Ranh

by Ian J Miller

  Chapter 9

  Kazyn pressed the doorbell and waited. Eventually the door opened, and Tes stood before him. "You have the rats?"

  "I do," Kazyn replied, and held up the cage.

  "Excellent," Tes said, and opened the door more fully. A servant stood behind him, and Tes handed the cage to her. "Come on in!" he gestured.

  The hall was somewhat different from anything Kazyn had ever seen, but then, he realized, he should have expected something like this. Along one of the walls were mounted a series of ancient spears and other assorted weapons, while along the other wall a series of various shields were mounted. These appeared to be extraordinarily old, with one of the shields almost in a state of disintegration.

  "That one," Tes explained, when he saw Kazyn staring at it, "appears to be an original. It is almost five million years old, although it is more preservative and adhesive than original shield. The others," he explained, waving his arm about, "are as close as we can make them to what they were supposed to look like."

  They walked down the hall, and eventually turned into a lounge, where two others were seated. Kazyn was led towards the older of the two, who was dressed resplendently in the military style, but not full uniform.

  "Kuyrill Kazyn, please be honoured to meet Tenzat Seppet Zakryn," Tes introduced them.

  "I am indeed honoured," Kazyn said.

  "You have been to Earth?" Zakryn asked.

  "Yes, Tenzat."

  "And you have an assessment of their military strength?"

  "Yes, Tenzat."

  "Then we shall have an interesting conversation," he nodded, "but first you should meet my daughter."

  "Kuyrill Kazyn, please be honoured to meet Seppet Methrell," Tes carried out this introduction.

  "I am pleased to meet you." Kazyn noted she was about his biological age, and found his thoughts wandering.

  "What fine plumage…" Methrell softly stroked the plumage on his neck that was above his clothing, then as Kazyn was almost getting excited, she stepped back and snorted, "and you still have it!"

  "I have had the risks pointed out more than once," Kazyn replied ruefully, "but occasionally one has to take risks to make big gains."

  "And your goal is to be a champion tailball player?" Methrell said softly, "with hordes of admiring females, and –"

  "Not exactly," Kazyn interrupted. He was now beginning to realize that Methrell could well be trouble, but whatever her interest, right now she was definitely playing with him.

  "Then what exactly are you up to?" Methrell teased.

  "I need to be more of a public figure," Kazyn admitted. "One of the problems of being off-world is that when you get back, those of your age group that were going to matter now matter, and they do not necessarily want to know you. One has to start again, and starting again is not easy unless one can get into the public eye, one way or the other."

  "It is a traditional method for advancement," Zakryn chuckled as he looked at Methrell. "Your cousin Tes is trying the same thing."

  "And, for that matter, so did you," Methrell noted, then turned towards Kazyn and added, "so you may be encouraged to know that it works, at least some of the time."

  "It is indeed good to know that," Kazyn replied. Now this wretched female might even be interested, but . . . He had to keep his mind clear. Fortunately, the cage of rats was now brought into the room, and laid before the Tenzat.

  "So, these are rats?" he mused.

  "They're genetically engineered to be much larger than those usually found on Earth," Kazyn explained, "but I assure you that the full taste has been retained."

  "I assume I am permitted to try one?" Zakryn asked with a questioning smile.

  "It would be rather crass of me to bring them and say no," Kazyn said. "There should be enough for everybody." He paused, looked at Methrell, and added, "Of course I did not know that Methrell would be here," then, when he saw the flicker of concern cross her face, he quickly added, "but I have brought enough as long as some restraint is shown."

  "Hmm . . . quite delicious," Zakryn nodded his head in endorsement, and handed the cage to Methrell. "You must try one, before your young admirer gets disappointed and takes them back."

  "I'm not . . ." a frustrated Kazyn started, then suddenly changed his tone and added, "going to take them back."

  "Nice correction," Methrell snorted. She grabbed a squealing rat in her claws, popped it into her mouth, and began chewing. "Yes! Nice crunch, and quite an unusual taste." She chewed some more, then said, "Apart from eating rats, I gather you were studying humans?"

