The Tuloriad-ARC

by John Ringo

  "Remembrance is not obviously in your skill set," Golo cautioned.

  "True, Lord," Finba agreed. "Yet it has become an interest of mine. I wish merely for greater understanding, not to throw my stick and don the golden harness."

  Golo's yellow eyes narrowed with suspicion. "You will not neglect your duties with the engines."

  "Never, Lord. I would study, if the Rememberer agrees, during my off cycle."

  Goloswin considered this for perhaps a hundred beats, remaining silent throughout so that Finba's hearts began to thrum with anxiety within him. Finally, the Tinkerer signed agreement. What can it hurt, after all?

  "I will put in a word with our Rememberer for you," the senior kessentai said.

  "Thank you, Lord."

  In the main assembly hall, the same one where Tulo had greeted the new acquisitions, the Rememberer was concluding his service.

  "We thank you, ancestral spirits," the Rememberer intoned, his clawed arms raised above him in supplication. "We thank you for your care. We thank you for your oversight. We thank you for the memories of valor you have bequeathed us, which memories have seen us through such difficult days."

  "We remember," chanted the massed kessentai.

  "And now, a reading from the Scroll of Wayward Journeys," the Remember said.

  "He does not really seem the type," the Rememberer said to Golo, after services. "And he has his stick still."

  "I don't think he wishes to don the golden harness," Golo answered. Rememberers wore harnesses of, depending on their personal status, gold or gilded leather. "At least his says he does not. He says, too, that he has no intention of throwing his stick. Yet, he is very clever, with a wide ranging skill set we've barely begun to explore. It might be good—good for the Clan of Sten—to let him expand his mind a bit with the scrolls."

  "Let me think upon it," the Rememberer said. "Perhaps, as you say, it will be a useful thing for the clan to have a kessentai versed in both your arcane arts and the wisdom of the ancients.

  "This is a new day. Never before have the People been defeated in war, except by others of the People. Never before have we had to flee a planet, except from ourselves. Perhaps new ways are called for, however much it may grate."

  "This was my precise thought," Golo agreed.

  "I shall think, too. Tell the kessentai that if I think it worthwhile I shall interview him. Does this Finba'anaga seem the credulous type?"

  "No, not at all," Golo answered.

  The Posleen prayed to the ancestors sometimes, usually in public, with arms raised in supplication. At others, more commonly in private, an eyes closed, head down, arms folded form was more typical. It was in the latter pose that the Rememberer communed with his ancestral spirits.

  Spirits, guide me, for I don't know what to do. I have no worthy successor. Of the kessenalt, all continue to support the Path of Fury, even if they do not fight directly, themselves. And none of the other kessentai have thrown their sticks yet, to make them suitable replacements for me. And I am growing old, ancestors, old. I have seen more than a dozen worlds descend into orna'adar. Soon I will join you. What shall happen to this last, so far as we know, fragment of the people when I am gone?

  There is a young kessentai, one who has not thrown his stick, who wishes to study under me. He seems not the type, from all I can observe and despite what his current overlord says.

  And yet, he is all I have. Should I reject his plea? Should I accept it and hope that learning the ways of the Scrolls and of the history of our people will persuade him to follow our path?

  Guide me, spirits, for I am small and alone and lost.

  The Rememberer had his own cosslain, an assistant of sorts, but that cosslain was not a part of the interview. Rather, the Rememberer interviewed Finba'anaga himself.

  "Why, puppy?" the Rememberer scowled. "Why does it interest you? My guild's art is not solid and hard. It is not something to be held and grasped and manipulated like a boma blade or the anti-matter you toy with."

  Even this early in his life, Finba had grasped that the partial truth was often the best lie. "The last planet, Hemaleen V? The power of the Aldenata terrified me for our people. I wish to understand them, that we might survive them."

  The Remember considered. "That's a fair answer," he said. "But what if I told you that there is no defense against the Aldenata, except to flee their reach? For they will always try to 'help' you."

  "Then I would like to learn how best to keep out of that reach," Finba answered, without a blink of his yellow eyes.

  "There are tales," the Rememberer agreed, with a slow nod. "There are legends. There are also scrolls that are written in a language you cannot read now. Are you willing to learn a new language?"

  "I am, Lord . . . if I am able."

  "Indeed. A fairly humble admission, on your part, that you might not be able."

  "I can only try, Lord," Finba said.

  Again the Rememberer nodded. He turned away from Finba and took three steps to reach a gilded chest, the usual burden of his cosslain assistant. He placed one claw upon a portion of the chest, causing it to wheeze open of its own accord. From the chest he drew a tubular wrapping of some kind of animal skin. The tube he rolled down, reverently, exposing a golden scroll.

  "This is pure heavy metal," the Rememberer said, holding the scroll aloft, "but its value does not lie in the material. It is a language manual, the only one of its kind I know of in existence." He began to hand the scroll to Finba'anaga, then apparently thought better of it.

