Trident's Forge (11 page)

Kexx shook zer head in the human gesture. “That was in the lull between harvests. We've only had a handful of traders from the other villages in that time, and the nomads have been strangely absent. Harvest is in less than a Varr. Traders will be swarming the roads. Secrets never stay in one place during harvest season. And besides, the humans
fly
. You're still pretending like we can control anything they do. We can't. If they want to announce themselves to the other villages, there's nothing we can do to stop them. Better to call a gathering and get it over with.”

Tuko gripped zer spear a little tighter, a new shaft, Kexx noticed, then turned around to face the rest of the elders. “And this is why we have a truth-digger. Trained from youth to see and say those things that we choose not to. We will call a gathering.”

“When?” Chak asked.

“Immediately. Wake the signalers and have them send a message with Cuut's first light.”

The decision made, the elders filtered out of the temple and left the mudstone formers to finish their work. Some drifted back to their cots to regain a little lost sleep. Tuko remained behind to pray. It was unclear to whom. A frustrated Kuul roused zer warriors from their beds and led them on a forced run down the road. Judging by Kuul's sour mood, they wouldn't be back until the midday meal, at the earliest.

Kexx, for zer part, made zer way through the halo trees to the signal tower facing west. Kexx climbed it and waited for the sun to rise, passing the time listening to the wind playing through the trees, watching the subtle shifts in the lights of the dux'ah herd as they quietly grazed on the rows of yulka stalks. The youngest dux'ah were always the loudest, flashing their skin with the reckless ignorance of youth, much to the annoyance of the adults. Over time, some of their young friends would fall to an ulik pack and they would learn not to draw so much attention to themselves. Cuut's lessons were harsh, but ultimately strengthened all.

The sun came up and the signaler joined Kexx at the top of the tower.

“Hello, Kexx,” ze said. “You have a message to send?”

Kexx waved zer hand in confirmation. “From the chief zerself.”

“Well, you're in luck. The new signaler over in Pukal actually wakes up on time.”

The signaler translated the message into flashspeak on a scrap of leaf, then aimed the polished crystal shale straight down the road to the next village and flashed the “Ready to send” signal. A short while later, zer counterpart more than a day's walk away acknowledged the signal with three flashes of zer own to say ze was ready to receive the message. From there, it would spread throughout the road network. By midday, every village on the roads would know about the gathering.

It was an amazing, hard-fought accomplishment. Just settling on a single flashspeak every village could agree on had taken more than a year of argument. But even as the signaler spread Tuko's message across the plains, Kexx couldn't help but think about the young dux'ah, brightly flashing their lights for all the world to see, utterly unaware of the peril they invited.

B
enson spent
another day and a half “learning his lesson” under Mei's care before he felt well enough to start moving around the village again. Although, to be honest, he was milking it a little by the second day.

It gave him time to catch up with Mei and the other Unbound, to ask about what they'd learned from and about the Atlantians since they'd arrived, and, most importantly, to try to game out what the Atlantians might have learned about them. Therefore, Benson didn't feel too badly about leaning on Mei's hospitality. After all, it was the whole reason he'd been brought along on the expedition in the first place.

He dressed and braved an MRE from the stash they'd brought along from the shuttle. His empty stomach fought against the unappetizing mess for a time, but relented and accepted its fate soon enough.

“Back among the living?” Mei poked her head through the sheet that had been strung up to give Benson some privacy while he recovered. It had been cut up from the sail of their boat.

“Yes, with your help.”

“You were fine by dinner yesterday. You're stalling.”

“How did you know?”

Mei smacked him on the forehead. “I'm a mother, remember? Always know when boys are fibbing.”

Benson smiled innocently. “But it was so relaxing.”

“Out.” Mei pointed at the village beyond. “Go play with the other kids.”

“Yes, Mom.”

Benson left the Unbound's shelter behind and strolled down the crater toward the building Chief Tuko had generously donated for the expedition's use. It was a surprisingly large structure, with spacious rooms and generous ceilings, the latter no doubt due to the fact the average Atlantian was a good twenty centimeters taller than their human guests. Benson's guess about the structures had been right; they were made from the same concrete-like material as the road system. In fact, the technology had started with the buildings and had only been expanded to the roads relatively recently, after the Ark had already started its journey some two hundred and thirty-five years earlier. Reinforced with mats of woven branches, the buildings could and had stood up against the strongest hurricanes the ocean threw at them. Necessity really was the mother of invention.

Benson spotted Sergeant Atwood standing watch outside the building's entrance. So Valmassoi was inside.

“Mr Benson,” Atwood called out as he approached. “Good to see you moving around.”

“I don't know, the rest was nice. I should get sick more often.”

“So long as it doesn't involve throwing up on heads of state?”

