The Stone Dogs

by S. M. Stirling

  Eyes slitted, they would be flickering ceaselessly back and forth. At the laborers, there were hundreds of them, big muscular men with heavy hammers and picks in their hands. Captured warriors, not meek born-serfs. At the dense bush all around; rough stumps and edges where it had been cut back from both sides of the road, but it rose dense enough to block sight within javelin-cast. She felt the unseen hating black eyes on her back, and pink-palmed hands gripping the hafts of iron-bladed spears. Trapped in close thornbush country, eight shots and then hand-to-hand with cold steel…

  "Ah, I see yo' understand," Harris said softly as she blinked the present back into her eyes and met the teacher's.

  Yolande's mouth was dry, and she drank from the glass of lemonade beside her screen. "No radios or tanks, no helicopter gunboats or automatic weapons. Tell me, how did you place it?"

  Yolande willed the sour taste of fear to leave her mouth. The feelings lingered just below the surface of her mind, an adrenaline-hopping intensity of focus, of anger and ferocity. "Ahh… it couldn't be earlier. The way they're wearing their hair, and the zebra-skin. But that's an early-model Ferguson, my Mother's got one just like it, see how the trigger-guard has only a little knob to turn it and open the breech? Later on they made them with a bigger handle sticking down from the buttstock."

  "To increase the rate of fire," Harris said. "We were the first to adopt the breech-loader, because it shot further an' faster. Gatling came to the Domination, because we'd use his invention… because we were always outnumbered, and had to be able to kill them faster than they could charge. Right, now someone else. Which is the richest continent? Yo', Veronica."

  "Uh, Africa?"

  Harris grinned. "Sorry, trick question. Wealth is a subjective quantity. Fo' example, the Congo river generates as much hydropower as the whole of North America… if yo' can get at it, through jungles crawling with diseases."

  Her hand reached to the screen controls again. "This is a disease map of Africa, before we cleaned it up. Sleeping sickness. Ngana. Malaria. Yellow fever. Dengue fever, river blindness, bilharzia. Now well overlay it on the political sequence-map I showed befo'. Muriel, what do you see? Patterns, remember. Process."

  A frown and a long pause from the student whose parents followed the proscribed faith. "The south's healthiest, the areas south of Capricorn. Then the high country all the way north and east to the Ethiopian provinces, then the far north."

  "Right. Now the sequence again."

  "They… they overlap. Not always, but the conquest starts in the south, then leaps 'way north to Egypt, then it goes across North Africa and in both directions down the rift highlands. For a long time, anyway."

  "Good, Muriel. Most of this part,"—Harris' finger indicated the western coast of Africa—"is a deathtrap for Caucasians without modem medicine. It ate them alive. Now, when was the first European settlement at the Cape?"

  Yolande raised her hand again. "1654, Miz Harris. The Dutch."

  "Right, the Dutch East India Company. Feeble little colony, and after a hundred and fifty years there were only ten thousand of them. Why?"

  "They weren't interested in it?"

  "Right again, they never sent mo' than a few hundred colonists; it was so healthy that they multiplied fast. Some of us are descended from them, though they got swamped pretty quick. Next significant date."

  "1779," Myfwany said. "The British annexed the Cape."

  "Conquered. The formal annexation was in 1783 after the Peace of Paris. But our ancestors were already arrivin'."

  The screen flashed a montage: American Loyalists being driven from their homes by revolutionary mobs, Loyalist regiments and their families boarding sailing ships as the British evacuated Charleston and Savannah and New York, Hessian mercenaries sitting idle in camp as the war for which they had been hired wound down.

  "Question: with about twenty thousand fightin' men—it was all men in those days—our forebearers conquered a half-million square miles of southern Africa in about a decade. We've seen it was possible partly because the environment didn't loll them; but two generations later, it took a hundred thousand men two decades to conquer North Africa for us… with better weapons an' organization, too. There were two million strong an' warlike blacks in the southern provinces. Why were they relatively easy to break to the Yoke? Yes, Berenice."

  "Mmmm, blacks are stupid an' backward?"

