by TS Hottle
The hearing had already begun by the time Best arrived. Yet when he walked in, Luxhomme wasn’t sitting at a table getting interrogated by the Council delegates seated on the dais beneath the giant sunburst symbol of the Compact as expected. No, Luxhomme paced around in front of the dais addressing not the Security Council, but those in the gallery.
“No, ladies and gentlemen,” said Luxhomme, “the fault does not lie with the government of Jefivah or with my employer or even with me. It lies with the Defense Commission of this Compact. They caused this terrible tragedy by failing to remove those weapons from the worlds now known as Barataria, Gallifrey, and Marilyn. They failed the colonists. They failed the people of Jefivah. And tragically, they failed the crew of the Etrusca Explorer.”
The delegate from Mars, one of the “old guard” permanent members of the Council, stood up and jabbed a finger at Luxhomme. “Now just a minute. We generously told our struggling worlds they could colonize the old military reserves for free. All they had to do…”
“All they had to do,” said Luxhomme, whirling on the Martian delegate, “was place into civilian hands weapons we would not entrust to our own planetary forces. Instead of having the military do its duty and remove these dangerous weapons from new civilian worlds, they forced Jefivah to have to contract elsewhere for their removal, lest the military and the Office of Colonial Development shut down their colonies. Jefivah needs food. It needs space to relieve the factional problems that have plagued it since its founding.”
“And JunoCorp needs the backing of a core world to compete with the major genetic customization firms,” said the Martian delegate, his arm shaking more from 1G gravity than rage, though Best was hard-pressed to tell the difference. “Tell it true, Mr. Luxhomme. This is about money.”
“Trade,” said Luxhomme, “is how we are able to move resources, Mr. Roosa. Maybe money does not allegedly exist on Mars, but it is how the majority of Compact members get anything accomplished. Tell me, Mr. Roosa, do you not chair the General Assembly’s Defense Appropriations Committee?”
“Yes,” said Roosa.
Best had to smile at the turn of events. Luxhomme had just successfully made Delegate Roosa the scapegoat for seven missing weapons of mass destruction and for the deaths of the Etrusca Explorer crew. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning, Best found First Minister Myra Gillorn sitting behind him.
“I didn’t think you could salvage this situation,” she whispered as Luxhomme began brow-beating the Martian delegate. “If you haven’t taken that teaching position, I’d like to have you come back.”
“I was an elected delegate, Myrna,” said Best. “Don’t you think we should hold an election?”
“The First Minister’s chief of staff is not elected.” She smiled. “Nor do they have to endure approval hearings in the House of Delegates.”
They both turned their attention back to the dais as a new voice chimed in on the exchange between Luxhomme and Roosa.
“I think,” said Xiao Li, the delegate from Tian, “we can agree there were procedural failures in this tragedy. The military does, indeed, have the best protocols for handling such weapons and did not provide the personnel and equipment to do so. Dasarius Interstellar is most likely not equipped to transport such cargo, and using a projection drive ship likely increased the odds that the Etrusca Explorer would get lost with those weapons.”
Luxhomme appeared ready to take back control of the hearing once more when Xiao continued. “I think we can all take comfort that the ship was discovered outside Compact space with no trace of human intervention. While I, for one, will mourn the loss of the crew, the likelihood that those weapons will be used against human worlds is minimal. Madame Chairperson, I move that we shift the focus of our investigation to one of prevention. Let’s allow the Jefivans to grow their new colonies and take their rightful place among the other founding worlds of this Compact.”
To Best’s surprise, Malakar, the Earth delegate, stood up and seconded the motion.
“All those in favor of the motion put forth by the distinguished gentleman from Tian,” said the Chairwoman, “say aye.”
Most of the Council’s twenty delegates said “aye.”
“Opposed?”
Only Roosa said “Nay.” The remaining delegates kept silent.
“Motion carries,” said the Chairwoman. “Delegate Roosa, your committee is hereby tasked with looking into preventive measures for the transport of non-conventional weaponry from military reserves.” She banged the gavel, which surprised Best. Hardly any legislatures used gavels anymore. Some did not even meet in person. “Mr. Luxhomme, thank you for bringing this to our attention. Next, we will discuss a petition by the Assembly Delegate from Metis concerning their colony on Gilead…”
As Best filed out with the other Jefivan presence, the First Minister punched him lightly in the arm. “Welcome back, Doug.”
*****
Laral Jorl paced the deck watching the blackness of space for…
Well, he expected seven large colony transports, all smooth saucer-like craft, to emerge from projected wormholes. So far, that had not happened. He gazed at the back of his hand, where the live tattoo mocked him with his homeworld’s time. The transports should have arrived over two hours earlier.
“My Lord,” called out one of the technicians, “wormhole opening thirty degrees starboard, eighteen degrees nadir.”
