“This is as much as we have been able to deduce from our scans of the planet so far. The results would be a lot more definitive if we could get agents on the ground in Aqua Regis.
“The usefulness of these people to us, in our struggle against the Invardii, is in their extraordinarily quick reflexes. While their speech and normal speed of movement is about the same as ours – no mammal or equivalent can sustain high speed activity for long without cooking itself from the generated heat – they are capable of short periods of high speed thinking and physical activity.
“You mean like the Sumerians can with their adrenaline system,” said Ursul Vangretti, Finch’s head of communications.
“Not exactly,” said the Regent, before the Mersa chief, Gaiallano, chipped in.
“The Sumerian stressor speed is due to a muscle-based adrenaline response,” she said, “while you are saying both the electrical activity in these people’s nervous system, and the neurotransmitter concentrations in their brains, are much higher than in any other known population.”
“Exactly,” said Cordez, amazed once again at the grasp of theory the Mersa had. “These people can think and act faster than we can imagine, for a short period of time.”
Ursul and Finch smiled together. They’d got used to working with the indefatigable little Mersa, and it certainly kept them on your toes. In particular, the Mersa were fascinated with the universe they had discovered existed outside their home planet.
The Human population they had come to understand fairly readily – there were many similarities – but the large, shambling, bullet-headed, tiny-nosed, previously water-breathing Sumerians fascinated the Mersa. Sumerian history and culture were two of the things they studied in their off-duty hours.
“The Invardii weakness is their dependence on too few things,” said Cordez. “It’s almost as if they rely entirely on their strength, which is a combination of technology and raw power. But that means they discount the advantages of smaller equipment, more efficient power sources and greater manoeuvrability.
“They’ve already shown an inclination to see our forces as insignificant gnats flitting about their ships. That’s an inclination they are going to come to regret.
“As far as the people from Aqua Regis are concerned, I think we’re going to need them. We are already working on systems that give more manoeuvrability to the Javelins, and we may need high-speed pilots to operate the new warships when these systems are in place.”
“How will a pre-technology people be able to handle a sophisticated star fighter?” queried Carlos Paula, another of Finch’s department heads.
“It’s been suggested that we automate and simplify the Javelin systems wherever possible,” said Cordez, “and slave the remaining systems to a commslink unit. That way, the pilot sees something happen, reacts, and the ship follows. Actions that would be practically instantaneous.”
Gaiallano and Patustrallo nodded together. The idea of slaving systems to the pilots was one of their projects. At first it had seemed of little benefit, given Human, Sumerian, Mersa or even K'Sarth reaction times, but the capabilities of the Aqua Regis population gave the project a new urgency.
The discussion continued for some time, and eventually led to a unanimous vote that an undercover team be sent to Aqua Regis to ask the people of the planet how they felt about helping the war effort.
Fedic Vits and Sallyanne Montoya were given the job of approaching them about their cooperation in the struggle against the Invardii. Or, as Sallyanne described it, this was a case of multi-cultural, post-dominant, multi-morphic, stellar milieu meets provincial village. Oh me, oh my, she thought, resting her head in her hands, this is going to give me all sorts of headaches before it’s over.
The likeliest point of contact was a fishing village at the mouth of the largest river. It appeared this village had been least affected by the dying off of the plant and animal life, and that was understandable if their main resource was fishing. The villagers had also been the quickest to adapt to the new conditions. The discussion continued for a while longer, revolving around a suitable method of contact.
Eventually Cordez called a halt. He reminded the gathering that they had no elected right to represent Earth, but in times of war it was not always possible to follow proper procedure.
He finished by saying that each person present should examine their own conscience to discover what their true motives were, and whether these motives supported the rights of others or denied them their liberties. They should only be involved in this project while their consciences continued to be clear. It was a sobering moment.
There was a lot of discussion on whether Fedic and Sallyanne could pass for inhabitants of the planet. It was an easy matter to change their skin colour to the shining bronze of the people, but Fedic in particular had nowhere near the muscle mass of the average male, and they were both a little too tall to fit in easily.
At the end of the meeting Cordez was asked about the hoped for alliance between Earth and Alamos. He informed those present that EarthGov had recently passed a resolution to “work more closely with the people of Alamos”, at the urging of the board of Regents. Unfortunately, it still had to be passed by the Sumerians, and some sort of rules of contact drawn up.
That meant the collaboration on Prometheus was still ‘unofficial’. It was disappointing, but Human and Mersa alike reaffirmed their desire to continue with the present clandestine situation.
Whatever came of the official ‘alliance’ between Earth and Alamos, Cordez knew any political rubber stamp would come too late to help in the dark times ahead.
The time to tell EarthGov about the collaboration at Prometheus would only come when they had been driven by the reality of the situation to give up self-interested political grandstanding. Only then would they be prepared to do whatever it took to save Earth from the Invardii fleets.
CHAPTER 14
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Time off was rare these days, and Hudnee and Daneesa were enjoying the chance to relax together. It was also a chance to explore the land around Shellport, their new home.
