Paragenesis: Stories of the Dawn of Wraeththu (31 page)

Ponclast made a cutting gesture
with the side of his hand. “And we are armed hara, but that is of
little consequence one way or another.”

“Try telling that to all the
dead hara we’ve left behind.”

“Too many, I agree. It is time
for us to fight back, Terzian. Time to bring the fight to the
enemy. On our terms, not his.”

“What do you mean?”

Ponclast gave Terzian’s mount a
slap on the rear with his hand. The beast snorted, laid back its
ears and edged forward a few paces nervously. Terzian snatched at
the reins to control the animal.

“Come on,” Ponclast urged.
“It’ll be dark in an hour. We need to get camp set up. Come to my
tent and we will dine together. We can talk more then. In the
meantime, let’s get these useless, lazy hara moving.”

With a kick of his spurs,
Ponclast set off into the gathering gloom, shouting a mixture of
curses and encouragement at the assembled hara. Terzian watched him
go, his face an unreadable mask. Then he set off at a brisk canter
to join the sudden flurry of activity.

Ponclast’s tent was luxurious
compared with the accommodation afforded to most of the rest of the
tribe, but that was scant comfort. The reality was a mouldering
collection of rugs, fabric, and ancient, rank animal skins
stretched over an unsteady frame. The icy wind found its way easily
through the many gaps in the structure, and the smell was something
that Terzian found did not easily dissipate from a har’s hair or
body even once he had left the source behind.

Nevertheless, as the snow
started to fall again, and the last of the daylight died, it was
still a better place to be than outside.

The interior was lit – dimly –
by a couple of small and improvised oil lamps. Their greasy flames
added a smoky undertone to the complex perfume of damp and decay
enveloping the place.

Terzian’s nose wrinkled
involuntarily, but he did not complain. His own dwelling, if it
could be dignified with such a term, was no more than a few sheets
of some tough, synthetic material he had salvaged from a rubbish
pile. In comparison, Ponclast’s lair was positively magnificent in
its opulence.

“Please, do come in.” Ponclast
said, holding the tent flap open for him in a welcoming manner. As
Terzian entered, Ponclast grasped his hand and shook it firmly, a
gesture that Terzian found slightly bizarre both in its
unexpectedness and its conventionality. Harish tribes had been
quick to cast off human customs and invent their own rituals and
greetings. He felt Ponclast’s other hand, still gloved, investigate
further up his arm, and realized that the gesture had been
reclaimed for its original, more practical purpose. Ponclast was
checking if he was armed.

Naturally the knife was removed
from him.

“I hope you don’t mind,” said
Ponclast smoothly, in a tone which informed him that it made no
difference whether he did or not, “But I’ve learned to be
cautious.”

“Of course, “Terzian said, “As
have we all.”

“Please, do take a seat.”
Ponclast indicated a lumpy pile of fabric set some distance above
the ground.

“Thank you.” Terzian settled
himself carefully on the rags. Ponclast’s polite, mannered
formality unnerved him a little. In times of apocalyptic upheaval
and the general breakdown of society, etiquette tended to be one of
the first things abandoned. The scattered, half-feral Wraeththu
tribes who wandered these desolate plains were not known for their
social graces. Terzian found that he appreciated Ponclast’s attempt
to maintain certain standards of civilized behaviour, even in the
most uncivilized of circumstances.

Ponclast slid his gloved hand
into one of the large pockets inside his long, black coat. He
produced a metal implement with a wicked looking pointed claw at
one end. Terzian felt his muscles tense involuntarily, but Ponclast
merely reached down and removed a round metal container from a pile
of similar objects sitting on the floor. He plunged the pointed
claw into the cylinder and ripped a jagged hole in the top. With a
polite smile, he handed it to Terzian.

In the dim light, Terzian had
no idea what was actually in the can, but he hadn’t eaten all day,
and the intriguing smell of its contents overcame even the sour
background miasma, so he thrust his fingers into it, taking care to
avoid the jagged metal edges, and began to excavate the
contents.