Naturally, the wormhole would be blurred on the display. Almost no primate species Laral knew of could look directly into a wormhole without becoming ill. The Gelt, he lamented, were particularly susceptible to that phenomenon. Even the Warrior Caste had to trust in technology when it was there and look away or shut their eyes like a cub when it wasn’t. The wormhole (or rather, the blurred mask of it) disappeared, leaving behind…
A yacht? The craft that appeared had markings of the Realm but was no larger than an orbital transport. Beanstalks, which moved people and cargo between orbit and the ground on some worlds, had bigger lift compartments.
“Where are the colonists?” asked Laral.
“Message coming through,” said the technician. “It is Lady Shorees from Council.”
The name made Laral smile. Shorees had once commanded this very vessel for him. A cone of light appeared at the center of the command deck, Shorees’s slender figure materializing within. “General.”
Laral crossed his arms across his chest and bowed. “My Lady, it is…”
“Council summons you to return to Hanar,” Shorees continued, not even acknowledging his greeting. The hologram flickered. “An heir of the Lattus family has contested your challenge against Lattus Kai. You must answer.”
“But we are about to…”
“Your transports are being held at Essenar until this dispute is resolved,” Shorees continued. “The transport now docking with your vessel is automated. You have one hour to board before it undocks and returns to Hanar.” Shorees’s arm disappeared as she reached for something out of view of her recorder. When it reappeared, it held a scepter every Gelt knew from childhood. “The Sovereign Himself has ordered this. If the transport returns empty or fails to return at all, you will forfeit possession of Essenar, of Hanar, and, quite possibly, your original holdings.” The hologram disappeared.
Blood thudded in Laral’s ears. His temples pounded. “Evart!”
The short, pudgy man whose gray skin showed the purple lines typical of heavy drinkers appeared at his side. “My Lord?”
“I have been summoned by Council. Leave Master Visni in command of the fleet. You go to the surface and take command of our… troops.”
“Shall I setup in the northern city?”
The last thing Laral wanted was Evart using the drones in the northernmost city for target practice.
“I want you in the plains,” said Laral. “Try to keep these dregs from tearing up the place once there are no more Tianese to shoot at. I will be returning to Hanar to resolve an important matter for the Sovereign.�
�
Evart’s expression brightened at the word “Sovereign.” “Does this mean…”
“It means that Cyal had better be pacified when I return. Otherwise, I will pacify you.” He turned and marched off the command deck.
19
The heat rose from the tarmac as Laral stepped off the shuttle. The air hit him in the face like a wet blanket. Essenar might have been a rainy, mud-clogged acidic hell, but no one had warned him of Hanar’s oppressive summers, at least where the Tianese had settled.
No honor guard met him. No music played. His own civilian governor made no appearance. Instead, two law enforcers and a short little man in the gray robes of the Legal Caste awaited him.
“General Jorl Laral,” said the little man. “You are required to surrender your sword to these enforcers until further notice.” He glanced at one of the law enforcers. “Take him. Place him under house arrest until Council and the heir arrives.”
“Has anyone pointed out that Lattus Brac already took his share of his family’s inheritance?” asked Laral. “That he forfeited his share of Kai’s estate?”
“I think you know less about your situation than you think, General.” He reached in and withdrew Laral’s sword from its sheath. “Blooded. I take it the most recent blood is that of Lattus Kai? Or did you find someone else who got in your way while at Cyal?”
The enforcers bound him and led him away.
It took him a few moments to realize the enforcers were human.
*****
They kept him in a slum. Four rooms, a water closet, and no servants. He would have to cook his own food, such as it was.
“These people live like animals,” he said as his guard escorted him inside. “Disgusting apes.”
The guard said nothing. Why would he? He clearly didn’t speak the Mother Tongue. “So they feed you well, ape man?” he said in his unpracticed Tianese. “Where’s your leash?”
The guard thrust his fist into Laral’s face. Then he spat at him. “Butcher.”
It took a second to realize that the alien was not speaking the Mother Tongue, but that degenerate language Laral had extrapolated from several prisoners. It sounded different coming from an angry person. “How…?”
The alien kicked Laral between the legs. He acted surprised that Laral remained standing. “Oh. Right. That’s not where you keep your balls.” He punched Laral in the throat.
For the next ten minutes, Laral felt like he was suffocating.
*****
Brac finally appeared around sundown. He looked around the shabby settler’s dwelling that now served as Laral’s prison. “Still taking all the prime property for yourself, I see.”
“You realize this challenge will result in your death,” said Laral. “You’ve never been able to handle a sword without hurting yourself.”
Brac moved into the dwelling’s tiny kitchen, not even a room unto itself and helped himself to some Tianese fruit. “Have you tried one of these? The Tianese call them ‘oranges.’ They’re delicious, if a bit acidic.”
Laral grabbed him by the arm. “What is it you want, Brac? You’re lazy, indifferent. To you, High Born status is a burden. Why are you doing this?”
Brac set the orange aside, its juice now leaking out onto the counter, and removed Laral’s hand from his arm. “First of all, don’t touch me. Those humans guarding the door to your house? They know stamping out their colony was your idea. They’ve even forgiven Kai now that they know his heir.”
“How did you achieve this? You’ve never shown the slightest inclination toward leadership.”
