A Covenant of Justice

by David Gerrold

  The third explorer, however, refused to consider this option. The whole thing appalled him more than he could say. He had never allowed another male of any species to touch his body, and even the promise of ultimate survival did not outweigh the horror that he felt at the thought of passive anal intercourse with a tribe of ferocious, four-meter tall, blue-skinned natives. So, bravely, sternly, he stood up to the Chief and announced, “I choose death.”

  This pleased the Chief immensely. A broad grin spread over his huge ugly face. “I acknowledge your courage and I bow to you as the greatest warrior of all. You shall have the most glorious death imaginable. But first—boonga!”

  3 Especially imported for his pleasure from the Old City detainment on Thoska-Roole.

  4 Actually, a pretty good guess on Sawyer’s part. One maissel-fish looks pretty much like another.

  5 In later days, this young Captain would develop a reputation for incredible courage and fearlessness in the face of danger. In his own words: “What should I fear? If you can survive having a Dragon roar into your face, nothing else can touch you.”

  6 For details, see An Alliance of Life.

  7 Unfortunately for the lucky pilot, when he reached the mating games, he overestimated both his skill and his luck. He miscalculated in the second round of combat with the neural whip-sling, earning himself respectful applause from the audience and a beautiful burial site.

  8 Connoisseurs rate pfingle eggs by size, by species, by grade, and by how many days until hatching. Pfingle eggs enjoy considerable immunity to cold; refrigeration only delays hatching, it does not prevent it.

  Most gourmands prefer their pfingle eggs as ripe as possible; but at the same time most gourmands also consider it very bad luck to remain in the proximity of pfingle eggs when they hatch. In the interests of safety, most experts recommend the rapid consumption (or destruction) of any egg rated at less than ten days. Most (surviving) governments require the destruction of pfingle eggs on the fifth day before hatching.

  This requires some explanation. Pfingles travel in swarms. Large swarms. On their home planet, the natives often use swarms of pfingles as war weapons, secretly smuggling ripe eggs into their enemy’s most valuable cities and installations. Some terraformers use industrial grade pfingles for clearing continents.

  Despite this, pfingle eggs enjoy a widespread popularity throughout the Cluster. With proper handling and preparation, a talented cook can prepare pfingle eggs in any of a thousand different delightful ways, including raw pfingle pie, pfingle soufflé, poached pfingle, roast pfingle stew, and even candied pfingles. Indeed, throughout the Cluster, millions of people consider unhatched pfingle eggs a regular and important part of their diet. At 3500 calories per egg, a pfingle egg represents a significant part of the daily protein requirement for many species.

  As a result, at 3.5 caseys per egg (plus transportation costs), a cargo of pfingle eggs has a profit/investment ratio high enough to bring tears of joy to even the most jaded accountant. Averaging two dozen eggs per kilogram, one metric ton of pfingle eggs should realize 84,000 caseys on the open market. Freebooters regard Pfingle eggs as one of the most profitable cargoes a starship can carry — as well as one of the most dangerous.

  9 Of the three true alien species known to humanity, the Knaxx remain the most mysterious. Humanity discovered them on multiple planets of the Cluster, although the Knaxx have never demonstrated any evidence of the necessary technological ability to build starships. As humanity spread through the Palethetic Cluster, so did the Knaxx, shipping themselves and their eggs on human cargo vessels.

  The Regency tolerates their existence. They cause no harm to their surroundings and do not interfere in Regency affairs; apparently, they prefer to silently observe the activities of humans and other allied species without interacting to any great degree.

  The Knaxx have resisted all attempts to study them in depth. According to the best assessment of Regency experts, the Knaxx evolved from insect-like hive creatures. Whatever one of them knows, all of the rest of them seem to know it immediately too. No one has yet discovered how they do this, but this particular ability has made them very useful throughout the Cluster as buyers and sellers of information of all kinds.

  Most StarPorts usually have a scattering of Informant booths around their fringes.

  10 Coincidentalists believe that the universe does not commit accidents.

  Everything has a purpose. Everything has a reason. It only looks happenstance because we don’t understand the larger flows of the universe. According to the higher realms of the Coincidentalist philosophy, we achieve happiness by being a part of that flow instead of resisting it.

  In the larger scheme of things, Coincidentalism seems no sillier than any other religion. To its credit, its practitioners have produced some extraordinary, if unduplicatable, results.

  11 Seventeen years earlier, “an unfortunate incident” occurred at the small mining settlement of Kilpatrick’s Folly on the backwater world of Morpaline. A troop of Regency Dragons sought revenge for an inadvertent insult to one of their number. (The original insult was not even caused by an inhabitant of their settlement, but by a visiting traveler, known only as Mr. Costello, “professional hero.”) The Dragons’ revenge got out of hand; they slipped into a killing rage and ran amok through a mountain settlement, killing 117 of the 183 inhabitants.

  The Regency Prefect (a member of the Lee clone-family) on Morpaline summarily ordered the entire troop of Dragons dishonorably executed. This incident triggered a three-year civil war between the Lee clone-family and the Moktar Dragons. This war never officially ended; the Dragons simply ran out of Lee clones to kill. They exterminated almost all of the entire Lee family. Nevertheless, the vendetta remains in effect.

  Of some peripheral interest, a number of children survived the massacre, including two boys; Finn Markham, age 15, and his younger brother, Sawyer, age 8. Already hardened by the tough conditions on Morpaline, Finn made a personal vow to accomplish two things in his life: First, he would see that Sawyer was raised and educated to be worthy of their family name. Second, he would track down and kill Mr. Costello, the traveler who insulted the Dragon Guard in their village.

  The Regency Prefect transferred Finn and Sawyer (and most of the other orphans) to the custody of a human-services placement agency — a kind of high-class slave-trader. Later, the Regency agreed to pay “compensation fees” to each of the survivors. Unfortunately, the Dragon Guard challenged this attempt at compensation in court as an insult to their honor. The case dragged on for many years, and by the time that all parties finally came to agreement, little remained of the award to the remaining survivors, the legal corporations representing them claimed the bulk of the money. Sawyer and Finn collected almost nothing for their parent’s death. As a result of these events, Sawyer and Finn developed a lifelong distrust of both lawyers and governments.

  Sawyer and Finn finally contracted for adoption by a military colony, where both learned significant survival skills. Unfortunately, their personal agendas kept them from being fully assimilated. They used their small share of the Kilpatrick settlement to pay off their indentures to the colony and left by the first ship they could book passage on to become trackers.

  They still haven’t found Mr. Costello, the man responsible for triggering the Kilpatrick massacre, but neither have they stopped looking.

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