Hudnee had finished the day’s work early, and now they lay comfortably on the top of some sand dunes, chatting about anything that came to mind. The sand dunes were along the coast and south of the many mouths of the Kapuas river. The sea forest was thinner here, and there were glimpses of the open sea through the many trunks in the water before them.
The rains now came at night, if they came at all, and there was a little more time in each day for these sorts of activities. The two of them had brought their evening meal with them, while Hudnee’s building gang had offered to entertain the children back at Shellport.
“Say that again?” said Hudnee, his voice rising in sudden excitement. He came up on his elbows, and looked directly at Daneesa. She was a little taken aback.
“Er, it’s a pity you couldn’t make rocks out of urdra mix,” she said, “and then fit the rocks together with smokerock and neem oil, like you used to with the pilars you built for the Descendants.”
“That’s it!” exclaimed Hudnee triumphantly. “Why didn’t I think of that before?”
He sat up, and smoothed a patch of sand beside him. His brain had gone into problem-solving mode.
“Now, what size would the rocks have to be,” he said, “and what shape would be best if they were laid by hand.”
He found a reasonably straight stick, and came up until he was sitting on his heels. He started drawing shapes in the sand as he thought furiously about building methods and rock shaping techniques.
“I wasn’t serious,” said Daneesa, who couldn’t yet see what he was getting at. “How would you shape the urdra mix to look like, well, rocks? Wouldn’t it take a long time before they set hard enough to be picked up and built into walls?”
Hudnee was barely listening, but her comment on the time the rocks would take to dry got through to him.
“Mmm,” he said. “They would have to be s
tandardised rocks, more like a block really.” Then he paused. “But you’re right, the smaller they were the quicker they would set hard enough to work with.”
She looked at him quizzically.
“Standardised building blocks,” he said, with wonder in his voice. “That would mean greatly accelerated production methods. No more boxing required for foundations. The water could be added at source, so maybe a wooden chute to bring it to the lean-tos.
“That would need some sort of device to lift the water up to the chutes, for the run to the lean-tos. Maybe that could be wind-driven. Unless there was a spring high enough nearby.”
He stopped his deliberations long enough to smile at Daneesa.
“You’re an inspiration,” he told her fondly, and kissed the top of her head.
Daneesa smiled back, and accepted the compliment graciously. Then, while Hudneee continued to scribble in the sand, she considered this feeling of being so much part of his life.
It was a different feeling to when she wanted him to lift her skirts up, but no less important to her these days. It was odd how knowing she was an essential part of his life had crept up on her, crept up on both of them really. It was a milder, but much deeper feeling, than the desires of her youth.
Still, she thought mischievously, there’s no reason why a woman devoted to her man couldn’t have both. It was a poor day when she couldn’t light that little gleam in Hudnee’s eyes, and there was still plenty of time before night fell, and they would have to start back toward Shellport.
“What’s that?” said Hudnee, straightening up and shading his eyes against the rays of the sun. He was looking at something out to sea, peering through the trunks of the sea forest trees.
Daneesa sat up as well, and looked in the same direction.
“It’s got to be a dooplehuel, doesn’t it?” she said. “What else would be out on the sea around here?”
Her eyes were sharper than his, but still, the dark shape out on the water was a long way off. As they watched, it began to angle in toward the shore. It wasn’t long before there was no doubt it was making for Shellport.
Daneesa could make out two figures in the craft, a man and a woman. At first they seemed as if they would pass by, but then they must have seen the couple on the beach. They turned in to make their way through the sea forest to the shoreline. It was clear they would beach the twin hulls directly below Hudnee and Daneesa.
Hudnee made his way across the scattered dunes toward the newcomers. Daneesa picked her way more cautiously after him. The strangers were pulling the dooplehuel up onto a bank of shells along the front of the dunes when Hudnee arrived.
“You’re looking for Shellport then?” said Hudnee, without preamble. The woman stepped forward. “Indeed we are. Are you, yourselves, from the village?”
Her voice was strange, too smooth to be that of a Hud mainlander. He noticed with growing curiosity that up close the colour of her skin wasn’t right somehow. It was bronze, but it didn’t have the glossy highlights in it that should be there in the oily skin of his people.
There were none of the colour highlights around her eyes and nose that he would have expected either. Both of the new arrivals looked thin by Hudnee’s standards, as if they’d done little in the way of hard work in their lives, and had recently been through a famine.
“I am called Hudnee, and this is Daneesa,” said Hudnee.
“I am Salan,” said the woman. Her speech was without a noticeable accent, but she spoke slowly, and each word was carefully considered. Hudnee could not quite place her manner of speaking, but it wasn’t anywhere on Hud, or out in the Western Islands.
“I am Reegas,” said the man, in a carefully rehearsed manner. The woman immediately took over the conversation again.
“We are travellers, and would like to rest and get some supplies at Shellport,” she said. “We will pay for what we need.” Then she took a new-looking silver crescent from the belt at her waist.
It was Descendant coin. Hudnee wondered again where these people were from. Silver crescents had been used largely by the Descendants to balance the books between the Descendant offices. They were rarely used by the people of Hud in normal trading.
