by Chris Bunch
"Perhaps… if such is the case… you will find time to meet some of my Companions. My friends."
"That would be interesting," Sten said. Prayer meetings! The things a man must do to kick over a dictatorship.
Mathias suddenly smiled, warmly, humanly. "I suspect you are thinking my friends sit around by the hour and drone from the Book of Talamein?"
Sten looked away.
"We are familiar with the words of the Prophet. But we find our faith is… best realized… away from the cities. Trying to teach ourselves the skills that Talamein used to find freedom.
Nothing professional, of course. But perhaps you might offer us some pointers."
He stopped as they stopped at the end of the corridor, and the double doors thundered open.
And Sten found himself standing in what could only be described as a throne room. Threadbare, for sure, but a throne room just the same. Here the tapestries were much thicker and (originally) richer. And it was crammed with statuary. And at the far end, nestled in thick pillows on a huge stone chair, was Theodomir, the Prophet. Behind him was a huge vidmap of the waterworld that was Sanctus. With the single island continent that was the Talamein Holy of Holies. A large ruby glow lit the location of the City of Tombs. The picture was framed by two immense torches—the cleansing symbol of the religion.
Suddenly Sten realized Mathias was no longer standing beside him. He glanced downward. The young man was on his knees, his head bowed in supplication.
"Theodomir," he intoned. "Your son greets you in the name of Talamein. '
Sten hesitated, wondering if he should kneel, then settled for a courteous half bow.
"Who is that with you, Mathias?"
The Prophet's voice was thin and rasped like sawgrass.
Mathias was instantly on his feet and urging Sten forward. "Colonel Sten, father. The man we have been speaking of."
Sten blinked at the sudden promotion, then stepped toward the throne, all parade-ground military. He clicked his heels and semirelaxed into a parade-rest stance.
"A poor soldier greets you, Theodomir," Sten intoned smoothly. "And he brings a humble soldier's gift."
There were gasps around the room, and Theodomir went pale as Sten's hand went in his tunic and came out with a knife. Out of the corner of an eye he saw a guard start forward, and Sten laughed to himself, as he very carefully and very ceremoniously laid the knife at the Prophet's feet.
The knife was very valuable and very useless. It was made of precious metals and inlaid with gleaming stones. Sten glanced at Theodomir's frayed robe and wondered how quickly the Prophet would put the gift up for sale. If the fiche was correct and Theodomir's tastes were as earthly as it indicated, Sten figured it would take about an hour.
Theodomir recovered and motioned or a cupbearer to hand him a chalice of wine. He took a long, unholy gulp and then burst into laughter.
"Oh, that's very good. Very good. Slipped it past security, did you? Through the scanners and skin search."
The laughter stopped abruptly. The Prophet turned a yellow eye at an aide cowering nearby. "Have a word with security," he said softly.
The aide bowed and scurried off.
The Prophet took another gulp of wine, then began chortling again. He turned his head to a curtain beside him and toasted the shadowy recess.
"Well, Parral. What do you think? Can we make use of our clever Colonel Sten?"
The curtain parted and a small, thin, dark-faced man stepped out. He gave Theodomir a slight bow and then turned to Sten, smiling.
"Yes," Parral said. "I think we should have a little chat."
They sat in a small, dusty library. The chairs were cracked and ancient, but quite comfortable, and the walls were lined with vidbooks. Sten couldn't help but notice that the dust lay thick on the religious works and reference texts. A few well-worn erotic titles caught his eye.
Mathias refilled their cups with wine—all except his own. The Prophet's son preferred water.
"Yes, we are indeed quite fortunate to find a man of your talents, Colonel Sten," Parral said smoothly. He took a small sip of his wine.
"But I can't help but think we might be too fortunate. By that I mean you appear, shall we say, overqualified for our remote cluster. Why is a man with talents in the Lupus Cluster?"
"Simple," Sten said, "like all things military. After I, ah, resigned from the Guard…"
"Ah. Perhaps cashiered would be a better word?"
"Don't be rude, Parral," Mathias snapped. "From what we've heard of the colonel's background, the Empire appears to hold in low esteem a soldier who fights to win. The details of his leaving Imperial Service are immaterial to us."
