Prisoners of Darkness

by Jason Anspach

  Jebba knew this but… he’d made it this far. Surely all would go well and every dream of avarice would be realized.

  Surely.

  Jebba knew he was being vetted yet again, for the umpteenth time since he’d been sent on this secret diplomatic mission by the highest of the high of the worthies of the House of Reason. Knew that once more they were going through his credentials as an academic and student of Zhee Studies. Making sure he wasn’t a trained assassin sent from the zhee’s most hated of enemies inside Nether Ops. Going over his schooling at Highgate. His advanced work at Anders in xenocommunication. Matching the bio samples—samples they’d secretly collected long ago when all this had first begun—to the man standing in front of them. Yes, he’d been cleared by others, repeatedly, but it would be these zhees’ hides if something went horribly wrong. And so the murderous clusters of heavily armed zhee stayed close to Mooma and Jebba, ready to hack, stab, trample, and probably shoot for good measure, if even one thing went just a little bit wrong.

  Jebba’s reason for being here meant no more to them than his life. If his purpose was important enough, the House could always send another envoy. Or so reasoned every zhee security commander all the way up the chain that led through all ten security checkpoints until they found themselves standing, finally, before the Doors to Heaven, the massive brass gongs of judgment looming eight stories high on either side.

  The Doors to Heaven were not even doors, but heavy curtains, centuries old and now pulled aside, and Jebba was led into the presence of the Grand Khan of the zhee tribes.

  The woven carpet passed down a length of golden columns. Each column was carved in the likeness of a previous Khan and inscribed with the scrollish writing of the zhee. The listings of triumphs. The tallies of the slaughtered. The conquests and the matings. The wisest of sayings stolen and recut for time.

  Reading the zhee text was a struggle for even the best of galactic linguists. The common complaint was that the mind felt like it was unraveling when one read it. Maybe, some had dared hint, that was an insight to the workings of the zhee. So Jebba kept his mind away from the madness that lay carved into the solid gold, and instead chose to keep his head reverent and downcast as they approached the Ivory Throne That Ruled a Million Lesser Thrones.

  Upon the magnificent and near-pagan throne sat the largest zhee Jebba had ever seen. The belly of the Grand Khan was swollen and well-fed. Powerful arms and legs told of the Khan’s recent warrior past—because no one ever became Khan by any means peaceful.

  Mooma fell to one knee, and so did Jebba, who’d been waiting for the opportunity to do so. The scholar knew well the traditions. The protocols. The pomp and the circumstance. As a scholar at the most elite university in the galaxy, as the master of all things known about the zhee, he felt he knew the ways of the zhee better than the zhee might know them themselves.

  Such is the way of the learned who have never done. This was also a zhee proverb, but one that did not spring to Jebba’s mind in this most glorious of moments.

  “O great and savage Khan of the Eternal Houses…” began Mooma. “A thousand apologies for daring to tremble in your presence.”

  The Khan gave some huffy snort, signaling that the lesser zhee might continue.

  “The scents on the winds have brought us the smell of victory. This lowly hooma brings a gem… that you might appraise its worth to all your loyal subjects.”

  Silence.

  Jebba waited. He would need to speak. No one knew the message but him. And it had seemed, all along the long trail that had led to the throne room and this moment, ever since the events on Tarrago had begun to unfold, that everyone, every zhee, had tried to pry forth from him the secret he possessed.

  He had held. Resisted. Waited them out.

  Now it was time… if the Grand Khan desired to know what he’d been sent to offer.

  It was in this moment that Jebba was most afraid. Because of course the zhee were all insane by galactic intelligence standards. Or at least, that’s how the rest of all the civilizations perceived them. With their endless wars. With their seemingly maddening choices that led to nothing but conflict. In a galaxy full of aliens, they were the most alien of all aliens. It was as though they were aliens even to the rest of the aliens.

  Jebba had long been working on a theory. A secret theory.

