One fretted outside now and craved admittance for the fifth time, urgent with some message doubtless protesting the conditions under which they were confined in the Nom and forbidden to wander the square during off-hours, or protesting the long hours that they had been required to work since the crisis at the port, or their increasing fear of the coming humans and the fact that they were not yet on board the safety of Hazan, which was at the root of everything. Hulagh had answered enough such requests for attention, both from regul younglings and from dull-witted humans. He was busy. The youngling in question was not assigned anywhere near the human delegate, so it could not be an emergency in that quarter, which was all that would have truly interested him within the Nom. He dealt with the destructions of the storm as best he could, covering the one error he had committed, in failing to ask of Solgah concerning the behaviors of the seasons and the climate of Kesrith. He had little time for petulant and frightened assistants.
The youngling persisted. Hulagh sighed at last and pressed a button and admitted the youngling, whose agitation was extreme.
“Be gracious, bai.” It was the one named Suth Hara-ri, bred of the university bai-dach. It gave a polite suck of breath.
Hulagh reciprocated. There was at least some grace in Suth, who had been unmannered and fearful to a degree unbecoming any age when it began service. This former gracelessness on the part of Kesrith’s younglings in general was surely due to the years of war which had encompassed the younglings’ entire experience. The Kesrithi younglings left in Hulagh’s charge were acquiring some graces. Hulagh continually took care to reprimand them, so that they would not arrive ashamed and misfit in the inner worlds: this also he took for part of his duty in salvaging what he could of Kesrith—and also anticipated winning the best of them to Alagn’s enlistment as adults, hand-trained, augmenting his private staff to that of a colonial governor.
He reached a place where stopping would not overmuch inconvenience him, but he let the youngling wait with the petition awhile more, while he enjoyed a cup of soi, and midway through it saw fit to gesture his willingness to listen.
“Be gracious,” Suth breathed, then blurted in desperate haste: “Bai, the station reports a mri vessel incoming.”
This struck through all courtesies and lack of them, commanding Hulagh’s attention. Hulagh leaned back, the cup forgotten on the console, and looked at the youngling in unconcealed dismay.
The mercenary Kel—in this situation with humans but a few days removed from Kesrith. Hulagh’s hearts became at once agitated and anger heated his face. It was like the mri to be inconvenient.
To arrive always in the moment other elements had reached their maximum vulnerability.
“They have given notice of their intentions?” Hulagh asked of Suth.
“They say that they will land. We urged them to make use of the station facilities. They did not respond to this. They said that they have come for their people onworld and that they intend to land.”
“Mri never lie,” said Hulagh, for the youngling’s reference, if it had never dealt face-to-face with the mercenaries. “Neither do they always tell the truth. In that, they resemble regul.”
Suth blinked and sucked air. Subtleties were wasted on this one. Hulagh frowned and blew heated air through his nostrils.
“Are they to have their permission to land?” asked Suth. “Bai, what shall we say?”
“Tell me this, youngling: Where are our station ships?”
“Why, gone, gracious lord, all but the freighter and the shuttles, with the evacuation.”
“Then we cannot very well enforce our instruction not to land, can were? You are dismissed, youngling.”
“Favor,” Suth murmured and withdrew, hasty and graceless in departure. Hulagh, already deep in thought, failed to rise to the provocation.
Mri.
Inconvenient as the stubborn kel’en he had inherited from Gruran. Bloody-handed and impulsive and incapable of coherent argument.
His memory informed him that there were constantly some few mri on Kesrith, and that this was true of no other world since Nisren had fallen to humans forty-three years ago. There were thirteen mri in residence. There was nothing to indicate why Kesrith had been so favored, save that mri had a tendency to choose one or another world as a permanent base, designating it as homeworld, and thereafter behaving as irrationally and emotionally as if this were indeed the true land of their birth. There had been three such home worlds thus far in the regul-mri association, all within the Holn domain, since the mri had constantly come within Holn jurisdiction and remained unknown in home territories of the regul. This employment of the mercenaries was curiously, not an arrangement of regul seeking, but an arrangement which the mri had offered the regul 2, 202 years ago—for no apparent reason, for no apparent compulsion, save that this arrangement seemed to satisfy some profound emotional need of the mri. Regul had inquired into this mri peculiarity, but remained unsatisfied. There was a regul joke about mri, that mri had made records about their home and origin, but had forgotten where they had left them hence their nomadic condition. The fact that mri had no memories was a laughable matter to one who had not dealt personally with the intractable mri.
One could not argue with them, could not reason, could not persuade them from old loyalties, and could not—above all could not tamper with their sense, of proprieties. He remembered Medai’s suicide with a shudder; stubborn and without memory and prone to violence. It was like the mri to prefer bloodshed to reason, even when it was one’s own blood that was shed. Medai, Kesrith-born, would not compromise: the mri treaty held only so long as regul maintained a homeworld for mri, so long as that homeworld was inviolate from invasion. Medai had seen what he had seen, and could not reason otherwise; and therefore he had chosen to set himself against his lawful employers.
