Worlds

by Eric Flint

  The woman placed the lamp on a small table next to the bed and gazed down at Fitz. He couldn't read the expression in her face. There was something there . . . Amusement, maybe, combined with satisfaction. Hard to tell.

  Then the woman spotted Ariel's nose poking out from under the covers. She smiled, and murmured some verses under her breath. Fitz could just barely make out the words.

  "The culminating pleasure that we treasure beyond measure,

  Is the gratifying feeling that our duty has been done."

  Fitz cleared his throat. "May I help you, Ms. ah . . . ?"

  "Just think of me as John Wellington Wells. A dealer in magic and spells. And that's all I'm going to tell you."

  She started to turn away, gesturing with a finger at the oil lamp. "A gift I brought for you." Her eyes went back to Ariel, whose entire head was now sticking out of the covers. "I'm glad to see it will be trebly appreciated."

  And with that, she headed out the door. On her way through, Fitz heard her murmuring: "The genie out of the bottle, indeed."

  When she was gone, Ariel popped out from under the blankets. "You humans are a daft lot, but that is the first one I have ever heard quote Gilbert and Sullivan." She scrutinized the gift on the nearby table with a rat's usual intentness when the possibility of loot arose. "What's that?"

  Fitz shrugged. "Nothing you'll be interested in. Me neither, actually. It's an antique kind of lamp."

  Ariel was puzzled. "What for? When you want light, you flip a switch. When you want light and can't get it—like in a tunnel in a Maggot raid—that silly thing will be useless. Won't even make a good bludgeon."

  Fitz shrugged again. "Like you said, humans are all daft. That old lady, for sure."

  But Ariel had already leapt onto the table. Though disgruntled, she wasn't going to leave even a faint possibility of loot unchecked.

  She lifted the lid. Then, squeaked sheer glee.

  "It's full of chocolates! And—!"

  Ariel reached in and plucked out a little sample bottle of Grand Marnier. Then, clutching it to her chest, she replaced the lid and perched herself atop the lamp. Looking, for all the world, like a guardian demon.

  She gave Fitz a slit-eyed stare.

  "I'll share the chocolates—maybe. If you're sweet to me. But the booze is mine."

  Fitz rolled his eyes. "Rats!"

  "It's important!" insisted Ariel. "There's not going to be any of that human folderol in this romance." Now, she looked positively indignant. "Won't ever find a rat—sure as hell not a rat-girl—getting her stars crossed. Much less her loot. That silly crap's got to go."

  Fitz leaned back in the pillows, chuckling. He thought he understood now—a bit, at least—of the weird old woman's last words.

  "Genie out of the bottle! One way to put it, I guess."

  "Why do humans have so many useless words?" grumbled Ariel. "And what's a 'genie,' anyway?"

  "You are." Fitz thought about it for a moment. "Or maybe we are."

  THE RANKS OF BRONZE SERIES

  Author's note:

  Except for the story I submitted to the Writers of the Future contest, this is the first piece of short fiction I ever got commercially published. That happened as a by-product of my partnership with David Drake in writing the Belisarius series. At Jim Baen's request, David put together an anthology of stories set in the universe he'd created for his novel Ranks of Bronze. I was one of the authors he asked to write a story for the collection, Foreign Legions, published in 2001.

  With some hesitation, I accepted—my hesitation being my long-known inability to write a piece of short fiction without turning it, willy-nilly, into a novel. But, as it turned out, it was this story that first made clear to me that I could write short fiction—quite easily, in fact—provided that the setting for the story was already established. In this instance, of course, the setting was established by another author, not me. But I soon discovered that didn't make any difference.

  In fact, I had a lot of fun writing the story; and, almost a decade later, I still like it. I also think it works well enough as a stand-alone story. But if you find the story entertaining and would like to see the novel for which it serves as something of a sequel, David Drake's Ranks of Bronze is still in print—and, in my opinion, one of the best novels he's ever written.

  Cathargo Delenda Est

  I

  "What is the point of this?" demanded Agayan. The Guild Voivode emphasized his irritation by flexing the finger-clusters of his midlimbs.

  Yuaw Khta ignored both the question and the cluster-flex. The Guild Investigator was immune to the Voivode's displeasure. The Guild's Office of Investigation had a separate command structure from that of the Trade Web. Although Agayan was its nominal superior in their current mission, Yuaw Khta's career in no way depended on the Voivode's goodwill.

  "Again."

  The Gha sepoy it commanded twisted the native's arm further. Gobbling with pain, the native struggled furiously.

  Its efforts were futile, despite the fact that the orange-skinned biped was not much smaller than its Gha tormentor. It was more slender, true—although much of the Gha's squat bulk was the product of its heavy armor. Still, the native was every bit as tall as the Gha. But the real difference lay beneath the surface. For all the near-equivalence of size, the native was a child in the hands of an ogre.

  The Gha were a heavy-planet species. Due in large part to that gravity, theirs was the most inhospitable world that had ever produced an intelligent race. The Gha were few in numbers, but all the great trading Guilds and Combines favored them as bodyguards for their strength and physical prowess.