"I apologize, Colonel," Parral said. "Continue, please."
"No apologies necessary. We are, after all, both businessmen." Sten raised the glass to his lips, catching the startled looks around the room. "You are in the business of trading. I am in the business—and I mean business—of fighting."
"But what about loyalties? Don't soldiers fight for causes?" Theodomir asked.
"My loyalties are to the men who hire me. And once the contract is signed, as a businessman, I must keep my word."
He gave Parral a conspiratorial merchant-to-merchant look. "If I didn't, who would ever buy what I sell again?"
Parral laughed. A cold bark. He leaned across the table. "And what exactly do you have to sell. Colonel?"
"To you, a vastly expanded business empire. The first trading monopoly in the Lupus Cluster."
Sten turned to Theodomir. "To you, a church that is whole again."
After a moment, Theodomir smiled. "That would accomplish my grandest wish," he said dreamily.
Parral remained unconvinced. "And where is your army, Colonel?"
"Within reach."
"To topple Ingild—and to destroy the Jann—would require an enormous force."
"You have beautiful forests on Sanctus," Sten replied obliquely. "I imagine with very tall trees. Trees that die, but still stand. How much force does the woodsman need to exert to topple that tree?
"Where my force excels," Sten said, "is knowing, just as the woodsman knows, where and how to exert the proper force."
"To destroy Ingild," Theodomir whispered. "All those worlds would be mine again. That's quite a lot." He turned to Parral. "Don't you think so, Parral? Don't you think that's quite a lot indeed?"
To Theodomir's delight, Parral nodded his agreement.
"Since you come so well, ah, provisioned," Parral said dryly, "I assume you have a budget describing the costs of your operation?"
Sten took the fiche from his inside tunic and passed it to the merchant.
"Thank you. Colonel. Now, if you'll excuse us, the Prophet and I shall discuss your terms."
Sten stood up.
"Although," Parral said quickly, "I'm sure we'll have no difficulty meeting them."
"I will show you to your rooms," Mathias offered. "I assume you will be willing to move into the palace?"
Sten smiled his thanks, bowed to Theodomir, and followed Mathias. The door had hardly closed before Theodomir poured down the rest of his wine and started worriedly pacing the room. "What do you think, Parral? What do you really think? Can we trust him?"
Parral shrugged and refilled the Prophet's glass. "It really doesn't matter," he said. "As long as we watch our backs."
"Oh, I'd love to see it," Theodomir said. "I'd love to see that idol-worshipper Ingild chased down and crushed—Do you really think we can do it? Is it worth the risk?"
"The only thing we can lose," Parral said, settling back in his seat, "are a few of my credits and the lives of his men."
"But if Sten wins—if he wins, what do we do with him?"
Parral laughed his cold laugh. "What you always do with a mercenary."
Theodomir smiled. And then he joined in the laughter. "I'll find a nice little tomb for him," he promised. "Right beside the place I'm going to put Ingild."
Chapter Ten
THE JANNISAR STO
OD quaking by the missile launch tube. Sten could see his eyes rolling in fear above the big wad of stickiplast slapped across his mouth. His hands were bound behind him. His knees buckled and the two hulking figures on either side of him jerked him up.
The Bhor captain lumbered forward, his harness creaking in the silence. The bloodshot eyes of fifty crewmen swiveled, following him. as he paced up to the Jann and stopped. Otho peered up at his victim through the two hairy bushes the Bhor called eyebrows.
"S'be't," he mocked.
He turned to his crew and raised a huge hairy fist, holding an enormous stregghorn.
"For the beards of our mothers," he roared.
"For the beards of our mothers," the crewmen shouted back.
In unison, they drank from the horns. Otho wiped his meaty lips, turned to the Bhor tech waiting by the missile bay door. He raised a paw for the command and Sten could hear the Jann squeak through the stickiplast. He almost felt sorry for the poor clot, guessing what was coming next.
"By Sarla and Laraz," Otho intoned. "By Jamchyyd and… and… uh…"
He looked at an aide for help.