  It lay in the back of his mind because he wasn’t quite sure it would be the truth some wanted to hear. If it was… then one day, toward the end of his career, he would publish it. And perhaps it would make him credits untold if it was done just right. Especially if it was done with the blessing of the zhee.

  What was that theory?

  The theory suggested that the zhee were the descendants of the Ancients. That they were the original aliens, enigmatic and unknown and therefore so contrarian to galactic civilization in its current format that they struggled to integrate.

  Who knew how that would be received? On any given day it might get him labeled a racist, the worst thing you could be called in Republic culture, or a saint, depending on which way the winds were blowing in the House of Reason.

  Whatever happened then, this meeting now would one day give him the street cred to make such a wild claim—and thereby cement his status as a legendary thinker. Of course, he would have all the evidence his claim needed, if he ever made it. Evidence that would show his narrative to be the truth.

  Because what was truth?

  Truth was nothing.

  Narrative was king. Narrative was everything in the House of Reason. Because it was they, not this savage donkey, who decided what the truth was.

  The House of Reason were the masters of that.

  “Rise and speak, messenger,” rumbled the Great Khan.

  And Jebba did so, feeling his legs suddenly go weak, feeling as though all the times he’d rehearsed what he’d been sent to repeat weren’t enough at this final moment of actually having to do it. But there was nothing to do but begin… so he began as best he could. Halting at first, then warming to the narrative once it began to flow.

  “Oh greatest of the Khans who have known the darkness and the light between the star homes…”

  This part was easy. That was an ancient greeting from the Subaruka Texts of the zhee poet Numastedies from over three thousand years ago. Using it would indicate Jebba’s love for the zhee. The Great Kahn would know this, and so all along Jebba had planned to open with this ancient yet beautiful line.

  But to his hidden shock some warm smile of recognition and appreciation did not cross the donkey face of the great Khan. Not like Jebba had always imagined it might in all the dreams and practicing of this moment. He’d imagined it would, and that he, Jebba Monteau, would become a great friend, even a secret confidant, to the Great Khan.

  Instead the Great Khan merely stared at him, waiting for the messenger to continue. Those baleful donkey eyes burned with dull contempt.

  Jebba recovered from this setback and moved on.

  “I have been sent by the House of Reason to offer, not a gift, but a challenge.”

  That part had been his personal adjustment to the script. And it had been a smart one. The House of Reason had wanted to call what they were offering a gift. But they had no idea that the zhee perceived gifts as a form of charity. And charity was especially contemptible if it came from the lesser races. The slave races, which were the second lowest of all categorizations in the zhee hierarchy of prey.

  The lowest was food.

  But of course, the zhee ate everyone.

  So everyone, in the end, was a kind of food to them. Everyone was the lowest.

  This was why it had been wise of Jebba to frame what was being offered as a challenge instead of charity. The zhee would respect the offer of challenge. They had to.

  “Since the events, O Great Khan, known as the Battle of Tarrago, our weaknesses against this new foe have become painfully evident.”

  Even though the court that waited all around the Grand Khan rem
ained silent, there always seemed to be a sort of subtle micro-chorus of hushy whispering. This was everywhere among the zhee, and it contributed to the theories that they might even have some rude form of a hive mind that fed their locust-like nature. Jebba wondered if it was a devolved form of psychic communication they’d once had during their time as the Ancients and masters of the all the mysteries of the galaxy—now manifesting itself as a sort of constant and undetectable whisper even they did not understand the true nature of.

  But at the mention of Tarrago and the confession that the Galactic Republic admitted its weakness against this new foe, a sudden silence erupted across the zhee. Like predators sensing the movement of prey in the bush.

  For this was a stunning thing.

  All the news networks, all the intelligence services, all the constant chatter and murmur indicated that the Republic was handling this disturbance rather deftly.

  But to come here and admit in the court of the Grand Khan, a place where it was decided what the truth would be…

  “The Republic asks that the Grand Khan save us from this threat. From this Goth Sullus. From his terrible war machine we cannot stand before due to our cowardice and lack of understanding of the beautiful art of war.”