  The native's gabbles reached a crescendo, but they still expressed nothing more than pain—and curses.

  "Again," commanded the Guild Investigator. The Gha twisted; the native howled.

  Guild Voivode Agayan ceased his finger-flexing. He transformed his mid-limbs into legs and stalked off in disgust. While the native continued to screech, the Voivode stared out at the landscape.

  The scene was as barren as their investigation had thus far proven to be. The sun—a green-colored dot in the sky—cast a sickly hue over the gravelly terrain. The land was almost flat, broken only by a scattering of squat gray-skinned plants with long, trailing leaves.

  And the bones. Gha bones, and the skeletal remains of the huge carnivores which served as mounts for the sepoys. The bones were picked clean, now, and bleached white by the sun. Every other relic of the battle which had raged across this plain was gone. The natives had buried their own dead, and scavenged all the discarded weapons and armor.

  Behind him, Agayan heard a cracking noise. The native shrieked and fell suddenly silent. The Voivode twisted his body, caterpillarlike, and examined the situation. As he had expected, the Gha had finally broken the native's arm. And, still, without the Investigator learning anything they didn't already know.

  "Are you quite finished?" he demanded.

  Again, Yuaw Khta ignored him. But, after a moment, the Investigator made a gesture to the Gha. The sepoy released its grip. The native, now unconscious, collapsed to the ground.

  Satisfied that the charade was at an end, Agayan transformed his forelimbs into arms and reached for his communicator. After summoning the shuttle, he amused himself by watching the Investigator scampering about the area, looking for some last-minute clue.

  As always, the Voivode found Yuaw Khta's movements both comical and unsettling. The Investigator, like all members of his species, was a tall and gangling creature. Its long, ungainly head hung forward from its neck like certain draft animals Agayan had observed on various primitive planets. That much was amusing. Yet there was a quick, jerky nature to the Investigator's movements which created a certain sense of anxiety in Agayan's mind. His own species, supple but slow-moving, retained a primordial fear of predators.

  He shook the uneasiness off. Ridiculous, really. Even a bit embarrassing. Such atavistic fears had no basis in reality. Agayan's race—like th
at of the Investigator—was counted among the Doge Species which dominated both the Federation and the great trading Guilds and Combines.

  The Doge Species numbered only twenty-three. All other races were subordinate, to one degree or another. Some, like the species which provided the Pilots and Medics for the great trading ships, were ranked Class One. Class One species were privy to the highest technology of galactic civilization, and enjoyed many privileges. But they were still subordinates. Others, specialized laborers like the Gha, were ranked Class Two. Below Class Two species came nothing but indentured servant races, like the quasi-reptilian Ossa whose flexible phenotypes made them useful, or outright slaves like—

  The shuttle swept in for a landing. The Investigator joined Agayan as they marched up the ramp.

  "I told you the humans did it," he hissed, knotting the finger-clusters of his forelimbs in satisfaction.

  II

  After their ship left the planet, Agayan pressed the advantage.

  "It is the only possibility," he announced firmly. "Ridiculous to think those natives were responsible!"

  He and the Investigator were in that chamber of the vessel which combined the functions of a lounge and a meeting room. In deference to its multispecies use, the room was bathed with soft indirect light and bare of any furnishings beyond those of use to its current occupants. Each of those two occupants, in his or its own way, was relaxing. For Agayan, that involved nothing more elaborate than draping his body over a sawhorse-shaped piece of furniture and enjoying a tumbler of a mildly intoxicating liquor.

  For the Investigator, relaxation was more intense. Yuaw Khta was also positioned on its preferred furniture, in that posture which almost all bipeds adopted when resting. (In their different languages, it was called sitting. As always, it seemed peculiar to Agayan—as if a person would deliberately choose to break his body in half.) Yuaw Khta was also sipping at a beverage. A different one, of course. The liquor in Agayan's tumbler would poison the Investigator; and, while Agayan would survive drinking the blue liquid in Yuaw Khta's cup, he would certainly not enjoy the experience.

  In addition, however, the Investigator enjoyed the ministrations of a personal attendant. As it leaned forward in its chair, the Ossa behind it subjected Yuaw Khta's long neck to a vigorous massage.

  Between grunts of pleasure, the Investigator said:

  "No variant explanation can be discounted in advance, Voivode Agayan. Proper investigatory technique is primarily a process of eliminating possibilities, one by one, until the solution finally emerges."

  Agayan's forelimb finger-cluster flexed sarcastically. "And are you now satisfied? Can we finally lay to rest the—variant explanation!—that primitives somehow seized a Guild vessel? After they had already been decisively defeated in battle?"

  "Your own explanation would also have primitives seizing the ship," pointed out the Investigator.

  Agayan restrained his anger. The self-control was difficult, but allowances had to be made. Yuaw Khta, after all, had never personally witnessed the humans in action.

  "There is no comparison," he said forcefully. "It is true that the humans were also iron-age barbarians. But their discipline and social coordination were many levels beyond those of any other primitives you may have encountered."

  "So you say," grunted the Investigator. Its long, bony face was twisted into an expression which combined pain and pleasure.

