Humans

by A. G. Claymore

  He wasn’t terribly surprised, given her reputation, to find Mot here – even less so than he was to receive a summons from her brother. He stopped a few feet from the balcony, waiting for Memnon to turn and show the proper acknowledgement due to an elector.

  The agony-laced silence dragged out, punctuated only by the gut-wrenching impacts of the war-hammer crushing flesh and breaking bones.

  The longer this goes on, Apsu realized, the more foolish I’m looking. He gave up and moved to stand next to Memnon at the balcony, looking out at the view, which, he had to admit, was incredible.

  They were on the night side but, rather than the usual blackness of a habitable world, Kurnugian night was a dramatic tracery of black crust and brilliant lava, fading to a light orange haze toward the horizon.

  Apsu forced himself to focus on the scenery, rather than the butchery behind him. The longer this drags out, he consoled himself, the bigger the apology he’ll owe for his rudeness to an elector. The forms must be…

  “You call this coming alone?” Memnon snapped, startling Apsu into looking at him.

  Apsu eased his mind with a supreme effort. “For this world, yes, I call this coming alone. Do you have any idea how many corpses I saw on the way here?”

  “I don’t,” Memnon admitted, “nor do I care. We have a hangar two floors up from here.”

  A hangar you couldn’t let me use? Apsu strangled the petulant thought. Any fool could recognize an exercise in humility.

  “There is significant unrest,” Memnon stated flatly, “at the Noori system.”

  “Is there?” Apsu wasn’t really asking.

  “No, not really. Nonetheless, there is significant… unrest.”

  Apsu mulled it over for a moment. “I suppose there is also… unrest in Basrillah and Andaluria?” he asked mildly.

  Memnon grunted. “You find the heart of the matter, then. Yes, those two systems are also in need of pacification.”

  It was Memnon’s apparent surprise that unleashed Apsu’s anger. Of course the three systems were connected. If Sandrak wanted Noori, then of course he wanted Basrillah and Andaluria. Any one of those systems was insignificant to such a powerful lord but together the three would open a new corridor connecting the two halves of his holdings.

  After the harrowing journey through Kurnugia’s crime-ridden streets, after the lack of respect, after seeing that this young pup thought Apsu too dim to comprehend such an easy connection, he was in no mood to comply. “Then I suppose you’d better move in,” he suggested dryly, “and restore order.”

  He turned at the sound of a scuffle behind him. His guards were facing an unequal foe. Wearing only lightly armored EVA suits, they were facing Memnon’s heavily armored goons and the numbers didn’t favor them either. One of his lightly armored guards was on his posterior, a hand held ineffectually to the side of his closed helmet.

  “Stand down,” he ordered. There was nothing to gain from this unequal show of force and much to lose.

  Memnon’s troops moved in, taking away the guards’ weapons and slapping restraint units on their suits. Before Apsu could even protest, all six were forced to the balcony and tipped over the railing.

  He watched in mute shock as they tumbled down out of sight. This side of the building faced out to the planet and the building was on the very edge of the ring, so there was nothing to break the guards’ fall but lava.

  “I said to come alone,” Memnon reminded him casually. “Now, let me make this very clear. You will take those three systems to restore order and you will hand them over to me because you’re much too busy with your own worlds and, after all, you only did it out of concern for the poor citizens who were in danger.

  “And if you refuse,” he added, stepping closer, “then you will find out how it feels to have the citizens of your worlds in danger! You’ll also find your economy in tatters because we know the wardu population on Kells is illegal.”

  He knows our slave species isn’t actually extinct? Apsu, by no means an idiot, suddenly understood. “That’s why others have been fighting for you, isn’t it? They all have wardu on at least one of their worlds and you’ve managed to find the ones that aren’t really legal for sale!”

  “Of course.” Memnon actually looked bored, not at all alarmed at this unmasking of his leverage.

  “Then this must affect a major part of the imperial economy. Revealing this information would result in backlash against Meleke as well. The full story would come out and your hold would be at an end.”

