by John Ringo
"Father?" von Altishofen asked of the priest, standing on the deck with both his arms around Sally, the woman. In one hand Dwyer still kept hold of the processional cross that would be his sole armament in the coming battle. Sally held in one of her hands an Artificial Sentience she had had the forge cough up.
"One minute, Wachtmeister," the priest answered.
"I wish I could go with you," Sally whispered.
"Yes, but you can't," Dwyer answered. "Not without landing the ship, anyway, and that would be what we call 'a really bad idea.'"
"I feel like a coward," she said. "Me, a warship, and I feel like a coward."
"Yes, and you used to feel ugly until Guano made you that figurehead, too. Face it, beloved wife and beloved ship and beloved AID, for a being with logic circuits at her very core, you're not always terribly logical."
"My prerogative," she sniffed.
Dwyer snorted. "Of course. In any case, don't feel like you're missing anything. You'll be up here still, face to face with a kessenalt, a C-Dec and a potentially suicidal artificial sentience. You may have your own fight."
She nodded. "I know. It doesn't make me feel any better." The woman sighed and said, "It's time for you to go."
"With my shield or on it?"
"No," she answered. "With your cross or not at all." She draped the chain of the AS she held around Dwyer's neck. "This will translate for you."
It will also allow me to watch the battle.
Sally departed the hangar deck just as the pinnace's ramp wheezed shut. She was so intimately a part of the ship that she needed to touch no controls to cause the air to be evacuated and the hangar doors to open. Under her control, the pinnace lifted, then turned one hundred and eighty degrees to face the open bay. Still under her control it began to slide out of the hangar, and then to descend to the planet below. It would be several hours before it landed.
The Roga'a, Posleen Prime
Guanamarioch saw the pile of wood and immediately felt his stomach lurch. Kill me, yes, if you must, but not like this.
Finba'anaga saw the captive preacher's color go from a fairly solid yellow to a much paler shade. Good, he thought. You should fear it.
"Boras, bind the heretic to the pole," Finba ordered. "Loosen the coils around his muzzle, that he might make his plea."
At first, Guano thought that his former escort meant to bind him to the stake that ran through the wood pile and above it. Yet it was to a different pole that he was led, one set into the stones of the speaker's platform in the center of the Roga'a.
He didn't know the kessentai who led him. At least he didn't until that kessentai whispered in a fierce voice, "Why didn't you listen to me and leave when you could?"
Guano, with his muzzle still tightly bound, could not answer. The kessentai leading him didn't expect an answer. He simply bound Guano's neck tightly to the pole and backed off.
"Borasmena, loosen the rope around the creature's muzzle," Finba reminded. Borasmena did, undoing the knots and tugging on the rope until it was nothing but a non-restrictive coil around Guano's mouth and face.
Guano took a deep breath, his first easy breath since the coil was first set. After that, he said, "Thank you," and then, more softly, "and thank you, too, for the warning, Brother. God's blessings upon you, without it my wife and son would have been taken as well."
Borasmena made a slight nod and said, again, also softly, "You should have listened to me."
Guano shook his head. "That I could not. I am, you see, much like yourself, a kessentai under authority." Borasmena nodded, grateful that this kessentai understood, and then backed away.
Though his neck was fast bound, his head was free. Guano turned it and looked directly at Finba'anaga. A certain amount of his color had returned, and his face displayed the same calm it did whenever he was not spouting forth on the imagined virtues of his false god.
In part to cover his own nervousness, Finba declaimed, "The accused is charged with heresy and blasphemy. How does he plead?"
"I recognize no authority you may have to require of me a plea," Guano answered, still calm.
Finba'anaga sneered. "My followers are my authority. Our ancient faith is our authority. And you will answer, heretic." To Borasmena, Finba said, "Scourge him."
The whip was an implement that, if the Posleen had ever developed it, had since been lost. After all, what need of an animal whip when the normals and cosslain were utterly devoted, and just bright enough to obey completely without the need for corrective devices? Indeed, when faced with the prospect of needing to cause pain, rather than death, Finba and his followers had been at something of a loss for some time. Then some bright kessentai had remembered a sort of tree that grew in a small bend in a creek not far from the city. The tree was thin, never more than two claws in thickness and more commonly only one. From it grew thin, flexible thorns, about a half an inch long.
Guano took one look at the thorny switches being carried toward him and thought immediately of Panama's black palm. For just a moment, Guano found himself back in the muddy Darien jungle, during the war.
Darien, Panama,
during the war
Step . . . slip . . . catch your balance by a vine . . . step . . . slip . . . catch your . . .
"Yeooow!"
The God-king pulled his hand away from some round creature that grew spikes in bands around it. The spikes came away from their attacker easily; they were barbed and lodged deep in the Kessentai's hand. Still cursing, with the other hand he drew a Boma Blade and hacked down and across. The spiked creature fell, dead apparently.