  "You would not believe the edas I incurred for this. If you lose it, or damage it, or scuff it, or bend it, or mar it, or treat it with anything but the utmost reverence and care, I will get Lord Tulo to allow one thousand eggs to be hatched into one thousand hungry nestlings. I will then have you bound and thrown to those nestlings. Those nestlings shall then be burned with fire so that no part of you continues in existence. Do I make myself clear?"

  Almost Finba refused the offering. He was quite certain that the Rememberer would make good the threat, should anything happen to the scroll. Still, he gulped out, "You are very clear, Lord."

  The Rememberer did then offer the scroll. "Take it then, and do not forget my warnings."

  More than half reluctantly, Finba took it. Carefully and reverently he opened the scroll part way, peering down at the tiny writing engraved thereon.

  "Lord, this is our writing," he said, in confusion.

  "Look more carefully, Puppy."

  Finba did. At first it didn't register fully, but after a few moments' concentration, he said, "I see. It's all our writing, but half is not our language. What language is it, Lord?"

  "It's the demons' tongue," the Rememberer spat out. "It's Aldenata.

  "Learn it, and then there will be other scrolls you will be able to read."

  A Posleen kessentai rarely knew what his genetically encoded skill set would be until the need arose. Often, the need arose and the skill just wasn't there. This did not mean, however, that something for which there was no genetic encoding was necessarily beyond the kessentai, merely that . . .

  "Demon-spawn, accursed, never-sufficiently-to-be-damned, bastard, addled-egg Aldenata fucking gobbledygook! This is too fucking hard!"

  Not for the first time, Finba twisted his crocodilian head to one side and slammed it on the reading table in front of him. He was, of course, careful to move the scroll out of the way first; there was that (he was certain not idle) threat of a thousand hungry nestlings—little mouths, sharp teeth, big appetites, slow digestion—to consider, after all.

  "Better you than me," commented Borasmena. "And on that happy note," he added, "I've some chores to do."

  After the table ceased reverberating, and Boras had left, Finba lifted his head, sighed, and said, aloud, "How is one supposed to learn a language where every verb is irregular, where there is no word to describe 'fight,' except an obscure obscenity, and four hundred and thirty-two verbs for various versions and aspects of 'to
love?' Where a verb that means 'die' can also mean, depending on altogether too subtle context, 'cease function,' 'ascend,' 'descend,' 'translate,' 'cross over,' 'fuck like abat,' and 'wash the linen'?" How does one learn a language where every statement is wrapped around with an inviolable moral command? And how can that be with a language that has no word for 'honor?' I—"

  Finba'anaga was about to say, "I give up." Then he remembered that giving up could also mean his death. No . . . I can't give up. I must understand these beings. They're simply too frightfully powerful not to.

  He pulled the scroll back toward his chest and began, once again, trying to fathom the seemingly unfathomable.

  "How are your studies, coming, puppy?" the Rememberer asked, several ship cycles later.

  "They're . . . coming," Finba answered.

  The Rememberer gave a toothy Posleen grin. "I understand. For whatever it may be worth to you, learning that language took me . . . well . . . a very long time."

  Finba sighed. "How did you stand it?"

  "I truly don't know. Perhaps because it gave me yet another reason to loathe the Aldenata . . . not that any of the People lack for reasons."

  "Why do they hate us so?" Finba'anaga asked.

  "Hate us, puppy? They don't hate us. We're less than bugs to them." The Rememberer walked to the table that held the golden scroll and unrolled it nearly to the end. His skilled claw pointed at a particular word. "Do you know what that means, boy?"

  Finba shook his head.

  "That's their word for us, and it means 'little, stupid, ugly, immoral, and expendable primitives, raised from the muck.'"

  Tulo'stenaloor, Binastarion, Goloswin and the Esstwo and Essthree contemplated the little ball of mud, lately named Nura'gantar, hanging still and silent on the bridge's main view screen.

  "Orna'adar," the Esstwo pronounced. "And worse than I've ever heard of. That entire planet is poisoned to us or to any life. It is dead, dead, dead."

  "I could go down, alone," Goloswin suggested. "Tests on my Himmit-metal suit indicate it can ward off a great deal of hard radiation."

  "Too risky," Tulo answered. "We'll send down a lander to do a survey of some of the least contaminated sites. Binastarion, that's your job."

  "No problem, Tulo," the kessenalt answered.

  "By the way, Golo, how is progress coming on producing more of the Himmit-metal?"

  The Tinkerer shook his head. "Essentially none. The forge refuses even to recognize that the metal exists."

  "Anything too good to be true probably isn't, I suppose," Tulo said.

  "Except that the metal is real, or we'd still be stuck back in the Diess system. I haven't given up on the stuff yet, Tulo. Neither should you."

  The clan lord smiled then. Count on the Tinkerer to persist until he breaks the rules of the universe, then reforms them and bends them to his will.