  “And we’d unleash chaos on the HQE,” Memnon added.

  “Then I don’t understand how you’re able to use this,” Apsu said, voice rising. “Why are the other lords falling into line over a threat you can’t make good on?”

  “Can’t make good on?” Memnon asked, radiating amusement. “Well, of course we can make good on it.” He turned to lean back against the railing, idly watching the fighting Humans. This time, a young female was facing off against the victor but with a light sword instead of a heavy war-hammer.

  “What you’re failing to understand, Apsu, is that chaos would serve us almost as well as compliance.”

  Is it really that simple? Apsu wondered. Was Sandrak willing to plunge the empire into chaos? He owned far more of it than any other lord, but did that mean he was best positioned to survive the fallout, or did it mean that he had the most to lose?

  The female with the sword had managed to drop under a wild hammer swing and she rolled in, quick as lightning, to sever the tendon in the male’s heel.

  The hammer fell to the floor, followed quickly by the body of the one who’d wielded it. His hand darted out for the hammer’s shaft but it was severed by a tightly controlled sword stroke that stopped a finger’s-breadth from the blood-slick marble.

  She stood over him, her sword now above his throat, and looked up to Mot.

  “This one fought well,” Mot said. “I want a talisman to remember his prowess but make it quick – one stroke.”

  The sword flashed and Apsu turned away from the screaming human who was vainly trying to staunch the rush of blood from his center with his only remaining hand. “Disgusting!” he muttered.

  “But educational,” Memnon said.

  “What can that possibly teach you,” Apsu retorted bitterly.

  Memnon grasped the elector’s shoulder and forced him to look back into the room. The young woman was bearing the grisly trophy to Mot, her body streaked with blood.

  “Strip away all of our advantages of rank and privilege and what do you get?” he asked rhetorically. He pointed at the bloody spectacle.

  “That.”

  “Preposterous!”

  “Oh really?” Memnon turned his gaze to face him. “Perhaps a demonstration? I admit I haven’t had much reason to love that word recently, but I find it has its uses.

  “I’ll give you two options. The first is that you will leave now, collect your forces and proceed directly to Noori.”

  “And the second option?”

  That face loomed closer. “You will wait here and I will leave to collect my forces. I won’t be going to Noori, though.”

  It felt as though the blood in Apsu’s veins had suddenly been replaced with ice-water.

  “What principled choice will you make, Apsu?” Memnon sneered. “When faced with the destruction of your progeny, what atrocities will you commit for me?”

  Apsu’s shoulders sagged. He watched as Mot took the sword from the young woman and sliced her head off. She turned away in disinterest even before the woman’s head hit the floor.

  Parting

  Ashurapol, Henx Prime

  Gleb finished slipping the new power-cell into his suit and closed the access port. It was an after-market part from the bustling hub of commerce a few dozen blocks below their apartment.

  His two new friends had been amazed at the spaciousness of their new housing arrangements. They still had to share a common shower in the center of the building’s floor with r
oughly twenty aliens of various species, but the rooms were beyond their experience.

  They’d been shocked to realize they weren’t going to be sharing the apartment with anyone else. It had taken a full night of sleeping in their own rooms to finally accept that they had all that space to themselves, though Siri had dragged her cot into Mel’s room on the second night.

  It can be terrifyingly lonely, sleeping by yourself in a room when you’ve only ever slept in a dormitory-style setting your entire life. To Mel and Siri, this was luxury on a staggering scale.

  They were in Ashurapol, for the love of the gods. One of the worst cities Gleb had ever seen.

  Ashurapol was in the midst of a desert in what was, for the most part, a desert world but the city was always damp with the breath, sweat and evaporation of eighty million live bodies. The air was heavy with the moisture and stink of a hundred alien races. The scents of myriad spices assaulted and comforted.

  It was a major hub for, of all things on a desert world, fresh produce. Most of the city was a giant collection system, channeling the breeze into condensers that sent the water for sale to citizens or for use in the hydroponics systems.