  To Agayan, watching, the whole process—what Yuaw Khta called a massage—seemed as grotesque as the Investigator's seated posture. To the Voivode's soft-bodied species, pain was pain and pleasure was pleasure, and never the twain shall meet. Not for the first time, Agayan concluded that the vertebrate structure which was by far the most common Bauplan of the galaxy's intelligent races was a curse on its possessors. A preposterous structure, really. Contradictory to the core.

  Still, mused Agayan, it had its advantages.

  Strength, for one. The Voivode glanced at the nearest of the sepoys standing silently against the wall of the chamber. Now unencumbered by armor, the Gha's bronze-colored, rangy body was fully visible. Quite impressive, in its own crude way.

  Especially this one, thought the Voivode. He's the commander of the squad, I believe.

  For a moment, Agayan's gaze met the bulging eyes of the sepoy. As always, the Gha's face was utterly expressionless. To humans, that face would seem froglike in its shape. To the Voivode, it simply seemed inanimate.

  Gha, he reflected, were the most uninteresting species he had ever encountered. Barely sentient, in his opinion, based on his long experience with the sepoys. The creatures never expressed any sentiments in their faces, and they were as indistinguishable as so many pebbles. This one, for instance—the one he supposed to be the sepoy commander. Agayan thought that the Gha was the same one which had been in his service when he was a mere Guild Cacique. But he was not certain.

  He looked back at Yuaw Khta. The Investigator was now practically writhing in the pain/pleasure from its massage. For a moment, Agayan felt genuine envy. The ubiquity of the vertebrate structure, whatever its limitations, meant that vertebrate Guildmasters could enjoy more in the way of personal and intimate service than could members of his own species.

  While Yuaw Khta grunted its pain/pleasure, Agayan took the time to examine its personal attendant. Ossa were particularly favored for that purpose by genetic engineers. The quasi-reptiles lent themselves as easily to phenotype surgery as they did to genetic manipulation. And there was always a large supply of the things. Their sexual and procreative energy was notorious, in their natural state as well as the multitude of bodily forms into which they were shaped by Doge engineers.

  Idly, Agayan wondered if this particular Ossa regretted its transformation. It was neutered, now, to match Yuaw Khta's current sexual stage. The Investigator kept two other Ossa on the ship, one male and one female, to serve it/her/him as Yuaw Khta progressed through the cycle.

  Agayan did not ponder the matter for more than a few seconds. Ossa, for him, were not much more interesting than Gha.

  He decided that he had been polite enough. "Are you going to be distracted by this exercise in self-torture for much longer?" he demanded. "The affairs of the Guild press heavily."

  Yuaw Khta's grunt combined satisfaction with irritation. The Investigator made a snapping sound with its fingers and the Ossa attendant immediately departed the chamber.

  After taking a long draught from its cup, Yuaw Khta said: "I fail to see your point, Voivode Agayan. Regardless of their social discipline and cohesion, the humans are still primitives."

  He made a small waving gesture, which encompassed the entirety of the ship. "Even if they managed—somehow—to seize the ship, they would have no way to fly it anywhere."

  "Unless they coerced the Pilot," retorted Agayan. The Voivode spread both his forelimb clusters, to give emphasis to his next words. "Unlike you, Yuaw Khta, I have personal experience with the humans. I was their Commander, for a time, before my promotion to Voivode. As you may or may not know, I passed through the Cacique ranks faster than any Guildmaster on the record. Some of that unprecedented speed in climbing through the ranks, of course, was due—"

  He interlaced his finger-clusters modestly.

  "—to my own ability. But every Commander of the human sepoys enjoyed rapid promotion. The humans were, far and away, the best sepoy troops the Guild has ever had. They were invariably successful in their campaigns, and did not even suffer heavy casualties."

  He took a drink from his tumbler. "As these things go," he concluded. "In time, of course, their numbers would have declined to the point where they would have been useless. But there were many, many campaigns which the Guild would have profited from before their liquidation was necessary."

  "So?" demanded Yuaw Khta.

  Agayan could not control the agitated flexing of his hindlimb clusters, he was so aggravated. But he managed to maintain a calm voice.

  "So? What do you think accounts for the human suc
cess, Investigator? It was not simple physical prowess, I can assure you!"

  The Voivode pointed to the Gha commander. "This one—or any of its fellows—could easily defeat a human in single combat. Several of them at once, in fact. But I have no doubt whatsoever that on a field of battle, matched with equivalent weapons, the humans could have defeated a Gha army."

  The Investigator was still not convinced.

  "Gha are stupid," it grumbled. "Everyone knows that. I am prepared to admit that the humans were unusually intelligent, for a slave race, but—"

  The Voivode had had enough. "Do you have any alternative explanation?" he demanded.

  The Investigator was silent.

  "In that case," stated Agayan firmly, "I now exercise my command prerogatives. If the humans seized their transport vessel, and coerced the Pilot into operating the craft, their most likely destination would have been their original home. Their native planet. Accordingly, this ship will proceed to that same planet. If the humans are there, we will destroy them. This vessel is far better armed that any troop transport."