Benson shrugged. “I only threw up near him.”

Atwood shook her head. “Valmassoi's upstairs. I'm sure he's got some questions for you.”

“Thanks.” Benson moved around her and into the building.

Valmassoi had set up his quarters on the second floor, with most of the rest of expedition's personnel setting up cots and tents on the ground floor. The second story rooms not taken up by Valmassoi's apartment had been hastily appointed as conference rooms. Benson found Valmassoi and his advisors sitting in a circle, talking to Captain Mahama's giant floating head on a potable holo-com rig they'd schlepped in from the
Discovery
.

“Ah, Mr Benson,” Valmassoi announced as soon as he was noticed on the other side of Mahama's ghostly cranium. “So glad to have you back in the fold. How are you feeling?”

“Much better, administrator.”

“Well, maybe stay an arm's length away, just in case.” The rib was met with polite laughter from the rest of the room, although Mahama declined to join in.

“Food poisoning isn't usually contagious,” Benson said. “I thought I'd check back in, and Atwood said you wanted to talk to me?”

“Yes. There's the matter of you needing to apologize to Chief Tuko for throwing up on him.”

“
Near
him.”

Valmassoi smirked. “Still, an apology is in order. I assume I don't have to order you?”

“No, of course not. I'll do it as soon as he's available.”

“Excellent. I'll let his people know.”

“His people? Can't I just walk up to him and say I'm sorry?”

Benson's question was met by another round of laughter, longer and heartier.

Valmassoi wiped a tear away from his cheek. “Ah, thank you. I needed that. This is why it's best to leave politics to the politicians.”

Gladly
, Benson thought, but did not vocalize. “So what are you all scheming about up here?”

“Preparations. Our hosts have called a… gathering of the other villages on their road network. It's quite impressive, actually. They use a system of mirrors to relay information from one village to another in real time. The other villages, some two dozen of them, are sending representatives for a formal meeting, where we will be introduced.”

The hair on the back of Benson's neck stood at about forty-five degrees. “And we've agreed to this? Isn't that a pretty big security risk? We've only got four guns against several hundred villagers as it is.”

“We've been in discussions with both Sergeant Atwood and Chief Tuko, and they have assured us that between their forces, security won't be an issue. It's not whole villages coming after all, just small delegations.”

Benson nodded along, but a bad feeling continued to roil his stomach in a way that he was pretty sure didn't have anything to do with yulka beans.

“But we're all on pins and needles to hear your report, Mr Benson.”

“My report?”

“On the Unbound, of course. You've been in their care for a day and a half, surely you gleaned something from the experience.”

“I did spend the majority of that time running a fever and dry heaving, I'd have you remember. But yes, I did speak with Mei and a few others, and I think we're going to have very little damage control to do.” Benson reflected on his impending apology. “At least on account of anything they've done.”

“When did they get there?” Mahama's giant head asked. “Here, I mean.”

“About six months ago. They scuttled their ship at night to avoid our satellites, like I thought.”

“And they haven't said anything in that whole time?”

Benson shook his head. “Not about us or Shambhala, no. They spent most of that time just learning how to speak the native language with any level of competency. Mei's really got an ear for it. She's even jumped ahead of our translation software in some areas, but she's the outlier. They've hardly had the chance to talk about themselves until recently, much less us. You can all breathe easy. The Unbound made a good first impression for us.”

“How can you be sure?” Valmassoi asked.

“They're still alive, aren't they? Without the benefit of rifles and armor.”

“True…” Valmassoi tapped a stylus on his desk as he thought through what he'd just learned. “But that still doesn't answer why they came here in the first place.”

Benson shrugged. “They wanted to get out from under our thumb.”

“We let them start their own village!” Valmassoi said, hardly containing his exasperation.

“Only twenty kilometers away. They knew we were watching them closely.”

Valmassoi huffed. “Not closely enough, it would appear.”

“See, that's what I'm talking about. It's that paternalistic impulse that they found suffocating. You have to remember, these people grew up almost completely independent of us back on the Ark.”

“As ‘independent' as parasites can be of their host,” someone muttered.

Benson held a hand out to the offender. “Anybody think
that
attitude helped?” He sighed heavily. “They wanted true freedom. That's what they were brought up to value above all else. Above comfort, above the little luxuries, above even knowing when they were getting their next meal. They couldn't get that living so close to us. And frankly, I think a lot of them still feel guilty about Shangri-La module and wanted to put as much distance between themselves and the rest of humanity as possible. I don't think they're in a hurry to bring up those memories. We should do our best not to remind them.”

“That's your final recommendation, then? Ignore the problem?”