  "That was the purpose of the expedition," Kazyn confirmed.

  "I don't suppose you got close enough to one to have a conversation?"

  "Actually, he did," Tes confirmed. "He actually made one an honorary nestling."

  "Oh!" a stunned Methrell replied. "A mammal nestling!" She paused, then added, "Well, I suppose that's different."

  "She save my life," Kazyn explained.

  "Which presumably was in danger because of your own stupidity?" Methrell challenged.

  Kazyn looked at her, but could reach no conclusion. Obviously his mother had told Zakryn something about the Terran expedition, but how much? He decided that at least part of the truth might have to be told, but in a way that did not say too much. "It is true that if I had carried out my mother's instructions to the letter," he said, "there would have been no danger. Nor anything else, for that matter," he added caustically. "Of course, later on I helped save her life."

  "Oh, how truly gallant," Methrell said, as she took another rat. "Saving the life of a female in distress. Pity it had to be a mammal." She chewed a little, then asked, "Well, do tell how you managed this feat."

  "She was kidnapped by some rather treacherous humans," Kazyn said. "It is a custom on Earth to negotiate over lunch, to share food, and discuss things, so I invited about thirty of these thugs to lunch, and fed them well."

  "Invited?" Methrell frowned.

  "It is true I had arranged for them to be beaten to a pulp if they turned me down," he explained.

  "So they told you where this female was?" Methrell asked. "Why?"

  "Basically because if they didn't, they were my lunch," Kazyn explained. "A small number told me, and the rest, well, they ended up in the larder."

  "Ah! Some normalcy at last." She paused, then seemed as if she wanted to say something, but did not quite know how.

  "Oh Methrell!" Tes interrupted. "So transparent!" He turned to Kazyn and said, "You do see it, don't you?"

  "I was leaving dealing with that until the end of the evening," Kazyn nodded, and noted that now Methrell seemed almost embarrassed.

  "What I wanted to know," Methrell explained in a forced but rather unconvincing tone, "is why this female was kidnapped by treacherous humans?"

  "I suspect," Zakryn intervened, "that our young Kazyn here has some concept of tactics. I suspect this female was somewhat important."

  "She was effectively your equivalent on Earth," Kazyn explained. "She was in charge of the Terran military."

  "Head of the military," the Tenzat nodded, "and a female?"

  "And why not?" Methrell challenged.

  "Oh dear, I walked into that," Zakryn chuckled. "Methrell, the reason I was surprised was that I believed that the Terran military was male dominated."

  "It was," Kazyn explained, "and to some extent it still is."

  "So," Zakryn asked, "what happened to your nestling?"

  "She's in one of the Terran ships up in space," Kazyn explained, then he turned to Methrell and said, "I could arrange for you to meet her, if she's of that much interest."

  "Why hasn't she visited Ranh?" Zakryn asked.

  "Tenzat Tergyn refuses to give permission."

  "And she's not trying to force an answer?"

  "I told her not to," Kazyn admitted.

  "Oh? You told her?"

  "All right. I advised her." He looked at the Tenzat's stare, and added. "For strategic reasons."
<
br />   "Hah! A strategist. Which is why, I suppose, we got to taste those rats?" The Tenzat suddenly began laughing at Kazyn's sign of distress. "Don't worry! They were delicious, and in a few minutes we'll have some more food and drink. Remember, I invited you to bring them, and I expected you'd want something back."

  "It is true that I, well, Ranh, needs . . ."

  "Your planet needs you!" Methrell taunted.

  "Yes, well, strictly speaking this is a problem for Tenzat Tergyn, but . . ."

  "But he's behaving like the block-head he is," Zakryn nodded.

  Kazyn was somewhat taken aback. It was most unusual for a Tenzat to criticise another, at least publicly, but then again this was not public. He had to say something, so he tried to be diplomatic. "He gave no reason to me. Of course he doesn't have to," he added for Methrell's benefit.

  "And your nestling has come here for what?" Methrell asked.