  "Keep at the stuff, Golo. If any among us can find a way to create more, that someone can only be you."

  Goloswin nodded agreement, but added, "I am hoping that my assistant, if he ever learns the scroll the Rememberer has him slaving over, may uncover something in the other scrolls that will help."

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The fool hath said in his heart, "There is no God."

  —Psalms 14:1, King James Version

  Anno Domini 2021

  Hemaleen V

  Aelool's first instinct was panic, a panic born of the sudden cut off of light mated to the simultaneous wedging of his body in a bend in the chute. Distantly, filtered through the soft flesh of his body and the hard rock, he heard Dwyer calling, "Arrre you alll rrright?"

  The sound of another sentient being's voice was enough to stave off the panic that he felt building. He shouted back, and the echo in the chute was loud enough to strain his own ears, "All right . . . yes . . . just that. So dark though."

  "Turrrn . . . onnn . . . the . . . lllighttt."

  "How?" Aelool asked.

  "Telll ittt tttooo turrrn onnn."

  "Oh. Light on."

  Immediately, the tiny lamp in front of the Indowy's helmet came on. It was quite intense, for such a small thing. Aelool saw for the first time the interior of the chute. Along the slightly bowed bottom there was a thick layer of what appeared to be dust but was almost certainly in goodly part ancient dried feces. Above that, the walls formed a rough triangle, meeting at the peak. Between the "dust" and the smoothness of the chute, there was no traction to be had. The walls were a different story, rougher in material and with apparently less care given to their construction in whatever distant day the pyramid had been erected.

  Aelool couldn't press his palms to the walls, left to left and right to right; the design precluded that. He tried first using the backs of each hand but discovered that, even though protected by fur, the walls were a little too rough. He'd made a little progress that way before deciding that the damage to his hands was excessive. He then tried a different approach, crossing his forearms one over the other and placing his rougher palms against the walls. This worked better.

  Along his upward path, numerous smaller chutes—feeders, he supposed—branched off. None were large enough to fit his body and so he ignored them.

  What he could not ignore were the images in his mind, images mostly born of once having made the mistake of watching one of the humans' entertainments, a series of "movies."

  Thus, all the way up, Aelool kept thinking of huge stone balls rolling across his prostrate form, crushing it. That, or pits full of vipers and other pits with sharpened stakes at the bottom. He imagined a stream of sand filling the chute to suffocate him. He thought he heard . . .

  "Knock it off, Aelool," the Indowy said to himself, aloud. "The Posleen just don't think that way. For perverse and ghastly ways of doing away with grave robbers, it takes a human mind."

  After what seemed to Aelool to have been the passage of ages, but was in fact not much more than an hour, he saw his helmet's light reflected off of something approximately vertical.

  "Ah, so that's what the humans' 'light at the end of the tunnel' looks like, is it?"

  Another fifteen minutes of effort saw the Indowy's palms wrapped around the low corners of the triangular chute. He tugged, and tugged, and tugged a bit more until his torso was inside what appeared to be an inclined hallway. A little wriggling, and a few more pushes, and Aelool slithered down to the floor. He rolled over onto his back and lay there, panting with exertion, for some minutes. The greenish tendrils that looked like fur waved furiously the whole while.

  After catching his breath, Aelool stood and placed his face as near the entrance to the chute as possible. "I'm in," he shouted.

  Dwyer answered back. "Good. Find the entrance. Open it."

  As predicted, the ramp wound in a right-angled, squared off spiral up the side of the pyramid, just inside the outer wall. To his right, that wall was angled in sharply, in accordance with the outer shape of the pyramid. On the inside, however, as he had glimpsed from the chute, the wall was vertical.

  That vertical surface was covered with bas-reliefs. Aelool's first impression was that these were crude. Closer examination, however, told him that they were merely stylized. He didn't think anyone would ever call them "high art," but they were not precisely low, either.

  The carvings seemed to be of a mass of Posleen kessentai, all moving in one direction. Since that seemed to be the same direction he was going in, upward, Aelool followed right along, only pausing occasionally to glance to his left.

  After a time, and a distance, the Indowy realized that the carving was not all of a piece. Rather, it was separated into segments. The separation was subtle however, a tree of some kind here, the edge of a pyramid there, or a mountain or the bulk of a spaceship elsewhere. In each section, the mass of kessentai were typical of their breed, if somewhat stylized, with crests and boma blades present.

  Except for one figure, standing a bit above the rest, which had a crest but no blade. That figure, Aelool realized, was distinc
tly present in each frame.

  Aelool turned a corner and discovered that the procession, if that's what it was, ended. Along the next wall the unarmed figure stood still in the middle of a great mass of God-kings, both of the figures claws upraised even as the rest of the kessentai held aloft recognizable boma blades. There was Posleen writing atop and across each of the panels now, but Aelool had never learned to read Posleen, High or Low.