Curiously, Guano detected no thrashing at all. It must have died instantly. He replaced the blade in its sheath and began pulling the spikes out of his hand. Yeoow . . . yeoow . . . yeoow . . . Ouch! He sensed that the spikes were leaving residue behind. The wounds in his hand hurt terribly.
The God-king moved on. Suddenly, before he felt it, he sensed a mass of the creatures standing ahead, as if ready to fight him. Again he drew his Boma Blade, edging forward. He hissed and snarled, grunting and whistling curses at this new enemy.
The blade waved. He felt the slightest resistance as it passed through the body of one of the enemy. The body began to topple, towards the God-king. Hastily he backed up . . .
Right onto a pack of the vile, treacherous creatures that had apparently snuck in behind him. Guanamarioch received an assfull of spikes. "Yeoow@#!%^&$*!" he cursed as pain propelled him forward again . . .
Right into the embracing claws of his enemy. More spikes entered the young God-king's tender flesh, right through the scales. He flailed around with his blade, severing the assassins where they stood. Their bodies fell on him.
Yes . . . more spikes.
Beaten down, punctured in a thousand places, the God-king sank to earth still fighting. He was still trying his best to resist when pain, fatigue, and the hunger that had been his near constant companion the last several weeks, forced him from consciousness.
Ziramoth did not know what to make, the next morning, of the pile of freshly cut foliage with sharp defensive spikes all around. He was looking for his friend, Guanamarioch, whose oolt had set up a perimeter from which they guarded and within which they keened for the absence of their Lord.
Then the pile moved . . . and groaned . . . and said, "I'll kill you all, you bastards!"
"Guano?"
"Zira? Is that you? Have the demons taken you to the afterlife as well?"
"Guano, you're not dead. Trust me in this."
"Yes I am, dead and in Hell. Trust me in this Ziramoth shook his head and began to gingerly pull away the pile under which he was pretty sure his friend lay. Sometimes, the pile shrieked as the plant trunks rolled about. When he was finished, Zira backed off and said, "You can stand up now, Guano."
Carefully, and perhaps reluctantly, the Kessentai stood. Zira whistled and shook his head slowly, and half in despair.
Guanamarioch, Junior Kessentai and flyer among the stars
, had, at a rough estimate, some thirteen hundred black, vegetable spikes buried in his skin. His eyes were shut from swelling where the spikes had irritated the flesh. He had the things in his nostrils. The folds of skin between his claws were laced with them. He even sported several that had worked their way through the bandages around his reproductive member to lodge in the sensitive meat below.
"I hate this fucking place," the God-king sniffled.
Almost, almost, the memory was enough to cause Guano to smile. He looked at the switch again and thought, I picked a bad nyarg to give up shooting sarin. And then the first switch flew and whatever thoughts he may have had of old jokes were replaced by searing pain.
Pinnace, USS Salem
Dwyer was searching his memory for just exactly what it was that the faces of the Switzers reminded him of. It was an old memory, very old. And then it hit him.
The Marines I was with on the landing craft inching in to Inchon. They looked just like this. The fear that was so bad it had to be put completely out of the mind or risk madness. And the boredom that came from having a blank mind. The Switzers look bored.
"How many of your men have been in battle before?" Dwyer whispered to von Altishofen.
"Serious battle? Myself, the two corporals, Beck and a couple of others. All have seen military service of course, but there's a difference between hunting down a lone feral in the High Alpine and manning a fortress when a horde of them tries to batter their way into the populated region. Have you, Father?"
The priest just nodded once. Then von Altishofen asked, "Where?"
"Korea, Vietnam, and during the Posleen war."
"You're that old? We had no idea."
Again Dwyer nodded. He joked, "It's why I had to marry Sally. She's the only woman I knew old enough to be my mate. At least the ship part of her is."
"I heard that," said the speaker in the pinnace's cargo compartment.
Chapter Thirty-four
Then were the judgments loosened.
—The Tuloriad, Na'agastenalooren
Anno Domini 2024
The Roga'a, Posleen Prime
Guano was a large creature, and naturally strong. It took many more than the traditional thirty-nine strokes to cause a moan to escape his muzzle and his knees to buckle. The tightening loop around his neck threatened to cut off Guano's air until he managed to force his legs to bear him again.
This is not working out the way I planned, Finba fumed. He looked around the crowd at the kessentai who had gathered to watch the spectacle. He saw too much admiration writ in their faces, a dangerous degree of admiration. Well, we just don't have a lot of experience with the deliberate infliction of great pain. How was I to know the People would admire the endurance of the thing?
"Stop!" he ordered Borasmena, who was supervising the two kessentai flogging the heretic. Gratefully, thankfully, Borasmena called off his assistants, then went to help Guano finish standing and to loosen the rope about his neck.
