Ragnarok: Colonization, intrigue and betrayal.

by Andrew Claymore

  “Just back from the fields?” Sushil asked.

  “The highlands,” Frank confirmed.

  “Any news from our friend?” Mal asked.

  Frank shook his head. “She’s been quiet lately.” He took a drink, sighing with enjoyment.

  “The boys found a dead feather tiger today,” He told them. “Looks like those glow whales drop deadly spores when they die. Tiger got caught in a nest of them.”

  He used his suit to transmit some imagery to Mal who wore his suit almost all the time. “It looks like the tigers might be keeping some of our more pestilential wildlife under control. The one they found today had killed a root-eater.”

  “Really?” Mal had his cup nearly to his lips but he set it down. “Well, I’ll go on record as saying you were right about not shooting those scary bastards, Sushil!”

  “Good of you to admit it!” Sushil saluted him with his cup before taking a drink.

  “Figured I’d save you the trouble of saying you told me so.” Mal grinned as the chairman snorted, splashing some of his drink on his face.

  “So what do we do about the strange things happening up in the hills?” Mal pressed.

  “You haven’t been up there?” Frank asked.

  “No. Don’t want to risk escalating anything on my own. Anyway, we’re not sure that it’s a military matter and I’d rather not make it one if I can help it. I’ll support what you guys decide to do but it’s up to the chairman.” He gestured to Sushil.

  Sushil sighed. “If she stays quiet, we should wait a few more days till the crops are all planted. I’d rather present this to the council, if we can.”

  “You sure about that?” Mal asked.

  “We shouldn’t start acting like the council has no say…”

  “No,” Mal interjected. “Are you sure about her being a she?”

  “I had a vague impression of that,” Frank admitted, “but Vikram was absolutely certain.”

  “Rohan had the same impression,” Sushil added.

  “Well, I suppose that counts as good news,” Mal said grudgingly. “It sounds like we’re dealing with a creature that has genders in common with us, at least.”

  “Yeah,” Frank said ironically, “we’re practically twins!”

  “Don’t laugh,” Mal warned. “You wouldn’t believe the weird shit you can run into out here on the fringes. This isn’t much but I’ll take it.”

  “Well, I know what I’m taking.” Frank held up his cup. “A shower. I’ll thank you for the coffee, gents, by leaving your noses in peace.”

  He got up. “Been a long day, up in the hills, and I smell like it!”

  Hand-off

  The Deathstalker, Kurnugian Orbit

  “Didn’t you idiots ever hear of laundry?” Gabriella asked Len through the bars of her hastily grown cell.

  It had been five days of living in a two-meter-cubed cell with a toilet, a bunk and no privacy. She was still wearing the same t-shirt and shorts she’d worn to bed on the night of her capture and nobody had any spare clothes for her.

  “Not my problem,” he answered curtly. “I’m just here to get you off this ship.”

  Great. I stink so much they’re gonna space me. She stood up from her bunk, ready to lunge when the bars dissolved. I’ll take this bastard’s eyes with me, at least.

  “Our boss is here,” Len said. “It’s been a fun five days but I’d keep my smart mouth shut, if I were you. The guy we’re giving you to doesn’t take well to insolence.”

  “You think I’m insolent?” she asked. “I don’t recall anyone calling you ‘Lord’, you jackass. Whether you give your oath to my Aunt and Uncle or not, there’s still a hierarchy in place and you seemed to remember that when your henchman was getting ready to…”

  “Alright!” he said urgently, cutting her off. “You’ve made your point but I still urge you to take mine as well. You’re about to meet one of the most feared lords in the empire… the real empire.

  “He’s got a temper. If you run that saucy little mouth of yours at him, he might just blow your head off.”

  She relaxed her posture a fraction. If she wasn’t getting spaced, she could put off attacking Len, for now.

  Len dissolved the bars and stepped back. “Listen,” he said, “about what happened…”

  “The two of you killed my mother,” she said coldly and in a steadier voice than she would have expected. “You’re both going to die and it won’t be pretty.”

