EarthRise (2 page)

A relationship which over hundreds of years had become so entrenched that something approaching a symbiotic relationship had evolved. A reality that helped explain why many of the whip-wielding Fon overseers carried Ra ‘Na technicians on their chitin-covered backs even as they forced thousands of humans to ascend Hell Hill.

The reason for this became apparent as one of the Fon flexed his deceptively slender legs, propelled himself high into the air, and landed some thirty feet away from the point where Jack Manning stood. The Ra ‘Na, a relatively small being with reddish fur, a short muzzle, and brown beady eyes absorbed the shock with slightly bent legs, and murmured into a handheld radio. The process of herding the secondary slave race to the top of the hill had to be coordinated, and he, like many of his peers, took pride in a job well done. His mount’s whip made a loud cracking sound as the neatly braided leather cut into a human back, and the victim fell face first into the heavily churned mud.

Manning winced. He knew, as did those around him, that the whipping, like the ceremony thousands of humans were about to participate in, was part of an elaborate effort to keep the slave population under control. A task made increasingly difficult, as word of the birthing leaked to the previously ignorant Fon, and to segments of the human population as well.

Even as the Zin called Hak-Bin strove to complete the great fortress at the top of Hell Hill—the resistance movement continued to gain strength. Especially now that the humans realized that the entire Sauron race would be momentarily vulnerable once the nearly simultaneous birthing process started.

All of which explained why the aliens had gone to such great lengths to find a hospitable planet, build their defensive citadels, and install the automated weapons systems designed to keep enemies at bay. Had they remained in space, had they undergone the change there, the entire race would have been vulnerable to the Ra ‘Na.

Manning’s thoughts were interrupted as Vilo Kell’s voice came over the security chief’s military-style headset. “Snake Three to Snake One . . . Over.”

Manning did a 360 and used the elevated vantage point to scan the surrounding rooftops, shacks, clotheslines, and stacks of firewood. Below, down in the heavily rutted streets, the Fon continued to jump from place to place. Their harakna hide whips popped like firecrackers. “This is One . . . go. Over.”

“We’re ready—or as ready as we’re likely to get. Over.”

“Roger, that. Stand by . . . The Big Dog is on his way. Over.”

Manning turned to the man who stood beside him. He had even features, quick intelligent eyes, and medium brown skin. “Time to go, Mr. President.”

Alexander Ajani Franklin, the onetime governor of Washington State, the politician the Saurons had chosen to head their puppet government, the individual many humans referred to as “Frankenstein,” and the man who Manning and hundreds of resistance fighters were counting on to lead them out of slavery, managed a wry smile. “Yes, it would be rude to keep Hak-Bin waiting.”

“Rude
and
dangerous,” Manning responded gravely. “I don’t know what the bastard has to say—but it must be important. Important enough to take thousands of slaves off the job and sacrifice six hours’ worth of production.”

Franklin lowered himself through the hatch and looked up into his security chief’s face. “I don’t care what Hak-Bin says . . . it’s what he might
do
that bothers me.”

Manning’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Such as?”

Franklin shrugged. “Such as a show designed to get our attention, scare the crap out of us, and reassert Sauron control all at the same time.”

“That’s an interesting idea,” Manning said slowly. “Did you pick up on a rumor of some sort?”

“Nope,” the president answered as he ducked out of sight. “But that’s what
I
would do if
I
were a Sauron. Let’s hope Hak-Bin is different.”

Manning hoped . . . but knew it was a waste of time.

Dr. Seeko Sool, University of Nebraska, class of 2011, was in the process of suturing a cut when she heard her nurse say, “You can’t go in there!” followed by a loud commotion and a clang as something hit the metal floor.

Little more than a makeshift curtain served to separate the surgery from the rest of the cargo-module-sized clinic. The walls were painted green and badly in need of washing. The Kan warrior jerked the flimsy divider aside, shuffled into the space within, and regarded Sool with a baleful gaze. Her patient, a man dressed in gray rags, seemed to shrink, as if trying to disappear.

Like all his kind, the Sauron had a sharklike snout, three backward-pointing skull plates, and large light-gathering eyes. His highly specialized chitin shifted to match the paint on the wall behind him. Sool blinked as her eyes attempted to focus on the miragelike image. The voice, as reproduced by the translator clipped to the Kan’s combat harness, was harsh and grating. “Slaves have been ordered to assemble on the top of the hill. You are a slave. You will depart
now
.”

Sool used the needle holder to gesture toward her patient’s foot. The wound was only partially closed. “We can’t leave yet . . . not until I finish suturing this cut.”

The patient, a skinny almost skeletal figure who had managed to survive almost three months of brutal slavery by doing exactly what he was told, jumped off the table, snatched a boot off the floor, and hopped toward the door. A thin strand of 4-0 nylon snaked after him. The Kan produced something like a predatory grin. “ ‘Now’ means
now
.”

Sool sighed, put the instrument on a Mayo stand, and removed her disposable gloves. Then, with her nurse in tow, she left the clinic. The crowd flowed upward as if determined to defy gravity.