  Harris laughed. "A comfortin' lie that was obsolete when I was yo' age girl." She called up the world map again. "Whats the most relevent fact about that area, all things considered? Think about it Berenice."

  "It's… far away from everywhere?"

  "Correct. As far as yo' can get , failin' Austrailia. Societies grow and develop by compitition, same as species, only the process is Lamarckian not Darwinian.The inhabitants of this area are barely neolithic, cept' for havin' iron spears and hoes. No political unit larger than a few villages, no written language, no horses, no wagons, an' a magical-ritual world view. Four thousand kilometers of mountain, jungle, and fever-bush protection; than three millennia of progress arrived overnight by ship, with the result that they became our cattle."

  She glanced at her wrist. "Class over. Fo' the next, I want a short essay, outlinin' why plantations became the standard rural unit." A hard look. "I do not want a rehash of chapter 7," she added, tapping the brown jacketed text before her. The Domination: A Historical Survey. "Yo' own thoughts. Give yo' a hint: look at where the most of the Loyalists came from. Then look at the figures in the appendix on soil fertility an' erosion in the far-southern provinces, and the demographics chapter. See yo' Thursday, girls. Service to the State."

  "Glory to the Race," they answered. The desks hummed and began to spit printouts of the maps the

  teacher had summoned into the receiver trays.

  Wheeee! Yolande thought, slowing to a handstand on the parallel bars. Her body was straight as a plumbline, toes pointed to the ceiling and arms a rigid Y on the hardwood poles. Then she let her weight fall back, a long swoop that accelerated like a sling's circuit into speed that pulled the blood out of her head, flung her up and her hands came off the bars and she twisted in midair, body whirling like a top. Slap and her hands were back on the bar, almost in the same position but facing the opposite direction.

  Five, she thought. That was enough; her arms were starting to tire. There was no sense in risking an injury. Instead she spread her legs in the air and lowered her feet, placing them neatly just behind her hands. The damp skin touched oak; she took a deep breath and sprang, backflipping in the air and landing on the balls of her feet, knees bending slightly to take the shock as she touched down on the hard rubbery synthetic of the palaestra's floor.

  There was applause. Startled, Yolande looked up as she reached for a towel. Several of the other girls had stopped and were clapping, halting for a moment the stick-fighting or free weights or exercise machines that their individual programs prescribed. She blushed and bent her head to dry herself off; she was slick-wet with sweat from face to feet, a familiar enough sensation and rather agreeable. The embarrassment was not, and she was glad that the exertion-glow would hide it. She finished and drew on the rough cotton trousers and singlet, pulling the drawstring of the pants tight with fingers that trembled slightly. Half irritation, half a pleasure that was almost painful…

  I am good at the bars, she thought. I just wish… it's nice to be good, but I wish it didn't make you stand out. Why can't I ever just fit in…

  "Not bad," Margrave said. The instructor was dressed in pankration practice-armor, shiny black leather and synthetic, and a padded helmet with protective bars across the face. "Ever thought of trying for the Games?"

  "Yes, Miz Margrave," Yolande said. The Domination had little in the way of professional sports, but amateur athletics had high prestige. She had daydreamed it, standing on the rebuilt plinth at Olympia with the golden olive-wreath resting on her hair… but that would mean giving up all her spare time, and… "There are too many ot
her things to do."

  Margrave nodded, and jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the rack of pankration equipment on the far wall. "Such as that. Suit up, I'd bettah check yo' style."

  Yolande swallowed dryly and trotted to obey; that was one of the rules, you ran everywhere. This palaestra was a severly plain box two stories high and open on one end to face a turf running-track and a long vista of fields and woods; the interior was finished in white tile, with mirrors and stretching-rails around most of the perimeter, climbing-ropes and rings dangling from the ceiling. "Thanks," she muttered to Myfwany, as the other girl helped her on with the armor.

  "Level?" she asked the instructor as they faced off.

  "Full contact far as yo' concerned," Margrave said. "Startin'… now."