  Silence.

  Everyone was a coward according to the zhee. It was the only way one could approach the zhee on their terms. Because in the zhee mindset, there was only ever one way. And it was theirs. They would insist it be that way by persuasion, murder, or wholesale slaughter. There were races that no longer existed because they had not seen things the way the zhee insisted things be seen.

  The Grand Khan stood abruptly. His hoofs rang out on the Tyrasian marble dais upon which his throne rested.

  “And what of your fabled Legion?”

  Jebba was an academic. He held the Legion in just as much contempt as the zhee did. What a place the galaxy would be without their kind, he’d often lamented at faculty parties. What an age of wonder and enlightenment would begin when the Legion was no longer an issue. Its protection no longer required. Like all academics, and every elite, and especially those of the House of Reason, the Legion was a necessary evil one dreamed of doing away with. Never mind the consequences.

  And maybe, perhaps, the unexpected gift of Tarrago, if there was one, was that the moment for discarding the Legion might have finally come. Maybe it was time for the galaxy to learn to do what needed doing for itself. By itself. And once it did, the Legion would finally be revealed for the petty tyrant it was.

  And the zhee… well, the zhee might just be the saviors who freed the galaxy from the iron shield of the legionnaires. And Jebba Monteau was there at the start. Close friend and confidant to the Grand Khan.

  So it was that Jebba too quickly replied.

  “The Legion has failed, Most Noble of Khans. It cannot stand before the forces of Goth Sullus. The House of Reason realizes this and sees this as the moment for the zhee to assume the role of galactic defender of the Republic.”

  At this the Grand Khan charged down the steps suddenly, snorting and huffing in terrible fury.

  Jebba recoiled in horror, though not because he had any choice in the matter. Fight-or-flight had decided the matter without him, and he was not a fighter. So he withered beneath the Khan’s sudden storm. He cowered beneath the glare of the War Chief of All the Tribes of the zhee.

  “And how are we supposed to stand against three advanced warships and reports of a new ‘Dark Legion,’ as they are being called?” brayed the Khan. “How are we supposed to stand against these things when the House of Reason has kept us from building warships, buying the latest in arms for battle, or even using weapons of mass destruction at our pleasure?”

  The zhee glared down at the pitiful human academic with utter contempt, even raising one hairy paw as though it might batter to death the weakling cowering beneath its terrible terror.

  “With these?” howled the zhee warlord, and suddenly, faster than Jebba would have thought possible, the famed kankari knife was in paw. Except this knife was more ornate than any the academic had ever seen in all the various state-funded museums on the noble zhee history and cultural contributions the House of Reason had seen fit to establish for the students and tourists, subtly reminding them by contrived woven rugs and baskets that the zhee were anything but the murderous species they were in reality.

  “No, no…” stammered the academic, suddenly aware that the script was no longer in play and that his own personal death was closer than it ever had been. “There are ships! Weapons! Armor! A base!” he blurted out in rapid-fire succession, some primal part of his brain reaching out for the actual truth with which to save himself.

  The grand culture of the zhee was so much fiction; beneath it all they were nothing but craven killers craving the weapons to kill. Jebba knew that. Everyone knew it. And now, certain that he was about to die, Jebba found the truth of them and used it to save himself. Because he had come to offer them weapons on behalf of the House of Reason.

  “I’ve come with these things. They’re for you! They’re waiting out there.”

  The Khan held his wicked and damascened knife aloft, as though ready to strike downward and plunge it into Jebba’s redlining heart. “What things?” he howl-snorted. “You have brought no things. No weapons. No ships. Nothing but begging to save your miserable Galactic Republic.”

  The Khan gave a great and gusty spit, landing a sickly yellow mucus glob on the academic’s finely tooled Barona leather shoes.

  The terrible silence that followed dared Jebba to dispute the Khan’s indictments. And of course, if Jebba did not, then what good was he? The fear-struck fool knew that in this moment of clarity the Khan’s wrath was revealed, and the strand of his life was about to be severed.