"Kholeric," she stage-whispered.
Otho nodded his thanks. "Bad luck to leave a clotting god out," he said.
He cleared his throat, belched, and continued. "By Jamchyyd and Kholeric, we bless this voyage."
He brought his hand down, and the Bhor tech slammed the BAY OPEN switch. The doors hissed apart, and the two Bhor guards lifted the wriggling Jann prisoner into the tube. Otho roared with laughter at his struggles.
"Don't fear, little Jann," he shouted "I, Otho, will personally drink your heathen soul to hell."
The crew hooted in glee as the doors slid shut. Before Sten could even blink, the tech slammed the MISSILE FIRE switch and the ship jolted as air blasted the Jann into vacuum. He barely had time to moan before his body exploded.
The ship's metal floor thundered with the footsteps of cheering Bhor crewmen as they rushed and battled for room at the porthole to watch the gory show.
Sten fought back a gag as a smiling Otho heaved himself over to him. His breath whooshed out as the Bhor slapped him on the back, a comradely jackhammer blow.
"By my mother's beard," he said, "I love a blessing. Especially"—he thumbed toward the missile bay doors and the departed Jann—"when it's one of those scrote."
He bleared closer at a pale Sten. "Clot," he cursed at himself, "you must think me a skinny, stingy being. You need a drink."
Sten couldn't argue with that. .
"It is good," Otho said, "that the old ways are dying."
He poured Sten a horn of stregg—the pepper-hot brew of the Bhor—and heaved his bulk closer.
"You won't believe this," he said, "but the Bhor were once a very primitive people."
He'd caught Sten in mid-drink, and he nearly spewed the stregg across the table. "No," Sten gasped, "I wouldn't."
"The only thing left now," Otho said, "is a bit of fun at a blessing."
He shook his huge head. Sighed. "It is the only thing we have to thank the Jann for. Before they came along and started killing us, it had been… in my grandfather's time that we last blessed a voyage."
"You mean, you only use Jannisars?" Sten asked.
Otho frowned, his massive forehead beetling.
"By my father's frozen buttocks," Otho protested, "who else would we use? I told you, we are a very civilized people.
"We had almost forgotten the blessing until the Jann arrived with their clotting S'be'ts. But when they slew an entire trading colony, we remembered. We clotting remembered."
He drained his horn, refilled it. "That scrote we just killed? He was one of fifteen we captured. What a treasure trove. We shared them out among the ships. And one by one we used them in the blessing. Now, I must admit a small regret. He was the last."
Sten understood completely. "I think I can solve that for you," he said quietly.
The captain belched his agreement. Pushed the jug of stregg away. "And now, my friend, we must discuss our business. We are three days out from Hawkthorn. My fleet is at your disposal. What are your orders after planetfall?"
"Wait," Sten said.
"How long?"
"I assume that the credits I have already paid will hold you for quite a while."
The Bhor raised a hand in protest. "Do not misunderstand, Colonel. I am not asking for more…" He rubbed thumb and hairy forefinger together in the universal gesture of money. "I am merely anxious, my friend, to get on about this business."
Sten shrugged. "A cycle at the most."
"And then you go to kill Jannisars," Otho asked.
"And then we kill Jannisars," Sten said.
Otho grabbed for the stregg again. "By my mother's beard, I like you." And he filled the horns to overflowing.
The Bhor were a wise choice in allies. If ever there was a group noted for fierce loyalties, fiercer hatreds, and the ability to keep a single bloody goal in constant sight, it was they. They were the cluster's only native people, the aborigines of a glacier world, an ice planet pockmarked with a thousand volcanic islands of thick mist and green.
In times of legend, the Bhor lived and died in these oases. Growing what little they could. Bathing in their steaming pools. And, when they became brave enough, hunting on the ice.
At first, it was really a question of who was hunting whom. No one knows what the streggan looked like in those days. But Bhor stories and epic poems describe an enormous, shambling beast that walked on two legs, was nearly as intelligent as a Bhor, and had a gaping maw lined with row after row of infinitely replacable teeth.