Ponclast repeated the
performance with another can, then once again delved in his pocket
and produced a tiny spoon with which he delicately scooped small
morsels of food from the can and ate them as fastidiously as a cat.
For no reason he could think of, Terzian felt vaguely embarrassed
by his own method.

“Have a drink.” Ponclast
pointed to a bottle of clear liquid sitting next to the pile of
cans. Terzian picked it up, sniffed and slugged a mouthful. The raw
alcohol burned his mouth and traced its warm fingers down into the
pit of his empty stomach.

“This is… very nice,” he said,
with all the sincerity he could muster.

Ponclast put down his spoon and
gave him a piercing stare with his hawk-eyes

“No,” he said carefully “No, it
is not. It is quite vile. As is this abominable tent, the execrable
weather, and all the tedious indignities of our pathetic
circumstances. This is not living; this is merely a squalid,
meaningless existence which not even animals should be forced to
suffer.”

Terzian did not even bother to
disagree.

“We cannot survive like this,”
Ponclast continued. “Which is why we must take action to improve
our lot – and sooner rather than later.”

“They will have supplies at the
town,” Terzian mused, finishing off the contents of his can. “We
could wait till after moon-down and mount a raid.”

Ponclast sighed. “My dear
Terzian, a few stolen scraps will not keep us for long, nor do
anything to mitigate our wretchedness in the long term. We need
more than that. We need the entire town.”

“Are you seriously intending to
mount an all-out attack?”

“I am.”

“That’s crazy!” Terzian set
down the can, which he found he’d been clenching tightly in his
hand “The population of that town must be – what, approaching
five or six thousand? Maybe more. And the majority will be adult
men and women equipped with firearms and ready and willing to use
them.”

“You forget one thing, Terzian.
They are merely humans. We, on the other hand, are Wraeththu.”

Terzian laughed out loud. “Very
nice propaganda speech, Ponclast, but ideology is no match for
guns.”

“Actually,” said Ponclast
smoothly, “that is where you are wrong, Terzian.” He reached yet
again into his voluminous pockets, whose depths appeared home to an
almost endless supply of artefacts, and to the other har’s alarm
produced a pistol, which he raised and pointed steadily at
Terzian’s head.

“What are you doing? Put that
away, put it down, there’s no need… No!”

Terzian watched in horror as
Ponclast’s leather-encased finger squeezed firmly on the trigger,
pulling it back to its furthest reach. There was a faint click, and
nothing happened.

“What the…? Fuck!”

“Now, Terzian, we don’t use
that word anymore.”

“I’ll use any fucking word I
want! What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?”

Ponclast regarded the gun
lovingly and ran his hand down its barrel seductively.

“Technology, Terzian. Human
technology. Have you ever thought about it? How it works? What has
to happen to make it work? This gun, for example… Do you know how
much effort went into making it? Metal was mined and smelted,
machines were constructed to manufacture the parts, the parts were
assembled, in the correct way. It’s a simple machine in many ways,
a gun, yet complex enough that just one failing part can render it
useless.”

“We are not humans, Terzian,”
There was a tiny light of something resembling fanaticism in his
eyes which Terzian found vaguely disturbing. “We do not need the
crutch of crude technology, because we have a different way of
addressing the universe. We can see beyond the mundane façade of
what humans think of as the real world. We can touch the divine –
be one with the energy that binds everything together.”

“You’re completely mad, aren’t
you?”

It was Ponclast’s turn to
laugh.

“Perhaps a little, but there is
truth in what I say, Terzian. A speck of gold buried in the mud and
grit that threatens to obscure it, waiting to be washed free by the
careful prospector. Let me be a little more prosaic, since I can
see that you are not a har given to fancy. Wraeththu are different
from humans in more than just the obvious way which we all know and
enjoy to its fullest. We have psychic abilities, too. Telepathy,
telekinesis, the ability to use and manipulate energies inherent in
the very fabric of matter and space.

“Oh, most of the lumpen herd of
common hara will never develop these abilities to any noticeable
extent, but a few of us are gifted beyond the average, and with
dedication and study, we can expand these latent talents beyond our
wildest imaginations.