His suicide was supposed, Hulagh recalled, to put some burden of shame or social stigma on the man who had offended against the mri in question. This self-destruction was an act of reproach or of complete repudiation supposed to have devastating effect on the emotions of his superior.
A mri kel’en would do such a thing, even knowing that regul were not impressed, casting away his precious life rather than compromise on a small point of duty that could make no ultimate difference to him personally. Mri doubtless imagined that it made a difference.
It was that mri ferocity that had originally appealed to the regul, an amazement that this savage, fearsome species had come peacefully to the regul docha and tendered their services—services without which the colonizing of the humanward worlds and the rise of the Holn might never had occurred, not in the manner in which Holn had created monopoly. And this very ferocity ought by rights to have warned sensible regul of the nature of mri. Mercenaries by breeding and choice, their strict, dull-witted codes made them in the beginning utterly dependable as guards in commerce of the outworld docha. They did not change allegiance in mid-service; it was impossible to bribe them; it was impossible even to discharge them save by the completion of a service or by suicide. They had not sense enough to retreat; they had no strong instincts of self-preservation, a fact which balanced their prolific breeding, in which all males of the Kel were free to mate with the low-caste females, besides the mates of their own caste: they therefore tended in the years of peace to multiply at an alarming rate, if it were not for the attrition worked on them by their way of life, their rejection of medical science, and their constant passion for duelling. How these fierce warriors had supported themselves before they found the regul to hire them was another mystery to regul, which the mri had never chosen to reveal, Mri would not do manual labor, not even Sufficient to provide themselves food. A mri would starve rather than bear burdens or work the earth for another. They broke this rule only for the building and maintenance of their towers and the managing of the few ships they were allotted personally; but beyond those two exceptions, they would not turn a hand if there were regul available to take over the menial tasks
. Once in Hulagh’s recall a certain ship with a kel’en aboard had met a difficulty other than human, a navigational malfunction that had the crew in panic; they had summoned the ship’s kel’en—an old kel’e’en it was—who had leisurely come to see the difficulty, sat down at the console, and made the appropriate adjustments; then, with consummate arrogance, the kel’e’en had retired to the solitude of her own quarters, neither speaking nor offering courtesies nor accepting thanks.
Yet this kel’e’en could not read a simple sign to direct herself to the mess hall on station liberty, but had to be directed by her regul employers.
There was nothing to match either the arrogance or the ignorance of the mri Kel: touchy, suiciding when offended by regul, fighting when offended by other mri—there was no knowing what truly motivated the species. Hulagh himself reckoned that he knew humans better than he knew mri, although he had dealt with humans for three years and his ancestors had dealt with mri for 2, 202 years. Humans were simply territorial like regul, and while they were creatures of brief memory and small brain like the mri, they did have the industry to work, and to mend the deficiencies of their talents with an admirable technology.
It was a curious thing that in the forty-three-year-war, the regul had come to trust humans far more than they did the mri; they had come to fear humans far less than they feared mri. Constantly regul had to command the mri to observe the decencies of restraint, actually had to intervene to prevent the mri escalating the war out of the territorial zone of conflict and into reaches far beyond regul limits, into a scale in which regul technology was inadequate to maintain defenses around vital homeworlds. The mri, who were specialists in war, yet had not been able to perceive this; even the Holn had done so, and had put restraints to the war, or there would have been incredible devastation and economic collapse. Mri might lose one homeworld after another and move on, but they were nomadic—perhaps, Hulagh estimated, the source of their contempt for national boundaries. Regul could not contemplate the loss of even one world of home space, with artwork, technology, trade routes: they did not intend at any time to enter war with the all-out dedication of mri.
The most serious losses were, at the end of matters, to the mri themselves. Mri had begun the war with one million, nine hundred fifty and seven kel’ein according to regul census; and this small figure was still a great increase over their former numbers, reflecting the prosperity that had been theirs in regul service over the span of 2, 202 years. Only a hundred thousand had they numbered when their leaders had first approached the regul and begged to be allowed to take service with the regul species. But now most recent records indicated that there were but 533 mri of all castes surviving in known space.
It was impossible, considering that small number and the mri’s unrestrainably fierce inclinations, that the species could survive at this low ebb—ironically—without regul protection during their recovery. An era had ended, with the passing of the basis of Holn power, with the passing of the kel’ein. A few could be preserved by Alagn, if the mri would in extremity permit themselves to see reason: and Hulagh could see use for them, if only in the regul awe of the ferocity of the Kel. But they must be removed from the path of the human advance or the mri would continue like automatons to dash themselves to death against the inevitable.
And in the midst of other confusions one, mri must suicide and now a mri ship must come interfering in the evacuation of the mri homeworld. It would be an armed ship. Mri vessels, at least vessels totally mri, were small, but mri did not go anywhere unarmed.
The humans who were coming to take possession of Kesrith would likewise be farmed.
Hulagh considered for one wild moment making a graceless withdrawal from his duty on Kesrith, bundling surviving younglings and himself aboard Hazan tonight and leaving the mri and the humans to each other’s mercies.