  That was why Gleb was in such a hurry. Sandrak’s fleet was here and they were stopping to replenish their stores with fresh produce.

  “Wait for me here,” he told Mel and Siri. “I’ll come back for you. In the meantime…” He nodded meaningfully at the second-hand holo-emitter in the middle of the common room. “Keep practicing your coding skills. When we get back to the fleet, you’ll be assessed on experience and ability. A little hard work now could mean the difference of a whole rank-grade when you sign on.”

  “I don’t doubt the skills you’ve been pushing us to practice are useful,” Siri told him, “but I’m still not sure I buy that we can be petty officers in any Quailu house force. It’s unheard of!”

  Gleb closed the tabs on his second-hand under-armor suit. Having left his own under a mattress on the Deathstalker he’d had a hard time finding a replacement. He’d ended up settling for an old Varangian suit that more or less fit him but it hadn’t been cheap.

  He didn’t want to run the risk of showing up on Sandrak’s ship only to find that the Humans aboard that vessel – hoping, as he was, that there were Humans on the ship – had under-armor suits. Nothing makes you stand out like being naked among a crowd that wasn’t.

  He stepped into the footplates and pushed his heels in to close the suit up. “It used to be unheard of, Siri, but there are quite a lot of our kind with rank now.” He grinned. “And I have a bit of pull with the new captain of a Scorpion-series fast-attack scouting corvette. I’ll put in a good word for you both.”

  “Hobnobbing with officers, are you?” Mel asked, half joking, half curious. “On a proper-name basis with the Quailu running that ship?”

  “Just practice your coding!” Gleb jabbed a finger at the holo-emitter. “I’ve got a runabout waiting, so I’ll see you when I see you and, don’t blow all the credits I’m leaving you on fancy crap!”

  He stepped out the open window onto a narrow ledge that overlooked a twenty-story drop to where a public square hid an even longer drop.

  A runabout hovered a hand’s-breadth from the ledge and Gleb vaulted over the gunwale, sliding into a bench seat that ran around the open-topped passenger compartment. “Orbital consignment yard,” he said, forcing himself to sound casual.

  It wouldn’t do for the driver to be able to recall an overly excited person yelling about going to the consignment yard. He didn’t expect any inquiries regarding his movements but there was no sense in increasing the risk factor.

  Orbital consignment was near the summit of the city. It had once, according to some of the older locals, been at the very summit but the city had grown up around it, leaving the yard in the middle of a deep canyon. Controlling the orbital traffic in and out of the yard was a bit of a nightmare but there were no plans to change it.

  Governments. Gleb shook his head in resignation. They take taxes and then blow it on shiny issues that win votes. The sad thing was the government here couldn’t seem to grasp that a more efficient yard, one that could handle traffic more effectively, would generate even more tax revenue.

  He could see two shuttles with Sandrak’s crest emblazoned on their rooftops and he told the driver to put him down near the two craft.

  After much clever thought on ways to insert himself into Sandrak’s ship, he’d given up on all of it and elected to walk right onto it. He paid his driver and hopped over the gunwale.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, he started walking toward the two shuttles. Look lost and you sure as hells deserve to get caught! He was fifteen paces away from the craft when one of the Quailu pilots, who’d been watching the pallet-lifters, noticed him.

  Just before the pilot could demand an explanation, Gleb cut him off with a question of his own to get control of the decision cycle. He gave the pilot a polite nod of respect. “Sir, they told you I was coming back up on your shuttle, didn’t they?”

  “N… no,” the pilot stammered, mildly befuddled.

  “Well, no matter,” Gleb continued cheerfully. “They might have meant the other shuttle, over there.” He nodded toward the second shuttle. “Either way, the reaction assessment came back clean. Nothing in this load is toxic to Humans.”

  Now, the pilot was amused and, more importantly, feeling superior to this insignificant native. “So they sent you down here to see if the produce from this world will kill you? Whose soup did you piss in?”