  "To negotiate peace between Earth and Ranh."

  "Leaving aside moral, treaty, and similar issues," Methrell said, "since you've been there, why don't you tell me your interpretation of the military issues?"

  Kazyn now realized why she was there. The Tenzat was not going to ask his opinion, but a teasing daughter could, with no loss of face. Everything she had said up to this time had been a show. On the other hand, she may be important in the future. Zakryn could well be tutoring her, and in any case, it was the Tenzat who was really asking.

  "The strategic situation begins with where we are," Kazyn commenced. "For reasons that are not entirely clear, Ranh sent a very large fleet of warships to Ulse in its time of need, with instructions to choose the winning side and settle the issue once and for all."

  "Why do you say, for reasons that are not entirely clear?" Methrell asked. "The records of the debates are clear and complete."

  "Yes, but there is a very strong assumption throughout the debate by one of the parties that Ulse was going to lose, and it was far from clear why."

  "Your suggestion?" Methrell asked.

  "I cannot totally eliminate temporal interference," Kazyn replied. "This would be in the form of a religious vision."

  "The Creator ordered it," Methrell nodded. "Go on."

  Kazyn was stunned. He had made an outlandish proposition, and the two Seppets had merely nodded, as if they were considering it as a real possibility.

  "The Ulsians had two fleets at the critical battle, and the natural leader of one was an Ulsian traitor," Kazyn continued, "nevertheless the other leader, as it happens a human, saved the day. The net result was that Ulse was a little peeved at our attitude, and held us to our promise. The Ranhyn fleet therefore had to lead the charge against the enemy, and thanks to the relativistic effect, it could take a couple of millennia to find out what they did and what happened to them.

  "On the other hand," Kazyn continued, "thirty odd enemy ships fled in this direction. Their power should have been quite sufficient to conquer Earth. The Terran Ulsian commander, who had been abducted from Earth, was permitted to return to save his own species, and he returned with two mainline Ulsian battleships, and these are two of the most sophisticated warships ever built. They are certainly superior to anything we have ever built, or perhaps know how to build."

  "There are only two, though," Methrell pointed out.

  "Actually, now there are three. The enemy captured one and subsequently abandoned it when it refused to comply with their orders. This was recaptured by the humans, but I take your point. Anyway, to continue, a request for assistance was transmitted to Ranh as these Ulsian ships flew by, and we sent observers rather than warships.

  "Notwithstanding that," Kazyn continued, "the Terrans prevailed. They captured two enemy warships, and in the final battle, Terrans alone destroyed or nullified two thirds of the enemy fleet.

  "One of the pilots of a captured ship was a physicist, and while he had occupancy of the enemy ship he got enough clues that he will probably be able to construct an inertial equivalence unit, which means that if they develop a power unit they can construct interstellar ships –"

  "An Ulsian technology leakage," Methrell challenged.

  "If we had met our treaty obligations instead of fence squatting," Kazyn retorted, "this would not have happened. In my view, any complaint to Ulse will result at best in an offer to singe the complainant."

  "There's worse?" she asked curiously.

  "That Claudius up there might suggest a gladius up the arse, or perhaps a crucifixion."

  "What's a crucifixion?"

  "He takes a wooden cross, and each arm is nailed to it, then the legs are nailed to the upright, and the whole lot hoist upwards."

  "How peculiar," Zakryn mused. "What's the point of this?"

  "Extreme pain," Kazyn said, then added as an explanation, "You realize the victim is alive and otherwise well, at least at the start of proceedings."

  "Oh!" Zakryn almost flinched. "I see! Quite vicious!"

  "There is probably a rumour that Terrans are soft," Kazyn explained. "They are not warriors like us, but do not under-rate them."

  "So," Methrell continued, "what is their current military capability?"

  "There are far more of them than us," Kazyn said, "so their manufacturing capacity, even if we hit their factories, is higher. When I left they had no inertial equivalence unit, so they can't accelerate much over 2 g for any period of time, but that may be rectified by the time we could get there. They do not have the capability of getting here in numbers, at least now."