  “As you wish,” he said tiredly. “This way, my lady.”

  He led her to an open part of the hull, just forward of the engineering bay. She stepped past him and led the way down the ramp into a large, ornately appointed hangar bay.

  The crew in the bay were all Quailu and one of them, radiating more than the usual degree of authority, stood at the bottom of the ramp. She reared back in disgust at the odor coming from the prisoner.

  “What is she wearing?” the Quailu demanded.

  “She had this on when we captured her,” Len said with a shrug. “One of the team-members got injured, so we didn’t have time to go look for her underarmor suit.”

  “I’m taking you to a suite of rooms,” the Quailu told her. “You will have to clean yourself and wash these ridiculous garments before I present you.”

  She turned and started walking.

  Gabriella considered just staying where she was but it served no purpose and she did stink. She looked at Len one more time. “Slowly,” she reminded him. Before he could say anything, she set off after her new captor.

  The rooms were pretty much the same as what she and her mom had stayed in aboard the Mouse. It had a shower cubicle and a fairly fast clothing cleaner that used sound waves.

  She made a quick search of the rooms to make sure nobody else was there and then she stripped off her stinking t-shirt and shorts, tossing them in the cleaner on her way to the shower.

  She stayed in there a lot longer than was absolutely necessary. She just stood there in the hot water, eyes closed, not thinking.

  Not thinking about anything at all.

  She got out long after her clothes were clean. She put them on and sat on the couch, looking out at an angry red world, waiting for her captor to come collect her.

  She wished she at least had an underarmor suit to wear but the aliens on this ship were even less likely to have one for her than the Humans on the Edged Star. Their Quailu suits would have fit like a pillowcase.

  At least I’d be covered up, she thought.

  She was covered but the fabric of her t-shirt was a bit thinner than she’d like. It had kind of been the idea when she bought it but it was more of a ‘feeling cute while falling asleep’ kind of thing, rather than ‘feeling exposed in front of hostile aliens’.

  Her friend, Jen, had the same shirt but she didn’t buy it for sleeping in. She’s probably planning to wear it to class next month at USC. I wouldn’t be surprised…

  The door opened behind her. She jumped off the couch, putting her back to the window as two armed and armored Quailu entered and took up positions flanking the door.

  Memnon entered the prisoner’s room, still slightly peeved at Ereshkigal’s attitude. She’d assumed that he would watch while she conducted the interrogation.

  Still, she knew her business. He’d forgotten how much the Humans relied on non-empathic nuances for communication. He would need to pay close attention to every stray tendril of emotion from this primitive creature. He would need to elicit emotions, nudge them to the surface where even the tiniest aspect might be more apparent.

  These dratted creatures had a way of bleeding off their emotions with gestures.

  The prisoner was standing before the window, Kurnugia’s angry glow hanging behind her. She was wearing a ludicrous outfit that seemed completely incongruous for someone traveling on a ship.

  “Why is she dressed like that?” he snapped over his shoulder at Ereshkigal.

  “She arrived like that, lord. The team ran into difficultie
s, so we have what we have.”

  He looked back, intrigued by the response he felt from the Human. Embarrassment. A desire to hide.

  She was standing in the same place, her arms crossed over her upper chest. She expects to be ridiculed, he thought. Is it because of her clothing?

  She’s a wild Human, he remembered. They may have different social norms. “Are all wild Humans so thin?” he asked her. The few Human females that still served on the Deathstalker were much more heavily muscled than this slender creature.

  Humiliation, anger, helplessness. It was stronger this time, as if she’d been holding back but then decided to swamp him. It felt deliberate.

  Maliciously deliberate.

  “No,” she said. “My friends all have curves. I’m probably the one they like to hang out with so they look better by comparison.”

  Memnon reeled back as if she’d kicked him in the teeth. He’d dealt with some strong emotions, growing up at a relative’s palace as a poor cousin, but this was next level.