“That will do you little good here,” Hudnee told her. “If you can work, I can possibly use you on my building sites. I am a builder in Shellport.”
Hudnee glanced into the dooplehuel. There were a couple of roughly carved wooden boxes there, but none of the fishing or hunting equipment he would have expected from a couple on a long voyage. They weren’t telling the truth about something.
“Where are you from,” he asked casually.
“We are from a village far to the south,” answered the woman, “though we were not born in that village. They took us in when the crops failed inland. Life is hard for everybody now, and we don’t really have enough sea folk skills to be useful to them, so we thought we would try our luck somewhere else.”
Plausible, thought Hudnee. He had heard Menon and the others talk of a sea folk village about four days sailing to the south, though whether it was the one she was talking about, or even if it still existed, he did not know.
“We would be happy to work for you, in exchange for shelter and food,” said the woman. Hudnee clasped her forearm, then the man’s, in the way he usually sealed a work contract.
Daneesa tapped his elbow a couple of times lightly, an old alarm signal they had developed for use in their flight to the sea forest. That had been a long time ago, or so it seemed, but Hudnee remembered the signal.
He made an excuse for himself and Daneesa, and they made their way up the dunes to collect their belongings. They would walk along the beach back to the village, or maybe the travellers could squeeze them in on the dooplehuel. That could be decided later.
Once they were over the crest of the dunes, Daneesa turned to Hudnee excitedly.
“That’s Menona’s dooplehuel, I’m sure of it!”
“What!” said Hudnee. “How can you be certain?”
“All the dooplehuel of the main families in Shellport have some sort of decoration on them, it’s something the women do. It helps to tell the dooples apart, and it’s a bit of an artistic tradition among the women.”
Hudnee raised his eyebrows. The twin-hulled boats had always looked the same to him.
“The bottom of the mast and the top of the stern have a dotted pattern tapped into them, and each pattern is slightly different,” explained Daneesa.
Hudnee did remember seeing that decoration, but he had assumed it was always the same pattern. Menona’s dooplehuel had vanished on the night of the storm, the same time Menona had vanished. That had given Menon hope for a while, but when neither Menona or her dooplehuel turned up after a week of frantic searching, he had begun to accept the inevitability of her death.
He turned away, and started to collect up their belongings. Daneesa knew her man well – this was what he did when he was thinking. She hurried to collect the rest of their things.
“Do nothing, say nothing,” he admonished, as they were about to descend once more to the beach. She raised one eyebrow a little, and stuck out her bottom lip, so much like the very young Daneesa he had first let into his life that he almost burst out laughing.
“We’ll let Menon and Habna get the truth out of them,” he said quietly. “Apart from which I don’t much relish a two on two fight right here, and on nightfall. We would have to truss them up and cart them back to Shellport. It’s much easier to let them sail themselves there.”
His eyes narrowed. “That Reegas bothers me. There’s not much to him, but he carries himself like an experienced fighter. He’s far too light on his feet for my liking. There’s no point in inviting trouble.”
The dooplehuel arrived in Shellport about the same time as Hudnee and Daneesa arrived along the shoreline. It was already getting dark.
CHAPTER 15
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The arrival of strangers was an unusual event in Shell
port now. The trickle of refugees down the rivers had stopped some time ago, and trade along the coast had virtually ceased. Night was falling as Hudnee tied up the stranger’s dooplehuel at the docks, and Daneesa helped their guests to clamber up onto the walkways. The villagers had in general retired to their homes, but there were still a few people about to gather round the newcomers.
Hudnee found Merrick on watch at the docks, and took him aside. After he stressed the need to tell no one else, he confided that Daneesa thought the strangers’ dooplehuel was Menona’s. Then he asked him to throw a cover over the watercraft so no one else recognised it for the moment.
Habna had been out on the docks when Hudnee arrived. She seemed to be waiting for someone, or something. She looked at the strangers curiously, noting the unusual things about them that Hudnee had already noticed. When it was clear they didn’t need her services as a healer, she walked over to the dooplehuel and scrutinised it intently. Merrick arrived with a cover for it a moment later.
Just as Hudnee was about to lead Salan and Reegas to the community centre, Habna called him over.
“They can stay at my place,” she said. “The room I keep for the recovery of injuries can be used for extra accommodation.”
Once Hudnee explained that Habna was one of Shellport’s leading citizens – beside being the senior healer – the strangers were eager to accept her hospitality. With Hudnee bringing one of the roughly carved boxes and Reegas the other, the group made its way to Habna’s house. It was getting darker now, and they navigated largely by the white strips of shell slurry Hudnee had asked one of his building teams to paint on the edges of the walkways. The strips showed up well in the rapidly fading light.
Once at her home, Habna motioned the other villagers on with a flick of her hand, but she indicated to Hudnee that he was to remain with her and the newcomers. The look on Daneesa’s face told everyone she was not happy at being excluded, but she accepted that Habna had her reasons.
Invardii Series Boxset Page 45