The Tuloriad-ARC

by John Ringo

  "Binastarion calling, Lord," Tulo's AS announced.

  "Yes, Bina. I'm listening."

  The kessentai's voice contained infinite sadness as he said, "Tulo . . . the humans are here."

  USS Salem

  Sally, the AID, announced over the ship's speakers, "KE cannon powered up and on line. Emergence in . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . ."

  The weaving grays and pinks of hyperspace disappeared, to be replaced by stars and planets and a single detectible Posleen ship, in orbit about one of those planets.

  "One target identified; Posleen C-Dec. He is powering up his weapons. I am targeting . . . targeting . . . I have target lock and awaiting command to fire."

  "Hold fire," Dwyer said. "We're a mission of peace. Can you contact that C-Dec?"

  "Attempting contact now," the ship answered.

  Dwyer watched as the stars and planets on the main viewer were replaced by, first static, then the dim outline of a kessentai, then finally a clear enough picture of one of the crested, centauroid aliens. The Posleen's mouth was moving, though no sound of words came at first.

  "Translation program on line," the ship announced. "He says his name is Binastarion and that this is Posleen space. He says they will fight in defense."

  And that, too, is a change, Dwyer thought. A Posleen who doesn't attack at the first sign of one of us. Perhaps they learned something from the war.

  C-Dec Arganaza'al

  A human ship that did not open fire upon emergence? Binastarion thought in wonder. That's a change. Enough to risk not engaging while they're still disoriented from emergence? Sure . . . why not? They outmass me by a factor of maybe four claws. The sooner I open fire, the sooner I die and the People below are left defenseless.

  USS Salem

  "Do we know anything about Binastarion?" Dwyer asked aloud.

  Guano, brought to the bridge of Salem for his insights into his own people, answered, "It's not an uncommon name. There was a Binastarion commanding the western front on the Posleen side, in Panama, during the war. I doubt they're the same being, though."

  Dwyer looked at his wife, also standing by on the bridge by the fire control station.

  "Human Face Recognition Technology never really was adapted to the Posleen face," she said. "Even if I or my sister caught a glimpse of that Binastarion, we have no way of telling if this one is the same."

  "Fair enough. Can I speak with him?"

  "Yes. Go ahead. He's listening."

  "Binastarion," Dwyer said, "I am Father Daniel Dwyer, Society of Jesus, and captain of this ship, the USS Salem . . ."

  "During the war I fought a wet surface ship named Salem," the Posleen interrupted, "along with one named Des Moines. They were redoubtable opponents. This ship is named for that one?"

  "This ship is that one," Dwyer answered, "much modified."

  The Posleen on the screen whistled. Dwyer wasn't quite sure what the sound meant. He asked Guano, standing next to him.

  "Isss sssounnnd offf . . . prrraissse . . . wworrrthththyyy fffoe."

  Turning back to the image on the screen, Guano asked, in High Posleen, "Are you that same Binastarion who led the People in the place on Earth called 'Panama'?"

  "I am . . . though that was long ago and I was Kessentai then, not Kessenalt, as I am now. I threw my stick, you see, after the last, disastrous battle."

  "In that case," the Reverend said, "formal introductions are not necessary. You all know each other very well."

  "Threw your stick, did you?" Dwyer said, his voice filled with irony. "I think maybe we're even better acquainted than the Reverend thinks. May we come aboard, Binastarion, to parley?"

  Pinnace, USS Salem

  Halfway between the two ships, the smaller C-Dec and USS Salem, the pinnace sailed through vacuum. Aboard was a small party, including Dwyer and Guano and the Indowy, Aelool. The priest toyed contemplatively with a dull metal stick, about a foot and a half long and square in cross section. He'd kept it all these years, ever since the Posleen had tossed it to him aboard one of USS Des Moines' lifeboats.

  "I have no idea of the proper protocol," Guano, speaking through his AS, told Dwyer. "So far as I know, it's never been done before. When a kessentai tosses his stick in battle, he doesn't survive the experience."

  "Indeed, Lord, there is no precedent of which I am aware for giving his stick back to a kessentai who's turned kessenalt," the AS added.

  "All right," the priest agreed. "Do you, personally, think it would hurt any?"

  "It might," Guano thought. "A kessentai who's thrown his stick and then turned from the battle might feel honor bound to continue the battle he'd left off."

  Dwyer, considering it, thought, My, wouldn't that just suck?

  "I agree, Lord," added the AS. "It is . . . dangerous. At least until you have some idea how that particular philosopher might react."

  "I'll take your advice, then," Dwyer agreed, sliding the stick down into his uniform jacket. "Perhaps, after this meeting, you may judge better."

  C-Dec Arganaza'al

  There were only seven Posleen, a kessentai, a kessenalt, and five cosslain, aboard the ship. This caused a certain surprise for Dwyer when he and his party were met by just two of them, the kessenalt, Binastarion, and a single cosslain.