  He was certain of it. She was weaponizing her emotions, giving him, all at once, a full dose of the emotional turmoil of a young Human female, raised in the wild.

  He grabbed Ereshkigal by the elbow. “Carry on with the interview,” he rasped, then turned for the door.

  He made it to the hallway, waving at the guards to remain inside. The last thing he wanted right now was their empty allegiance. They were probably laughing at him behind his back every chance they got.

  He was walking weird. He didn’t know how he’d never noticed it before. Why can’t I just put one foot in front of the other like a normal person? He looked up to see a weapons tech coming his way with a quizzical look on his face.

  Nobody takes me seriously, he reminded himself. Not on the world where he’d grown up and not out here in the empire. “In the middle of a fief I’ve built up by right of gods-damned conquest!” he growled, terrifying the weapons tech who quickened his otherwise perfectly normal pace and hurried past his lord.

  Memnon reached his quarters and threw himself on the bed, face buried in his pillow. The same bed he’d woken up on with the name ‘Melvin the Minuscule’ drawn on his forehead.

  And he’d been on the bridge for a long time before anyone had bothered to tell him.

  A chime sounded from his outer door. “My lord,” Garand’s voice greeted him, recreated by the syntactic feedback projectors that gave holos their sense of solidity. “The cargo shuttle has returned from the hab-ring. You wanted to inspect the goods?”

  “Go away,” Memnon shouted, his voice muffled by the pillow.

  But then he thought again. Garand’s always been loyal, hasn’t he? “Wait,” he called urgently. “Come in.”

  Damn it all, I don’t want to talk to anyone, he thought. He should have thought it before he spoke. Garand came in.

  “Lord?” he asked, bemused by the sight of his leader lying face down on a pillow.

  “Is my ass too big?” he asked. Gods! What the hells did I just say? Damn it all. It’s that damned Human! She’s gotten into my head!

  Garand was probably wondering the exact same thing. “No?” he said tentatively. “I mean, I’ve never noticed, one way or the other but…”

  Memnon flopped over onto his back with a sigh. “Do we still have any of that narcotic weed we took from Enlat’s palace?”

  Ereshkigal wasn’t surprised that Memnon had fled the interrogation but she was surprised that he’d left so soon.

  It was a messy business, poking around in someone’s head. It was even worse if the subject was a different gender or species.

  This prisoner was both.

  It was going to take a more circumspect approach. Rather than brash comments about her clothing, Ereshkigal sought to find common ground and build from there.

  “Why are you embarrased?” she asked.

  “Are you kidding?” the prisoner demanded. “I’m standing here with the high-beams on in a shirt you could probably read through if the text was large enough.”

  Did those idiots think to scan her for concealed weapons? Ereshkigal thought with alarm. “Are you telling me you have some kind of energy-based weapon on your person somewhere?”

  “What?”

  “Your ‘high-beam’?”

  “High… No!” She shook her head. “You Quailu keep your ships colder than we do. You know what happens… when it’s cold?”

  Ereshkigal tried one of the head-shakes she’d seen Humans use.

  The prisoner frowned. “I mean, what happens to a woman…” She uncrossed her arms and gestured to her chest. “… When it gets cold?”

  “Ah!” Ereshkigal exclaimed. “You mean they’re shrinking? But why are they sticking out now?” She took an involuntary step back. “Did they take you away from your offspring?”

  “What? I don’t have offspring. This happens when it gets cold.”

  “Not for us,” Ereshkigal told her. “For us, heat indicates an infant in need of nourishment. Our males, though, they become larger when it’s cold. The extra blood flow helps to keep the penile muscles from cramping; otherwise, the member would lose its mobility and be unable to find its way into the…”

  “That’s more than enough information about alien penises, thank you very much!” the prisoner said in a strained voice.

  Ereshkigal was a little surprised. Who doesn’t want to talk about sex? It was one of the first lessons at the academy. Sex was one of the things that almost every sentient species had in common and it offered a quick-and-dirty (academy pun intended) way into a subject’s persona.

