussed?
That is the recurring question that they think and hiss and snarl and click at one another.
Zantenor? New tithes? Planetary disasters? What could it be? What?

Then conversation dwindles to a halt as something is lowered slowly from above on a mag-lev platform. It is a cube made of a smooth, solid black material that is impossible to see through. The assembled Krezateen remain silent at first, curious, and then a new swell of conversation rises, redolent with confusion.

The High Minister monitors this with a great deal of satisfaction. The Chancellor had been less than enthused about the prospect of this showy introduction of
his work. The High Minister doesn’t care. The Krezateen are such a fractious race that before doing anything else, one has to get their attention. This, at least, he is managing to accomplish.

The platform descends another hundred feet and then comes to a halt, suspended there and garnering continued discussion and speculation.

“Minister!” It is the bellowing voice of the Warlord, echoing throughout the gathering place. “Is this what you have gathered us for? To perform some sort of magic trick?”

This garners a mixture of amusement and muttering. At least nine religious factions have outlawed even the suggestion of magic as an affront to the gods, if not to logic itself.

“No magic,” announces the High Minister to perceptible relief among some factions. “But instead science, harnessed to benefit the whole of our race. I have here the final solution to the Vermin problem.”

He taps a device that dissolves the smoky blackness of the cube, and as it happens, there are gasps throughout the gathering place as the creature within the cube is slowly revealed.

It is huge, monstrous. Its cavernous maw opens in a slow yawn as it licks its chops, its tongue running across a double row of teeth. Its body is long and lean with multiple legs that look crouched and ready to propel it forward, presumably to strike at its prey. Its head slowly and calmly sweeps back and forth, taking in the presence of the Krezateen but not appearing to be impressed or agitated.

“This?” says the Warlord. “This creature is intended to rid us of the Vermin?”

“That is the intention,” says the High Minister.

The Warlord laughs. Not a chuckle or snicker but instead a loud, bold howl of derision.

The High Minister at that moment seriously considers leaping across the gathering place and tearing into the Warlord. The odds are that it would not go well for
the Minister; the Warlord is powerfully built, one of the strongest of the Krezateen. The High Minister probably would not last very long, but that does not matter to him at that moment …

Softly, nest brother
. The words sound within his head as the High Chancellor, a short distance away, wisely counsels him.
Do not let yourself be pulled into a needless battle. Bring them to you. Demonstrate
.

Even as his wisdom sounds within his nest brother’s head, the High Chancellor is now standing and says in a flat, toneless voice, “May I ask what there is about the salvation of Zantenor you find to be so amusing? It is not as if, after all this time, you have developed a plan of any worth.”

He has spoken calmly yet provocatively. The Warlord is no longer amused; his lack of success remains a sting to him. “You cooked this up, I assume,” and he points accusingly at the Chancellor.

“Indeed I have.”

“To what point and purpose? To unleash this … this
creature
upon the Vermin?”

“You have asked and answered your own question.” He speaks as a parent would to an offspring, and thus his response carries an air of carefully structured condescension. Not enough to provoke the Warlord to attack but sufficient to make his point clear.

“Look at it!” The Warlord remains determinedly disdainful. “I will grant you, you have crafted a rather fearsome-looking fighting machine. Teeth that bite. Claws that catch. But it is clearly a placid monstrosity. For all the apparatus you and your genetic geniuses have provided it, it has no killer instinct.”

“Really? Are you saying that you could dispose of it yourself without a weapon in your hand?”

“Unquestionably.”

The High Minister knows what is coming and smiles inwardly. If there is one thing on which one can count when it comes to the Warlord, it is his insufferable ego.

“Very well.” The High Chancellor maintains the air
of one who is utterly servile, eager only to please. “If you wish, I can bring the creature to the combat pit, and you may engage it in one-to-one battle.”

Excellent! Excellent! It will tear him apart!
The High Minister can scarcely contain himself.

He is so excited that he cannot block his thoughts from being picked up by the Chancellor. His nest brother casts him a contemptuous glance.
We do not want him dead, brother. We want him humiliated. For all his bluster, the Warlord remains a bully. And bullies are cowards. And we both know what it would do to the Warlord’s standing in a society that abominates any sort of fear, much less cowardice. So be patient. A live ally can be of far more use than a dead enemy
.

He shifts his attention back to the Warlord. “I am happy to accommodate you,” he says. Then, almost imperceptibly, he touches a remote control device in his pocket.

Suddenly the creature crashes against the side of its confinement. It does so with such ferocity that everyone at the gathering jumps, almost as one. Then it bares its teeth and crashes again.