  Yolande dropped into fighting position, feet at right angles and knees bent. Breath in through the nose, out through the mouth. Muscles relaxed; you could make yourself faint with exhaustion in minutes if you tensed. The weight of armor, boots, and gloves was familiar; you never practiced without them, for protection's sake and because real-world fighting wasn't done in gym clothes. The teacher quartered, and Yolande responded with a pivot on her front foot. Don't let the opponent push you back, she reminded herself.

  A kick. Straight hop-kick forward, toward her stomach. She moved into it, parrying with her left hand and swiping upward with her left elbow towards the chin… No, that was a mistake, Margrave was too tall…

  The teacher's kicking leg had come down aside, leaving her in a wide horse-straddle stance. Her hands clamped down on Yolande's arm, elbow and shoulder; she hip-twisted to leave her right leg as a trip-bar and threw the student forward and down. That was simple enough, so simple that she could think while reflex ingrained since her fifth year rucked her head down and made her throw herself with the motion. Time slowed as she fell. Impact on the shoulders. Rolling to break the hold, rolling forward curled into a ball to preserve momentum.

  "Can't get up fast enough," she muttered, vocal cords following thought without conscious intervention. She was watching between her own feet as she rolled, watching the teacher's machine-fluid rush after her. Slap, and her forearms went down on the mat in a neat V; her body curled on top of them, its own weight coiling it back like a spring. A hunnh of effort, and she drove both legs back, toes curled towards her shins and heels together.

  They struck, heelbones driving into the teacher's solar plexus. That hurt, she thought; it was like kicking a concrete-block wall, and it jarred every bone in her body down to the small of her back. Move, move. Margrave was folding backwards bending at the middle, moving like a stone dropped into thick honey. Yolande let the impact stop her own body in mid air, curled her knees towards her chest and roll-bounced upright. The teacher was just straightening; the girl swung forward in a flying scissor, pumping the left knee up for momentum and then down as the right foot whipped around in a torquing circle, aimed for—

  Blackness.

  "She's all right," a voice was saying. Yolande blinked and started to shake her head. That was a mistake, and she was barely able to contain the surge of nausea that followed. Flecks of glitter drifted past her retinas, and her vision quivered as hands undid the helmet and slid her head free.

  A finger peeled back one eyelid, while a hand clamped her head steady. "Good—even dilation. No concussion."

  A cool cloth touched brow and cheeks: Myfwany. "Yo' were just out fo' a sec," she said, her voice anxious. Margrave removed her own practice helmet and threw it to one side, leaning forward again to probe at Yolande's neck and shoulders with expert fingers.

  "Nice work. Iff'n I hadn't had the breastplate yo' might have put me out with that back-kick. "

  "Sorry," Yolande mumbled, squinting against the multiple images. Margrave grinned.

  "Nevah say sorry fo' doin' it right." She looked up to the circle of students. "That was the right move. 'Specially against superior weight an' strength. The follow-up was the problem; those-there high-jumpin' kicks don't do it, 'less'n the other side's immobilized anyways. Don't get fancy." Margrave came up on one knee, leaned over with elbow on thigh.

  "Good work, Ingolfsson," she continued. "Yo' really pushed me a little. Rest easy fo' a while." To the others: "Right, pick partners an' face off. No contact."

  It was full dark now on the beach, and the driftwood fire crackled, sending sparks flying up with sharp popping sounds. The flames were blue and red and orange, a white-crimson over the bed of coals below; the smell was dry and hot. Inland the trees and shrubs rustled, shadows dark and moving against the lesser dark of the sky. The waves were breaking in a foam of cream, glittering in starlight and moonlight, surge and retreat. The sound of them was like heartbeat in her ears, like lying beside some huge and friendly beast. Out beyond her friends were still diving and playing, flashes of white bodies otter-sleek among the water. Their voices dropped into the warm dark, no louder than the cicadas and nightbirds.

  Yolande laid her head on her knees and wiggled her toes over the edge of the blanket. The powdery white clung to them like frosting; she tapped her feet together and felt the grains trickle down her insteps, tickling or clinging where the skin was still damp from her swim. Looking up, the moonpath lay on the water like silver, almost painfully bright. The stars were sparse around the moon, abundant elsewhere; the lights of men were far too few to dim them. A faint glow west across the bay was Naples, and she could make out the long curve of the coast by the wide-scattered jewels that marked the towns and manors of her people. Elsewhere the shore was quiet and lightless, fields and groves and orchards.