  "I am just here to entertain you," Binastarion said, his own AS translating. "Our clan lord, Tulo'stenaloor, will be coming up from the surface within one of your hours to discuss matters with you."

  "Binastarion," the AS said, in Posleen, "although he seems younger, as best I can judge, this is the human to whom you threw your stick."

  "The funny collar about its neck is the same, I grant you, AS, but . . ."

  "Your AS is correct, Binastarion," Guano said. "This is that human."

  "I think then," said the kessenalt, "that we will have many good war stories to lie to each other about."

  "To that end," said Guano, reaching into his harness bag and pulling out a gallon jug, "may I ask if you've ever been introduced to that semi-divine human mixture, scotch and formaldehyde?"

  Posleen Prime

  The lander was warmed up, with but a single kessentai aboard to pilot it. Outside, by the broad landing and boarding ramp, the tinkerer and his clan lord argued.

  "I really don't think you should be going into space at all," Golo said to Tulo. "Especially should you not be going with no escort."

  The clan lord shook his great head. "Do you really think that a hundred guards would make a difference in space, Tinkerer? You heard Binastarion; that ship is enormous, a match for ten or twenty C-Decs. And what good do you think it would do to stay on the ground? If it's that big, it could hold an entire oolton of the metal threshkreen. No; I'll not skulk. If they mean us harm perhaps I can dissuade them. If they mean us well, as Binastarion says they insist they do, and which he says there is reason to believe is true, I'd like to know just what 'well' they mean us. And direct it, if possible, of course."

  "Binastarion says that the Indowy, Aelool, is among their party."

  Tulo laughed. "You know, Golo," he said, "there was a time, and not so long ago, I'd have gladly hacked that fuzzy-faced little swine to bits for all the trouble he put us through."

  "Not now?" Goloswin asked.

  "Ask yourself, Tinkerer; are we better off or worse off for all that trouble?"

  Golo didn't hesitate in answering, "In the main, better. No . . . without him we'd all be dead so clearly we're better off."

  "So think I. If anything, I probably ought reward the motherfucker."

  C-Dec Arganaza'al

  The Posleen were not a people deeply enamored of pomp and circumstance. No sooner had Tulo's lander docked to the C-Dec than he exited and made his way down to the assembly area where sat the humans and their little pinnace.

  Entering that area, Tulo looked at one very nervous seeming Indowy and said, through his AS, "If you only knew, little one, the trouble you caused." Aelool managed to look more nervous still before th
e clan lord burst into Posleen laughter and added, "Name your reward."

  "Forgiveness would be nice," Aelool, no less nervous seeming, answered.

  "That's too little," Tulo said.

  "Then . . . let these humans perform the mission they have come on," Aelool suggested.

  "Their mission?" Tulo asked.

  "They—most of them, anyway—wish to acquaint the People of the Ships with their belief in a superior being, one they believe created the universe and all the life within it. I think, by the way, that their message is a practical false one, but a philosophical truth. I also think that hearing that message just might be to the benefit of your people, Tulo, Lord of Clan Sten."

  "You said, 'most of them,' Indowy. What do the others want?"

  "Tulo, there are too many variants to the basic message to relate. Suffice to say that some among their party have a religion—that's the term the humans use—very similar to the ancestor reverence practiced by the Posleen, that others believe in more than one superior being, that still others do not believe in a superior being at all, but do believe that each sentient being has a soul which returns to life again and again until it has finally learned all it needs to learn to cease returning to life."

  "And why do the humans seek to bring us these conflicting messages?" Tulo asked.

  Aelool didn't answer, but looked directly at Dwyer.

  "In part," the Jesuit said, "for the good of your souls . . . and ours . . . in part for the peace of the galaxy."

  "I cannot and will not order any of my people to believe in and join your religions," Tulo said, after some hours of negotiations. "I cannot and will not at this time commit to an alliance with the humans, even against the never-sufficiently-to-be-damned Darhel. I can offer your humans, Father Dwyer, the chance to speak to my people and to persuade them if they can. I will even provide kessentai to escort and provide safe conduct. Further, however, I cannot go. "

  Dwyer nodded. It was reasonable. No, he thought, it's more than reasonable. Who would have assumed that the great Tulo'stenaloor, 'murderer on a planetary scale,' could, in fact, be such a reasonable creature. The priest looked 'up,' so to speak, even though 'up' was all around him, and thought, too, Lord, Your ways, however I may try to understand them, are beyond my ken. Which does not mean I won't keep asking for an explanation, mind You.

  Posleen Prime

  "The humans will be coming down," Tulo said. Most of his group of close advisors trusted his judgment in this. Others were more skeptical. One, at least, Goloswin, was simply fearful.

  "Must we let them among us, Tulo? Bringing their alien philosophies? Are you sure they mean us no harm?"

  Tulo'stenaloor sighed. "I'm as sure as I can be. I'm not quite as sure what their reaction would be if I refused them permission. It might be . . . very bad. Their leader, a sort of Rememberer, seemed like a very reasonable being but, like the rest of you, I've met human duplicity before.