Starvation drove the Bhor out on the ice. A dry professor in a room full of sleepy students would say it was merely a need for a more efficient source of protein.
Tell that to the first Bhor who peered over an ice ledge, considered the streggan crunching the bones of a hunting mate, and thought fondly of the empty—but safe—vegetable pot back home.
It must have been an awesome sight when the first Bhor made the historical decision. Compared to the streggan he would have been a tiny figure. Compared to a humanoid, however, the Bhor was solid mass. Short, with a curved spine, bowed but enormous legs, splayed feet, and a face only a "mother's beard" could love. His body was covered by thick fur. A heavy forehead, many cms thick. Bushy brows and brown eyes shot with red.
Although about only 150cms tall, the average Bhor is one meter wide—all the way down—and weighs about 130 kilograms. As far as mass equivalent, this equals the density of most heavy-worlders like Alex.
And so what the streggan was faced with was enormous strength in a small package. Plus the Bhor ability to build cold-heat-tempered tools. All the Bhor had to figure out was how to club the streggan down.
There were many mistakes. Witness the gore of early Bhor legends. But, finally, somebody got it right and the streggan became a major source of that missing protein.
There was an early error, quickly corrected. The first thing a Bhor did at a kill was to rip out the liver and devour it raw. With a streggan, the Bhor might as well have been consuming cyanide. The lethal amount of vitamin A found in a streggan liver would be double that of an Earth polar bear (also lethal) or that of a century-old haddock. Eating the liver of your enemy was the first of the Old Ways to go.
Before they could expand offworld, the Bhor first had to master the ice of their native world. With the streggan at bay, the Bhor then learned to trade. With that came the ability to kill their own kind. After all, what else was left to brag about in the drinking hall?
Unlike those of most beings, Bhor wars over the centuries were small and quickly settled into an odd sort of unity through combat.
Basic principle of Bhor religious emancipation: I got my gods, you got yours. If I get in trouble, could I borrow a couple?
When the Bhor first began expanding their "oases" by melting the glacier ice, the great cry came to "Save the Streggan." The Bhor had killed so well that their previous G
rendel of enemies was nearly extinct. Today the only examples left are in Bhor zoos. They are much smaller (we think) than before, but still fierce. Enough for a Bhor mother to still use them for traditional boogey-men.
The streggan are now as much a legend as the saying "By my mother's beard." All Bhor have a great deal of facial hair to hide their receding chins. The females have slightly more than the males. In ancient times, it was a long, flowing beard for their children to cling to when mother was gathering veggies—or was faced with a shot at pure-protein streggan.
By the time the streggan were nursery legends, the Bhor had already established themselves as traders throughout the Lupus Cluster. Even though the People of Talamein—both sides—were moderately xenophobic, they knew enough to leave the Bhor alone.
As long as the Bhor kept to themselves and stayed within the trading enclaves, there was no trouble as the humans expanded through the cluster. The Bhor did not think much one way or another of most people anyway, so coexistence was possible.
Until the Jannisars decided they needed an Enemy. Which put the rogue, one-god fanatics against casually pantheistic armed trader-smugglers.
When Sten met them, the outnumbered Bhor were as headed for extinction as their old enemies, the streggan. But with no one to drink their souls to hell.
Chapter Eleven
"HAWKTHORNE CONTROL, THIS is the trader Bhalder. Request orbital landing clearance. Clear."
Otho closed the mike and looked over the control panel at Sten. "By my mother's beard, this be an odd world. Last time we put down here there were three different landing controls." Otho rumbled slight merriment. "And they swore great oaths that if we followed anyone else's landing plot they'd blow us out of the atmosphere.
"Enough to drive a Bhor to stregg, I tell you." He grinned huge yellow teeth at Sten. "Of course, that doesn't take much doing."
Sten had noticed.
The speaker garbled, then cleared. "Vessel Bhalder. Give outbound plot."
"This is the Bhalder. Twenty ship-days out of Lupus Cluster."
"Received. Your purpose in landing?"
"My chartermate is hiring soldiers," Otho said. "Vessel Bhalder. this is Hawkthorne Control. Received.