“Look at me, Terzian, and tell
me that you do not believe. You cannot, because you know it is
true. Deep within yourself, you
know
.”

Terzian was on the verge of
dismissing Ponclast’s assertions as the rantings of a lunatic, and
yet some part of him wanted –
needed
– to believe that it
could be true. If it were not, he could see no future for himself
and his kind but more of this grim, meaningless journey through a
life of hardship and danger. Ponclast offered something more – not
a better life in itself, perhaps, but the hope that such a thing
could be possible, and hope was always better than despair.

“And if it is true,” he said
cautiously, “exactly how does that help us in our current
situation.”

“It helps us, Terzian, because
that which can be done to one gun can be done to many. The humans
will defend their town with their idiot, fallible technology in
which they have so much faith, and I will cause it to fail, as I
caused this gun to fail. An atom can alter an entire universe, if
moved in a particular way. Without their guns, the humans are
nothing.”

“And once they are disarmed,
you intend to kill them?”

Ponclast rolled his eyes
melodramatically. “No, I thought we would simply give them a good
talking-to!”

Terzian flushed slightly, in
spite of himself.

“There is no room for
sentimentality and squeamishness.” Ponclast continued, with some
agitation. “This is war, Terzian. A war to the death, them or us,
and it’s going to be us, make no mistake about that. If you do not
believe that with every fibre of your being, then you may as well
pull the trigger on that gun right now, and I will not intervene in
any way this time.”

“I have killed humans when the
need arose, and I can do so again,” Terzian stated flatly.
“However, the adolescent boys can be incepted, and the women make
good servants. No point in wasting resources.”

Ponclast appeared delighted. “I
underestimated you, Terzian. You have a strategist’s brain. That
will prove useful to us in time. Do you have any other
suggestions?”

“Wait another three days. The
moon is full at the moment, and rises early. In three days time, it
will be behind the hills after midnight, giving us the cover of
darkness when the townspeople are at their most vulnerable.”

“The element of surprise,”
Ponclast agreed. “It has much to recommend it. We have sufficient
supplies to last us three days, and it will give us time to prepare
before we strike, swiftly, from out of the dark. I shall use the
time to build up my energies. You can assist me with that, Terzian.
If you are willing.” He paused meaningfully. “Are you willing,
Terzian?”

Terzian stared at Ponclast. In
the dim light, the other har seemed different. A change had come
upon him, like a lizard which slowly alters its colouration to suit
its background. His skin had taken on a soft radiance. The
close-cropped hair no longer seemed so harsh and masculine, but
looked like plush velvet, inviting touch. The sharp angles of his
face now revealed a refined and sculpted bone structure beneath,
and the dark eyes were large and liquid.

Terzian felt a dizzying rush of
lust. He realized, with something like surprise, that it had been
many weeks since he had taken aruna. Circumstances had been
difficult, and his energy had been focused elsewhere. Besides, if
he were to be honest, there were few – if any – hara within his
group whom he considered attractive. Certainly none who had been
able to ignite such a rush of desire quite so effortlessly as
Ponclast had done.

There were undoubtedly hara who
were more beautiful than Ponclast, but Ponclast had something
different about him, something more. Terzian could feel it, sense
it – smell it, even, despite the all-pervading stench of the tent.
It was the scent of power, and it was dangerously aphrodisiac.

Ponclast reached out with one
gloved hand and stroked Terzian’s cheek. There was nothing intimate
or tender about the gesture – he might have been checking the
condition of a piece of livestock – but Terzian found himself
trembling, and only partially from fear. He felt the soft grain of
the leather brush across his face, then move downward, coming to
rest at the nape of his neck. Terzian could feel his own pulse
throbbing there, strong and rapid, and he knew that Ponclast could
feel it too.

He knew that if he was going to
make any attempt to take control of this situation, it would have
to be now, or not at all. Part of him wanted to do battle with
Ponclast, to pit his own will and determination against the other
har’s strength. Another part of him wanted nothing more than to be
overwhelmed by Ponclast’s power, to be taken, and used; forced to
submit, forced to give up his autonomy, given no choice…