  "Then how did they defeat their enemy?" Methrell asked. Since Kazyn had been closely watching Zakryn, he had seen the very faint signal, so it was really he that was asking this question, and probably this was the reason he had been invited in the first place. "According to you, the humans were still badly outgunned."

  "Basically, by unusual weapons. They have developed a high level of technology with the irrelevant quarks."

  "You mean they have a way of avoiding the inherent instability?"

  "Only to a point," Kazyn said. "They're still highly dangerous to them, but these weapons do have an inherent problem for us."

  "Which is?"

  "Our shielding is a function of incoming energy," Kazyn explained, "but in this case the energy is locked in as mass and hence can pass through our shields. Essentially while their weapons are in some ways crude, we have no guaranteed defence to them, so the outcome of a battle with them is not necessarily easy to predict."

  "As I understand from your report," Methrell said, "the enemy offered battle at their chosen site. Why?"

  "Possibly for several reasons," Kazyn said carefully, as he watched Zakryn's face. This could be critical. He was going to discuss military strategy with the head of the Military Curia, and mistakes here could cost him a lot of support. "The first point is the enemy had attacked Earth defences twice, admittedly with reduced numbers of ships, but each time they lost two ships and others were damaged. They could not win a war of attrition because they had no resupply."

  Zakryn nodded and his expression indicated that he thought this was a reasonable point. "Go on," he said. "There must be more than that."

  Kazyn breathed a slight sigh of relief. So far, so good, as those humans were frequently saying. "The next point is the humans had raided the Miranda base, they stole a M'starn ship, and they liberated the slave labour. They also made some penetration into the enemy defences on their home base, but were driven off. The point, though, is that the humans got far enough in to learn about the nature of what could be thrown against them, and they had succeeded in destroying one defensive nest. The enemy had to fear that next time, with better knowledge, the humans could be far more a problem."

  "That still doesn't explain why they accepted battle at that asteroid," Methrell pointed out.

  Kazyn noticed that Zakryn was now watching him very intently. The next step could be very important. He took a deep breath, and raised a claw and pointed at Methrell, as if he were instructing a reluctant student. "The human s
trategy was to defend at the asteroid, and have defences around the home planet. If the M'starn attacked Earth with all their ships, they threatened to launch against the unprotected Miranda, while if they launched a few ships at Earth, they could chip away at them, and in such a war of attrition, the M'starn must lose. So the M'starn had to either remove that threat to their home base, or negotiate a way out."

  "Could Earth have launched a big enough raid?" Methrell asked.

  "Probably not," Kazyn said, "but the enemy did not know that for certain. And there was more."

  "Then do tell," Methrell growled. Kazyn now noticed that Tes was remarkably silent, almost concerned, but why?

  "The next goading point was tantalum," Kazyn explained. "The humans had managed to get a spy to hear there were good amounts of tantalum in that asteroid."

  "That is impossible," Methrell said. "Surely they would not fall for that!"

  "Not necessarily," Kazyn said as he pointed his claw at her again. "First, the spy heard a geologist say it was impossible, but he was told that nevertheless it was there, as if it were a gift from the Gods."

  "The Creator interfering there too?" Methrell responded. She was clearly taken aback.

  "In my opinion, the asteroid that hit Earth was effectively a bomb to reset evolution there," Kazyn nodded. "A fourth site to the experiment. And remember, we have found two examples of what can only be regarded as gifts from the Creator. One such gift to the humans was not impossible."

  "Was it there?" Tes interjected.

  Kazyn noticed that Zakryn gave a frown of annoyance at this question. Tes was supposed to be silent. "No, it was just plain misinformation, along with the fact that the humans gave the spy the outline of Earth's battle plans, which were fairly accurate."

  "They did what? The fools!" Tes interjected again, and this time received a very stern look from Zakryn.

  "They were accurate as far as they went," Kazyn explained, "but they left out one or two extremely critical details."

  "Inviting the sucker strike," Methrell mused.