  "Still," Tulo continued, "I see no reason to simply trust them. Essone?"

  "Yes, Lord," answered that staff officer, a replacement for the one lost and presumed eaten on Hemaleen V.

  "I want you to make a list of those among our kessentai who are most reliable and also most reasonable. I've told the humans I will give them escorts to ensure their safety. I want those to be escorts who will observe and report, as well."

  "I'll make the arrangements, Lord," the Essone answered.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Home had the wanderers come, home to the planet of the People

  And yet home, once left, ceases ever to be the same home again.

  —The Tuloriad, Na'agastenalooren

  Anno Domini 2024

  Posleen Prime

  Finba'anaga took a certain justifiable pride in the part he had played in reconstructing Posleen civilization, such as it was. Still, it was not an unlimited pride. He knew, or example, that the old religion he had recreated was, at best, partial and incomplete—"about one molecule deep," as he sometimes phrased it. He suspected that, so long as there were normals and cosslain, there could be no going back to the true old ways. Even so, what they had—a city, a civic life, an economy—they had regained in goodly part through his own efforts and insights.

  Nor did Finba have any strong feelings against the humans. After all, he'd never fought them, personally. Then, too, there was a certain, not entirely unjustifiable, fear of them. From everything he'd learned, they were simply dangerous, too dangerous to provoke.

  For that reason, he could see, too, how Tulo'stenaloor might feel the need to acquiesce in the humans' frankly bizarre request to spread word of their equally bizarre 'religions.' He wasn't even particularly worried about it. What appeal, after all, could an alien god have to his own people?

  And then he saw the being he waited for, the interesting one. Possibly even the most dangerous one. Guanamarioch.

  Only the two junior Posleen were armed, Querida with her ancient boma blade strapped to her side and Frederico with his monomolecular halberd carried in his claws. Along with a small crowd of others, the three of them—Guano, Frederico, and Querida—debarked from the pinnace to air that should have felt like home yet did not. Neither Querida nor her son, both having been born on Earth, really felt that anyplace but Earth could be home, though Posleden was still better. Guano, though born on a different planet, still had spent so much of his life on Earth that it—barring only the never-sufficiently-to-be-damned jungle—seemed more like home than anyplace else.

  The only homelike thing about Posleen prime, the presence of a majority population of his own people, was disconcerting to Frederico and Querida precisely because they had never been around any Posleen but each other and Guano. Oh, yes, Querida had been raised in a breeding pen by a bughouse nuts kessentai who sold his progeny to humans for the bounty on their heads, but of this she had little memory. For Frederico, on the other hand, he'd never even seen a Posleen outside of his own, immediate, family. (His father had made very sure that the boy never saw any of the stuffed heads some people kept on their walls.)

  "Is this what the world you were born on was like, Dad?" Frederico asked as the trio ambled along the clay-topped road that led from the pinnace's landing point to the city gate.

  "Not really, son," the minister answered. "This is much too peaceful for close resemblance. The world I was born on was already sliding into orna'adar by the time I was taken out of the breeding pens. That world was hot. This one is cooler. The gravity here feels lighter, too, and the sun's a better color."

  "It's weird to me," Frederico said. "I've never been around any others of the People besides you and mom. I don't know if I can trust them."

  "Christian charity would tell you to trust them, son," Guano said. "But I know my own people and I'd advise you not to trust them until you know them a lot better."

  A couple of humans in white shirts with black ties passed by Finba'anaga, folding bycicles slung across their backs. He paid them no mind, though one of the waiting kessentai soon took them in tow. Rather, Finba kept his concentration firmly fixed on the trio of Posleen.

  Tulo'stenaloor hadn't specifically ordered an escort for the Posleen, perhaps on the theory that they would be in no particular danger from the others of the People.

  Which does not mean, Finba thought, that we are in no danger from them. Which is why I am here.

  Finba waited until the small crowd from the humans' ship's pinnace had begun to disperse before walking over and introducing himself. Crossing his arms in front of his chest and making a slight bow, Finba said, "I am Finba'anaga, lately of the Clan of Sten, servant to Tulo'stenaloor and high acolyte in the Way of Remembrance."

  Guano repeated the gesture. "Guanamarioch, of the . . . the Clans of the Baptists and the Episcopals, in the service of our Lord," he said. Guano's head dipped right and then left. "My eson'antai, Frederico, and my wife, Querida. Are you assigned as our escort?"

  Finba understood eson'antai, of course. In High Posleen it meant,
approximately, "prized lineal descendant." The term "wife" was new to him, however. He inquired.

  "Traditionally, we mate with only one," Guano answered, "and we mate for life. Under the pressure of population imbalance, this is changing, for some. Beyond that, it is hard to explain. A wife is . . . well . . . in human terms, they having two sexes and one of those giving live birth, a wife is the bearer of the young. It is the husband's task to support the wife in her major task. She, because of the time and care she must devote to bearing and raising the young is uniquely valuable, in a way that a cosslain of the People never is."