But Hazan was not ready, not fully repaired, her important cargo impossible to load until the dock machinery had been repaired.
And he would not retreat in such fashion, which would be told on homeworld to his discredit; in that much he understood the mri compulsion to stand fast when pushed.
He reached to his left and pressed a button, contacting the youngling Hada Surag-gi, kosaj of the Nom, who served him personally for sufficiently important errands: a twenty year old, Hada, extraordinarily competent in its advanced post. “Hada,” he said, “send the records of mri settlement on Kesrith.”
“Be gracious,” replied Hada’s voice. “Such records go back 2,202 years. Kesrith was among the first worlds possessed by the mri and it is locally believed that they were here before first contact. What information does the bai wish in particular? I may perhaps recall what is of help.”
This was utter impudence, that such a youngling supposed its own personal knowledge sufficient to remedy the desire of an elder.
“O young ignorance,” said Hulagh peevishly, remembering that he was the only elder presently on Kesrith and that the youngling, though impudent and self-important, was probably offering with the best of intentions, to save him valuable time and effort. This was not, after all, Nurag; there was a limit on everyone’s time and patience, most particularly his own. “Hada, what do you suppose would bring a mri ship now to Kesrith?”
“This is,” said Hada, “the present mri homeworld. Perhaps they mean to defend it. They are not accustomed to retreat.”
It was not a comforting conjecture, and precisely the one that Hulagh had made for himself. Yet the mri had accepted the treaty that regul had made with humans; mri had been advised at every step of the negotiations that they might not carry on further war with humans.
“Hada what is the present number of mri on Kesrith?”
“Bai, there are thirteen, mostly elders of the edun and entirely unfit for war.”
He was surprised by this. He had not been interested in the small edun, since it had not intruded into his notice; he had known the number accurately but not the incapacity of its members.
“Send the records anyway, whatever you possess on the leaders personally and on the history of the species here.” Perdition, thought Hulagh miserably, mri have been on Kesrith for far too many years that I can sift through such as this. There is no time. The records will be mountainous. “Hada.”
“Favor?”
“Contact their kel’anth. Tell him I want him to report to this office immediately.”
There was a very long pause. “Be gracious, bai,” ventured Hada at last. “The Kesrithi edun is headed by a she’pan, one Intel. Onworld, a kel’anth must defer to a she’pan. He is not the leader of the mri on Kesrith.”
Hulagh’s oath cut short the youngling. There was silence in the chatter for a moment, welcome silence. He absorbed the new information, embarrassed by his reliance on a youngling’s knowledge, aware that, where mri were concerned, no one actually knew what the chain of command was within their community. Hada claimed to possess this knowledge. Perhaps Hada had acquired it from elders of Holn doch, who had commanded mri for generations. Plague and perdition, thought Hulagh, there is no time, there is no time. Confound all mri to perdition. But neither did one summon a she’pan: he knew that much. None but Kel caste would respond to a summons to leave their community and meet with outsiders. There was the necessity to brave the process of records search, or the necessity to ignore the incoming ship, with all its ugly possibilities.
Or there was the necessity to leave his desk and his work and his important duties to the incompetent mercies of youngling assistants at such a crisis, while he paid slow courtesies to a mri religious leader, whose memory was fallible and whose graces were probably lacking, who trammeled up the cleanly relations between regul doch and mri kel’anth. He and the war leader of the Kel might have settled things with a simple exchange; with one of the ceremonial leaders of the mri involved, whose power was nebulous and whose authorities and compulsions were somehow linked to the mri religion, whatever it was—a regul petitioner must suffer tedious and pointless di
scussion that might only perhaps produce what he wanted.
“Hada,” said Hulagh, surrendering, “fetch me my car and the most reliable driver, a youngling who does not flinch from mri.”
Many humiliations had he accepted in dealing with the invading humans, in negotiations concerning arrangements, in accepting two inconvenient observers whose presence, if known, could cause impossible complications with the mri treaty. He had succeeded in handling the humans, which was thought to have been the most difficult matter; he had outmaneuvered them in a way that would bring him prestige. And now it came to this, that he must interrupt the saving of regul lives and regul properties to counsel with mri hirelings, to rescue an ungrateful people who most likely would not treat with him courteously for his efforts.
A thought struck him. “Hada,” he said.
“Favor?”
“Is it or is it not possible that the mri would know that one of their ships is coming?”
“That information has not been released by this office,” said Hada. Then: “Be gracious, bai; mri have learned things before this that have not been released by this office. They have their own communications.”
“Doubtless,” said Hulagh, and broke the connection and went about the laborious and painful business of rising. He was 290 years removed from the class of younglings. His legs were proportionately shorter, his senses duller, his body many times heavier. His rugose skin was prone to cracking and developing sores when directly exposed to the dry cold of Kesrith’s air. His double hearts labored under the exertion of lifting his adult bulk, and his muscles trembled with the unaccustomed strain. As an elder of the regul, his principal business was of the mind and the intellect.
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