That made Brac laugh. “You underestimate me, General. I guess you get to keep your rank. Anyway, you forget. I can talk a High Born daughter out of her dress and into letting me kneel with her all night long.” He flicked his tongue at Laral, an obscene gesture in Gelt culture. “This tongue has tasted the daughters of everyone from the poor dirt farmer praying his creeper weed will cover his field to one of the Sovereign’s nieces.” He stopped as if suddenly lost in thought. “Oh, I forgot to mention, the Sovereign will be presiding over your retrial. Guess you wish you showed my brother more respect now, don’t you?”
“You will not win this challenge, Brac,” said Laral. “You’ll be dead, and I’ll have your estate, your brother’s, and your parents’.”
The smile Brac gave him in return chilled Laral in a way nothing else could, except the words that followed. “I never said I was the heir, Jorl. In fact, that’s what I came by to tell you.” He grabbed the half-eaten fruit and headed out. “Hey, thanks for the orange. I’m hoping we can make a treaty with the humans. I want more of these.” He looked at it. “If not, I hear Metis is pretty nice. They apparently grow these there in vertical farms.” He patted Laral on the shoulder. “Be nice to the humans. Maybe they won’t punch you in the throat again.”
What were hew-maans?
*****
“Here’s your knife, butcher.”
The hew-maan taunting Laral sported a weapon of some sort, bluish-black metal with a mechanical trigger and a long tube. Stripped of his armor, Laral decided not to push back against it, puny as it was.
The hew-maan shoved a short sword, nearly a child’s weapon, at him. It was a child’s weapon. Laral recognized his own personal crest on the sheath. “What is this?”
“Hell if I know, butcher,” said the hew-maan. “I only know your own people are mad at you, and some nice lady is giving us our farms back.”
Lady? What lady? Did Brac find a female Warrior to defend his challenge? But then Brac had said he wasn’t the heir in question. Then who…?
Laral dare not let the thought tickling his brain form.
*****
Kai’s challenge had taken place in the square of Hanar’s makeshift main settlement. Not this time. For this challenge, two hew-maans and two Gelt Warriors escorted Laral to one of the saucer-like colony transports that hovered over the plains just outside of what was once the main settlement. What usually served as the transport’s processing center had been cleared into an arena. Thousands of Gelt and a smaller number of hew-maans filled the temporary seats ringing the room. The Gelt stamped their feet and chanted. They did not sound as triumphant as they had a few weeks earlier.
A long makeshift dais had been setup at the far end of the room. Upon it sat Council, nine members on each side with the Sovereign sitting dead center. Laral tried to mask his contempt for the Sovereign. He remembered him when he had a name, when Laral’s own sister cared for the young Heir Apparent, when that little boy cried and sniveled because the bigger kids beat on him. How could such a soft man lead such a hard people?
“Laral,” He said. “You have drawn Council here for a second Confab. This time, you have drawn the Presence Itself.”
“The Presence Itself,” a royal affectation dating back millennia, always annoyed Laral. The Sovereign seemed to relish it.
Under a holo projector’s cone of light, an image of the Tianese man known as Marq appeared.
“Tell me,” said the Sovereign, “who is this man?”
“He is Marq Katergarus,” said Laral neutrally. “He is from Juno.”
“Juno is not a world,” said the Sovereign Consort. She did not sit with her husband, or rather Her Husband, because she herself represented the Scholar Caste on Council. “Juno is merely an entity, of what kind no one here is entirely sure.”
“Tell me, General,” said Fulsaad, leader of the Medical Caste, “do you know what happens to an indentured servant when his or her Master takes that servant into space where the authority does not recognize our system of servitude?”
“Why should I care?” asked Laral.
“We remind thee that thou art the defendant,” said the Sovereign in the Archaic Tongue. “Thou wilt answer questions as put to thee.”
The woman translating what was said for the hew-maans sounded strange babbling in their language. It almost distracted Laral from the moment at hand.
“I have never had
to concern myself with that issue,” said Laral. “I do not permit my indentureds to leave Realm space.”
“And yet,” said Brac, emerging from an entrance near the dais and strolling toward Laral, “you said before this very Council that you considered my brother’s concubine your property.”
“Wherever she is,” said Laral, “she belongs to me. And she is my property.”
“Even if Kai placed her in custody of the human Katergarus?” asked Fulsaad. “And sent her to Metis as Katergarus’s possession?”
Brac wore that smirk of his, the one that told the worlds that he was rich and drunken and idle and no one could do a damned thing about it. “The humans do not recognize indenture. Slavery, they call it. They’re quite self-righteous about it, actually. I understand even those who find a way around the ban get a bit pious about it.”
As the translation finished for the humans, the crowd on that side of the room broke into laughter.
“Prove this,” said Laral. “Show me the deed.”
Another cone of light appeared from the holographic array above, almost lighting up Laral as well. In front of his face hung the image of a document outlining Tishla’s agreement to submit to become Kai’s property in exchange for her education, the chain of ownership that led to the hew-maan Marq, and an electronically-added addendum nullifying the deed as Marq Katergarus took her to a planet called Metis.