  This Human, however, seemed very uncomfortable about the subject of Quailu anatomy, perhaps about sex in general. For all the similarity she showed to the Humans of the empire, she might be an entirely new species.

  Even the hair on her head was different. It hung long, unlike the Humans in the empire… and the republic. She frowned. How long will that infernal mess take to collapse?

  She conveniently forgot her own master’s plan of carving out his own little kingdom. In truth, Memnon may have forgotten it as well, dismissing it as his father’s dream rather than his own.

  Common ground, she reminded herself. One thing in common with all people is the urge to explain what they don’t have in common.

  “How is your world organized?” she asked the Human.

  “Organized?”

  “Yes. Do you call the ruler an emperor, a king, a president…”

  She shrugged. “Probably all of those, plus a few more. There’s nearly two-hundred countries on Earth.”

  Ereshkigal tilted her head without noticing it. They were talking in Imperial Standard but that one word had been a new one to her. “Countries?”

  “Yeah. You know, a country? It’s a region with it’s own borders, government, laws, military forces…”

  “On the same world?” Good. Keep talking about where we can find your people! “There’s no overall government?”

  “Not really. Well, there’s Gleb and Luna now, but that’s only recent and…” she frowned, staring intently at Ereshkigal. “Did you murder my mother and drag me here just for a chat about Earth governments?”

  “No,” Ereshkigal said, frustrated by the break in what was turning into a good flow of information.

  This Human wasn’t born to the nobility, she had to remind herself. She’d only recently been elevated. Most nobles in the empire would be pleased to learn of the demise of their parent.

  It put them one step higher in their family’s line of succession.

  This one has the emotional baggage of the lower class, she realized. Push for more while she’s unsettled by it.

  “It just surprises me that your people have so many separate… fiefs when you all live on just one world…”

  Ah… That’s not quite true, is it?

  Oh Hells

  Babilim Station

  “Nothing found out here, lord,” a provost officer told Gleb, “but we found this droid behind a grove of tr
ees by the main path. Said his name was Jeeves.”

  Gleb turned away from Adelina and Gabriella’s house and faced the droid. “Jeeves?” The name meant nothing to him, having only spent a few months on Irth so far. “Did you see what happened here?”

  “Damn right I saw!” Jeeves spluttered. “Assholes took her! They came into my Ownership unsure territory, shot up the place and took my girl, Gabriella!”

  “Who were they?”

  “You think I know? They’re your guys. I’m the new kid on the Reference absurd block.”

  “Were they Humans like me?”

  “Oh, they were Humans alright. Three of ’em, but not like you.”

  Gleb frowned. “Not like me?”

  “You’re alright. These guys were total Medical Impossibility dickheads.”

  Gleb raised an eyebrow at the provost officer.

  “Lord, I think this droid has been in close contact with Lady Gabriella. It’s probably picked up a lot of her speech patterns.”

  “Why,” the drone asked, “are you numb-nuts still standing around here playing Irony not found grab-ass? They got our girl. Go get them!”

  Gleb nodded tiredly and turned to go inside the house.

  “Drag them back here,” Jeeves shouted, or at least raised its tone and modulated it to sound more ragged. “I’m gonna put my foot up both their asses… Or I would, if I still…”

  “Both?” Gleb turned back. “You said there were three of them.”

  The drone bobbed, looking for all the worlds as if it were actually nodding a head. “Our girl put a knife in one of them, right in the neck. The stupid bastard was squealing like a stuck Indistinct reference found porkchop.”

  Gleb looked to the provost.

  “We have teams out checking the various paths of egress,” the officer assured him. “If there’s any DNA traces, we’ll find them.”

  Gleb nodded and went inside. Luna was there, sitting by the spot where they’d found her sister’s body.

  This was new to him. He’d dealt with the loss of team-members and good friends but his wife had just lost the woman she’d known since birth.