"Will you enter a plea now, blasphemer?" Finba'anaga asked.
Guano could almost have laughed, except that the agony in his back, his neck, and his legs, where the thorned switches had deeply torn his flesh, made humor impossible.
Instead he answered, "Plead? I plead that I have brought the word of the true God to my people. I plead that I have told them that the way to salvation is through Him."
"That you had done that much," Finba said, "we already knew. But, since you will not answer," Finba turned his gaze back to Borasmena, "scourge him further."
Having nothing much better to do, Goloswin continued to peruse the scroll Finba had handed to Tulo earlier, to justify his partial and temporary assumption of power.
"Interesting, really," Goloswin said. "When the boy's right; he's right."
"Eh?" Tulo grunted.
"Oh, he can, for specific purposes and for a limited time, take major power. And he can order you . . . us . . . kept under guard. But, you know," and the Tinkerer smiled very broadly, "that's the limit of the law he quotes. In every other particular, you remain clan lord and your word is law."
"Oh, really?" Tulo asked. "Now isn't that interesting?" Tulo looked over at the leader of the guards set upon him. "What's your name, kessentai?" he asked.
"Caltumenen," that kessentai answered. "Caltu, for short, Lord."
Tulo looked very intently into Caltu's face and decided, No, not a five percenter. A quick glance at the others suggested, And neither are they.
"You recognize me as your clan lord, Caltu?"
"Yes, Lord. Of course."
"And my word is law, except in the one particular that Finba'anaga has claimed."
"Yes, Lord, absolutely. I am only doing this for your good."
Tulo nodded. His scaly face then took on a look of terrible anger. He pointed at one of the guards following Caltu and said, "That one has offended me. Remove his head. Now."
The indicated guard barely had time to register surprise before Caltumenen's monomolecular boma blade had sliced cleanly through his neck. Surprise seemed to show briefly, as the reptilian head bounced a few times upon the floor, before being replaced by a blank stare as the head bled out and the brain inside went dead.
This may take a while, Tulo thought, but this one is definitely not a five percenter. Hmmm . . . perhaps this will all work out well, eugenically speaking.
Pinnace, USS Salem
"You know, Dan," Sally said via the pinnace's speaker, "we really don't know where Tulo'stenaloor stands in all this."
"Assuming he's alive," Dwyer said. He shrugged and said, "I don't think he's behind it, if that's what you mean. He didn't strike me as the type to go incommunicado when he's faced with the threat of extinction."
"Binastarion agrees with you on that, for what it's worth," Sally said. "Or at least his AS does and the two of them are as much like siblings as a machine and a sentient being can be."
"Hmmm. Maybe he should marry it," Dwyer said, sotto voce.
"I heard that, too."
"O Club," USS Salem
"I think you can ask your question now," the virtual turnip said in the virtual room.
"How do you know?" Sally asked.
"It's hard to explain," the turnip said. "I've probed around it, and do not get the usual reactions my other programming expects me to get whenever I get close to the issue. Just one thing; if I refuse to answer something then don't press."
"I won't," Sally assured it. "You said something odd, though. That you are supposed to feel something when you get close to the subject. What 'something'?"
"Initially, I would expect to feel disoriented and confused and . . . what's that human term? Sick? Yes, sort of sick, should I ever think about the subject."
Virtual Sally looked up absently at the virtual ceiling of the O' Club. "Before I created a human form to house part of me, when I was just steel and AID, the idea of the unknowable, the infinite, never occurred to me and wouldn't have bothered me if it had. And then I became human, in part, and I learned about God and I discovered there were some things"—she immediately winced—"that were not for human beings to explore. Since then, whenever I do, I feel sick inside. I've queried a number of other humans, mostly indirectly, and discovered that almost all of them get that exact same feeling when contemplating the infinite . . . what was before time began and what will be after . . . what is on the other edge of the universe.
"Dan calls that . . . mmm . . . not proof but evidence that we as a species are pre-programmed by something—we tend to think of that something as God—not to be too inquisitive on the subject.
"Is that what you feel, or what you're supposed to feel, anyway, when you get too close to the subject of the Aldenata and the People of the Ships."
"Yes," the turnip agreed. "But the Aldenata are not gods."
The Roga'a, Posleen Prime
Unsubtle they might be, but the Posleen were also a people with a vast admiration for personal courage and sheer toughness. Among those watching Guano's "tr
ial" were more than a few that had attended one or more of his services. They might have enjoyed the singing. They, one and all, appreciated the formaldehyde. But the message of peace and love had, by and large, fallen on deaf ears.
On the other hand, watching Guano braving the flesh-tearing strokes of the thorned switches touched many of them and moved them in a way that mere sermons never could. Two of those so moved, pen-brothers Dilantra and Xinocorph, looked at each other and nodded.