Benson folded his hands behind his back. “I don't think there
is
a problem, unless you make one. You brought me here to talk to the Unbound and report my findings. I've done that. What you do with those findings is, of course, entirely up to you.”

Valmassoi looked around the room and took a quick census of the confused faces and indifferent shrugs before answering. “Thank you, Mr Benson. Now if you'll excuse us, we need to move on to the thorny issue of the sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice? That sounds ominous.”

Polite laughter made a lap around the room. “Not at all,” Valmassoi said. “It's traditional at the beginning of one of these gatherings for each village to make an animal sacrifice to one of their gods or another.”

“Like the offerings they used to bring the rover?” Benson asked.

“Quite so, except larger. Tuko has set aside a… dux'ah, I think they call the broom-heads. We need to secure our own animal for the ceremony.”

“So the question is do we try to buy one off Tuko, or go capture one ourselves?”

“Just so.”

Benson smirked. “I have a better idea.”

Valmassoi managed not to roll his eyes. “We're breathless.”

Benson ignored the sarcastic tone and turned to Mahama's hologram.

“Captain, can you spare a chicken?”

D
ays later
, a crowd of hundreds looked to the sky as the reentry capsule cut free of its parachutes and fired its retro rockets. Sergeant Atwood ordered her detail to clear the landing zone to avoid any injuries to the spectators as great billowing clouds of steam slowed the last few meters of the capsule's decent. A very clever system of piping sapped heat away from the ablative shield at the craft's bottom and used it to flash boil a couple of thousand liters of water, which was then directed out of four nozzles built into the capsule's base. There was a significant weight penalty inherent in the system, but it had the advantage of being infinitely reusable, so long as there was water to refill it.

Valmassoi leaned over and shouted into Benson's ear. Not to be rude, but just to be heard over the roar of the thrusters. “Mahama is going to want it back, you know.”

“Why would she want a dead chicken?”

“Not the chicken, the reentry pod.”

“No problem. We'll stick it on the shuttle and send it up the elevator when we get back.”

The winds above the village's ring of trees caught the trio of orange and white parachutes and blew them out of sight as the capsule settled down onto its landing pads. Several brave onlookers cautiously moved toward the pod, but Korolev shouted a warning. The heat shield was still several hundred degrees from the friction of reentry, after all. They moved back and blended into the larger crowd of enthralled Atlantians.

“Correct me if I'm wrong,” Valmassoi said. “But this seems like another of those shows of force you turn your nose up at.”

“Not at all. This–” Benson held out his arms as the capsule gave a dying hiss, “–is all about style points. May I?”

Valmassoi laughed and invited Benson forward. “Be my guest.”

Benson strode confidently up to the capsule and popped the latches on the outer door. Strapped to the floor inside a custom-fitted foam packing crate struggled the most wide-eyed and panic-stricken chicken in the long, anxious history of the species. To be fair, it had been through a lot over the last few hours.

Benson hunched over to fit through the small door to get inside. The frame around the hatch was still warm to the touch, but not painfully so. Once inside, it was just him and the wildly clucking chicken. He reached down and found the latches for the crate.

“OK, Nuggets, just relax.” He tried to stroke the bird's head to calm it, and was promptly rewarded with a nasty bite.

“Ow! You little shit.” Benson clamped down on the chicken's neck. “And I almost felt bad for you.” He undid the latches and pulled the lid off the crate, expecting to grab its wings with his free hand.

Instead, freed of its restraints and driven over the edge of terror into blind fury, the chicken proceeded to reenact a historic illegal Mexican cock fight, despite itself being a hen.

“Jesus Christ!” Benson's arms windmilled through the air as the chicken's beak and claws made a beeline for his face.

“Everything OK in there?” Valmassoi's voice taunted from outside.

“Fine!” Benson shouted between the furious flapping of wings. “Just peachy.”

Then, in an unmatched feat of strength and desperation, the chicken wrenched itself free of Benson's grasp and managed to awkwardly flap its way out of the open hatch into the open air. The chicken's first and final flight was as valiant as it was short. It came to rest less than a meter outside the capsule's door among a cloud of slowly descending downy feathers.

Benson emerged from the pod, bleeding from a dozen superficial wounds to his face and forearms and mad as hell.

“Nobody touch the damned thing!”

The circle of human and Atlantian bystanders took a collective step back, despite the majority of them not having the first clue what he'd said. Some because of the crazy-eyed, blood-covered human leaning out the door, and some out of cautious respect for the tiny alien creature that had inflicted his wounds. Undeterred, Benson took off his shirt and held it out as a makeshift net, then jumped down on the offending fowl like an avenging angel and quickly wrapped it up.

His pointy, squawking foe vanquished and wrapped up tightly in his shirt, Benson walked purposefully over and handed the writhing package to the grinning administrator.