  “I am the messenger. I bring the news…” he fumbled. Then, pathetically, “The scents of battle are in my nose.” These were the words of some ancient zhee poet he’d lectured on for a semester, instructing his doe-eyed students of the nobility and purity of the words of the ever-wise zhee. Now they felt hollow and empty in his mouth, and he knew they were merely the mewling of a craven worm attempting to save itself from the terrible reality it had always thought it was in control of.

  He’d been foolish to come here.

  The dream he’d held in reserve—of somehow becoming a valued and vaunted interlocutor between the Grand Pavilion and the House of Reason—was now laid bare as the fantasy of a precocious child who lived behind cloistered walls and played with fine toys.

  He was that ignorant child.

  A hushed murmur of zhee whispers began all about him, crossing the court like a sudden and violent wave rolling on shore. And for all his learnings, for all his preenings about being the master who knew the zhee more than anyone—an easy statement to make in a lecture hall—Jebba had no idea what this meant to his survival.

  The Khan knelt on his thick haunches. His smell was ripe and acrid. His nostrils flared, and his large dark eyes burned like hot coals.

  Closely, close to Jebba, he whispered, “Then what is the message, little muffa?”

  Muffa was the zhee word for child of a slave. It also meant worm and quick meal.

  “T-t-t-en,” stuttered Jebba.

  The zhee leaned in closer, its hot breaths coming in short snorts.

  “Ten what?”

  “B-b-ba-battle cruisers.”

  The zhee leaned back, its eyes suddenly wide.

  “The Republic does not manufacture such a warship… anymore. Just your weakling ‘super’ destroyers and little messenger ships running about.”

  Jebba swallowed thickly and nodded. His mind raced to recover all the technical details he’d been sent to dazzle the zhee with.

  “Th-th-these are n-n-new. Mass-production high-firep-p-power ships. Excellent speed for close engagement. Heavily armed… or-or-or so I have been assured.”

  The Khan made a face at this.

  “But there’s more… Oh-oh-oh greatest of all th
e Eternal Khans Who Conquer us lesser races. M-m-ma-master of the—”

  The Kahn cut him off abruptly. “What is more? Military-grade equipment? Weapons of mass destruction? Biological? A planet killer?”

  “Yes… y-yes. The Legion was going to receive the new N-20 battle rifle weapon system that’s been in development for years. We’ve cut the funding and re-funded it for development for the zhee. It’s a much better weapons system… as-as I understand it. Higher rate of fire. It… aims…targeting, I mean…it’s better, but I must confess, my K-K-Khan I don’t understand those things. War. Weapons. Tighter blast grouping was what—what they told me to say. But that’s not all…”

  “No!” shrieked the Khan. “That better not be all.”

  “Armor.”

  The zhee were incapable, or so it seemed, of developing any technology on their own. Their mullahs prevented them from using any weapons that were not sacred and holy, and anything considered new was often the opposite of sacred and holy. Hence very few zhee pursued the advanced sciences. But canonical loopholes within their texts allowed them to buy whatever they needed. The problem was that the market had never seen sufficient demand to develop an armor system that fitted the physicality of the zhee.

  “Impossible!” snorted the Khan.

  But Jebba nodded furiously, willing the zhee to believe him with all his heart. “It’s true, oh greatest of—”

  “Silence, muffa! Tell me of this armor! Now!”

  Jebba responded to the spittle-laden demand by devolving into tears, mewling pathetically, and begging for his life.

  In time the zhee Khan came and knelt. Close and intimate. Familiar even. He put a coarse-haired arm, massive and bulging, around the frightened academic.

  “Tell me,” he snort-whispered, his breath tangy with the smell of sour ruhrak. “Tell me everything that was offered, and this will end.”

  Jebba raised his tear-streaked face. The Khan brushed one of the tears away. The movement was incredibly gentle.