  She lay back on the striped wool and smiled, stretching her arms above her head. Stars… there was a trick to that. A mental effort, and the velvet backdrop with its glowing colored lights vanished; instead there was depth, an endless dark where great fires hung burning forever amid the slow-fading hydrogen roar of creation. Her lips parted, and she felt a sensation that might have been delight, or a loneliness too great to bear; she forced herself to hold the wordless moment, mind suspended in pure experience. Moisture gathered slowly around her eyes, trickling in warm salt streaks down the wind-cooled skin of her temples.

  "Woof!" Mandy's voice. "I'm turnin' into a prune. Come on!"

  Yolande started as the others dashed out of the ocean, wiping away the not-quite-tears with the back of her wrist. They ran past her to the freshwater fountain at the edge of the beach, laughing and splashing each other around the stone basin as they sluiced off the salt. The darkness closed around as they threw themselves down on the blankets about the fire; now it was a hearth, the tribe's fortress against the night. Myfwany sat cross-legged beside her, leaning back on braced palms. She was still breathing deeply from the swim; from Yolande's position her face was shadowed against the backlit dark-red curtain of her hair. The drops of water that ran down her flanks glistened with the rise and fall of her chest, changing from blood-crimson to lemon-yellow.

  "You're quiet, 'Landa," she said. "Head still troublin'?"

  "Mmmmm… no. Hammerin' great headache yesterday, couldn't hardly move this mornin'. Now it's just a bit stiff all ovah. No, I's just lookin' at the stars and thinkin'."

  Myfwany probed at her neck, tracing the cords down to her shoulders; she shivered slightly at the touch, still cold and wet." 'S right, stiff," Myfwany said definitely. "Maybe swimmin' wasn't such a good idea. Muriel, give me a hand? Roll ovah, 'Landa."

  Yolande turned onto her stomach and laid her cheek on her crossed hands, feeling a painful warmth in her stomach. "Thanks," she muttered. Massage was usually serfs work, although everybody learned it; it was something you did for close friends, a sign that status was put aside. Two pairs of hands began to work on her, one starting on the soles of her feet, the other where the neck-muscles anchored on the base of her skull. She felt uncomfortable for an instant, as the pressure made her aware of soreness she had been ignoring, then surrendered to the sensation.

  "Y'all bein' mighty nice," she said sincerely. Myfwan
y snorted, and Muriel laughed and slapped her lightly on the calf.

  "Yo' the one bruised the Bruiser," Mandy said. She was kneeling by a basket across the fire, rummaging within. "Never seen her move so fast; mean of her to thump yo' head, though."

  "No, that's the point," Myfwany said. "Bruiser had to move fast, an' react automatic-like."

  "Jus' so —Veronica, watch where yo' puttin' that dirt! I's got scallops in heah!"

  The stocky girl had been raising the fine sand in double handfuls, letting it trickle down over her body. She laughed and bent backward from her kneeling position until her head touched the blanket behind her, a perfect bow, stretching.

  " 'Salright," she said as she rose. A sigh. "Ah jus' love this time of year. Perfect, just cool enough fo' a fire, but not cold. Look! There it is!"

  She raised a hand. They followed the gesture, and saw a moving star crawling slowly across the southern horizon.

  "That our'n or their'n?" Mandy asked. The Domination and the Alliance had both put up another dozen orbital platforms in the last few years; the rivalry was pushing development hard.

  "Ours," Myfwany said, sinking back on her elbows. "Oh, ours." Her voice became dreamy. "I wonder… How do the stars look from there?" To Yolande: "What were yo' thinkin' of, starwatcher?"

  "Lots of things," Yolande said abstractedly. "How we can't see the stars, jus' the light they sent long ago. Like readin' a book, hey? An'… how far away, an' how perfect."

  "Perfect?"

  "There's no right or wrong with them," Yolande continued, almost singsong, whispering. "No lovin' or hatin'; they just… are."