Hell Hill’s original profile, as viewed from the opposite side of the ironically named Pleasant Bay, had been that of a gently rounded hill covered by mature evergreens.

Now, after months of work by thousands of slaves, the long-abandoned stone quarry at the base of the hill had been reopened, most of the trees had been cut down, terraces had been cut into the steep side slopes, and empty cargo modules had been stacked for use by the slaves. A sort of instant city that the humans had modified and expanded as they proceeded to create a sub-rosa economy.

Higher up, the hill wore a necklace of freshly built crosses. The lumber, all of which had been looted from a yard in nearby Vancouver, Canada, had a slightly greenish hue. Each piece wore a small white tag intended to reassure its new owner that it had been pressure treated and would last for the next twenty years, a fact the Fon named Mal-Dak was unaware of and unlikely to take much comfort from.

Like most of his lowly caste, Mal-Dak had been forced to queue up for any number of things over the years—but the opportunity to be crucified had not been one of them. Not until now, as the line shuffled slowly forward and the unfortunate Sauron had a moment to reflect.

The focus of his thoughts was the fact that insofar as he knew, based on the roughly two standard years’ worth of memory currently available to his mind, he had never joined or even commingled with the organization called the Fon Brotherhood and was therefore innocent of the charges lodged against him.

Had Mal-Dak been acquainted with the now notorious Bal-Lok? Who, along with some twelve members of the nascent organization, had been foolish enough to attack a Kan checkpoint? The answer was “yes,” but knowing someone and belonging to their organization were two different things. Something he had explained over and over but to no avail.

Assuming the Kan who arrested him had been truthful, and there was no reason to suspect otherwise, Hak-Bin had ordered his subordinates to identify and crucify “twenty guilty parties.” No less and no more. How could everyone ignore the obvious unfairness of that?

Mal-Dak’s thoughts were interrupted as a Kan shouted an order, a cross was raised into the upright position, and a Fon hung upside down with his arms stretched to either side. The Sauron made a pitiful bleating sound which ended abruptly when a Kan kicked him in the jaw. Though conscious, and in pain, the Fon no longer had the capacity to speak.

That’s when Mal-Dak felt graspers lock onto both of his arms, heard a Kan say, “Now it’s your turn,” and was wrestled onto a newly constructed cross.

“No!” Mal-Dak shouted. “It isn’t fair! I’m innocent!”

“That’s what they all say,” a warrior said unfeelingly. “Now mind the way you act—humans are watching. Here’s an opportunity to show them that even the lowliest and most insignificant members of the Sauron race can die without complaint.”

Mal-Dak was about to object when an order was given, his cross was raised, and the world turned upside down.

Then, his weight hanging from the plastic ties that secured his wrists and ankles, Mal-Dak was left for the crows. There were hundreds of the fat black birds—and they circled the morning’s feast.

The few surviving members of the Fon Brotherhood had learned a thing or two during their organization’s short but tumultuous life.

The first learning ran contrary to everything they had been taught since birth: Fon were as intelligent as the Kan and Zin . . . a fact many had proven by teaching themselves to read.

The second learning was that humans, especially
white
humans, who claimed to be part of something called the “brotherhood of the skin,” were completely untrustworthy.

The third learning was that even though the white humans had tricked Bal-Lok and sacrificed their brethren to the Kan as part of a complicated slave scheme, the Fon had proven their valor. Though dead, every one of their bodies had been found facing the enemy with a weapon at pincer.

Now, having learned those things, the Fon Brotherhood was in the mood to teach a lesson of their own: the meaning of respect.

Jonathan Kreider, a.k.a. Jonathan Ivory, a name he had chosen as a way to celebrate the lack of pigmentation in his skin, didn’t know he was being hunted until the trap had already closed.

Flushed out of hiding by the Kan, the racialists had been absorbed into the steadily growing crowd and pulled toward the top of the hill.

There were fewer of them now, after the disastrous assault on the Presidential Complex, and the loss of brave Hammer Skins like Parker, Boner, and Marta Manning, a hard-core racialist who, had it not been for the efforts of her brother Jack, would almost certainly have killed Alexander Franklin.

But six remained, which by either coincidence or divine intent was the exact number mentioned in Ezekiel 9:1-2: “. . . Then he called out in my hearing . . . ‘Let those who have charge over the city draw near, each with a deadly weapon in his hand.’ And . . . six men came . . .”

A skin nicknamed Tripod was the first skin to die as a Fon dropped off a roof and buried a six-inch blade between the unsuspecting human’s shoulder blades. Four of his companions died within seconds of each other. The last of them took a pipe to the side of his head, staggered through a complete circle, and collapsed.

Ivory, who caught the motion from the corner of his eye, started to turn. He never made it.
His
Fon, the one to whom the ancestors had given a mental likeness of the racialist’s features, struck the back of the human’s head with a length of two-by-two. It was a glancing blow, but sufficient to drop Ivory in his tracks. There was the jolt of the blow, followed by an explosion of pain, and the long fall into darkness.