  “Wish I knew!” Gleb moved closer. “I’m just glad to be alive! You know there was this one time when we all had to eat a…”

  “Wait inside the shuttle!” the pilot snapped pettishly.

  “Very good, sir!” Gleb bobbed his head and scuttled inside the shuttle, hiding his amusement.

  Sometimes it was very helpful to be so insignificant.

  Taking a Peek

  Heiropolis System

  “Normalization complete,” Hendy announced. “Judging by the terrible visibility, I’d say we’re right on target, as if anyone’s surprised…”

  “Very good,” Oliv replied. “Secure the path-drive. Outside temperature?”

  “One fifty-eight above absolute,” Meesh answered her over the intercom link to engineering. “Opening the interchange valves.”

  Eth was impressed but he kept it to himself. He didn’t want to interfere in Oliv’s command of the ship and, though a compliment regarding Hendy’s navigation wasn’t exactly interfering, it would almost seem pompous. Still, they’d dropped into this gas giant at nearly the perfect altitude for charging the cryo-banks.

  “Nice flying, Hendy,” Oliv said, earning a grin.

  Eth supressed the urge to fidget. He much preferred being in command of a vessel to being a mere passenger.

  “How fast do we want to get to target?” Hendy asked.

  “No rush this time,” she told him. “Let’s go for a max time-on-target.”

  “As long as the new shunts on the cryo-banks can hold out, I’d say half pitch for three drives will give us three quarters of a day on target,” Meesh suggested.

  Oliv frowned. “You worried about the new shunts, Meesh?”

  “Not exactly worried,” he said. “It’s just that this is the first test we’re doing where they can get us shot at, if they fail.”

  “Noted.” She gave it a moment’s thought. “We’ll go in at half pitch, all three drives.”

  “Laying in a course,” Hendy said. “We’ve got a few planets in conjunction right now, so I’ll have to divert from the least-time path but not by much. Should only cost us… an hour or two. Just say the word and I’ll pretend to fiddle with some buttons and then activate the course.”

  Oliv laughed. “Are you telling me half the stuff you do is just for show?”

  “Hey, you gotta make it look good when the boss is watching you all the time!”

  “Yeah,” Oliv replied before Eth could say an
ything from a boss’ perspective, “I’m just such a hard-ass!”

  “I’m not even touching that one,” Hendy retorted, then turned red. “Your comment, I mean, not your, um… Meesh! You got those cryo-banks charged up yet? We’re all waiting on you up here!”

  “Almost there,” Meesh replied, “but you got more than enough time to finish whatever you were saying to the captain.”

  As far as Eth knew, none of his people had gotten their steri-plants removed since earning their release from wardu status. Nonetheless, even without the possibility of procreation, their attitudes toward sex had started to change.

  Romantic attachment had always been a thing but it had tended not to be a big deal. Embarrassment about any sexual topic had pretty much been non-existent but, now, as mushkenu citizens, they were starting to change how they viewed sex. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen one of his fellow Humans get embarrassed.

  “A little smug,” Abdu chided, “given how you reacted to Scylla’s proposition…”

  Quiet, old man.

  “Fine,” Meesh grumbled. “If you’re not going to keep stammering, the cryo-banks are charged. I’m closing the valves. We’re ready to bring the emission management system online.”

  “Thank-you!” Hendy said with exaggerated relief. “Can we go get shot at now?”

  “Always in such a rush!” Oliv rolled her eyes. “Let’s take a look around first, then get shot at. Bring the EM system online.”

  “Aye, ma’am,” Meesh replied. “EM system is operational.”

  “Very well.” Oliv stepped up to her command holo. “Hendy, bring us up. Time to see what they’ve done with the place since we were here last. Computer, set holo to tactical; focus on Heiropolis and surrounding orbits.”

  The holo remained blank, having no data to project, but, as they began to leave the denser layers of the gas giant’s atmosphere, fuzzy data points began to form.