Murphy's Lawless: A Terran Republic Novel

by Charles E. Gannon

  “Raah!” he suddenly yelled, grabbing his braids tightly enough that the muscles of his forearms bunched, his face contorted for a moment in frustration. “Parlay! So be it. First, you need to bind up your wounds before you expire while my clan is in your debt! And someone look to my young idiot!”

  He nodded curtly at the shaman, and the circle broke up. A few clansmen as well as Rodriguez and Volo hastened to the combatants. Harry flopped to his side, rolling off Grevorg, and just like that, his rage rolled up, receded out of sight, like a window shade winding back into a hard roll. Grevorg sat up, holding one hand to his neck. They looked at each other, still breathing hard.

  “Thank you for my life, Ha-Ree,” Grevorg said, waving off his sister who was trying to see to his neck wound, prying at his blood-stained fingers.

  Harry meant to nod, but the ground was in the way and his shoulder throbbed with every beat of his heart. He yelled instead as a great weight clamped against his shoulder. He looked over to see Rodriguez leaning on him, hard, both hands on the wound. Blood had already saturated the battle dressing Rodriguez had evidently held at the ready.

  “Shit, this is really deep, El-Tee,” he said, “Volo—open that second dressing! I can’t tell if the artery is cut, and the wound is too high for a tourniquet. We have to pack it, now!”

  He looks a little pale. Wonder how much blood I lost. I wonder how bad my arm is.

  Harry let Rodriguez work. The pain was bad but seemed very far away. He vaguely felt his body being manipulated this way and that, but presently he felt very tired. Harry didn’t notice when the shaman began aiding his teammate, because he was unconscious by then.

  * * *

  I can make this work! I love you!

  I love you, too, but it’s too late.

  No—it’s not too late. I can fix it. I’ll come back.

  You’re gone, my love.

  Come back!

  It’s too late for us, Harry.

  No! Noo!

  Harry woke up, clutching at the air. Not another hundred years! He fell back right away, breathing hard.

  He was on a bedroll combining the synthetic foam pad he’d brought with him and some unfamiliar soft fabric or hide dyed a deep brown. A few candles, tallow by the smell, guttered alongside. Their smoke mingled with a new, astringent scent that filled the concave leather walls surrounding him. His eyes traced the lines of the walls as they tapered to a pointed ceiling a few meters overhead.

  Opposite him, Rodriguez had been dozing, but Harry’s movement caused him to open his eyes.

  “Hello, sunshine,” he said, before smacking the heavy skin wall of the tent and shouting, “Hey! Rosha! He’s awake.”

  “How long was I out this time, Marco?” Harry asked, blinking. A small pewter-colored brazier was the source of the bitter smell. It didn’t seem to be bothering his faithful NCO.

  Another hospital. And more hospital dreams. I hate hospitals.

  “All day and most of the next,” Rodriguez answered. “You’re tore up pretty good. The kid got his knife into your bicep and your delts. Nicked the artery. Bled like a pig and went into shock. I got the antibiotics on it, but you’re not going to be good for much for a few weeks and it’s gonna be stiff for months.”

  The flap to the tent was pushed aside and the shaman-woman summoned by the NCO ducked in, her outfit blurring in motion as the assorted decorations and fetishes danced with her movement. She was followed in close order by Grevorg and his sister, Stella. Grevorg had a skin-colored leather patch on his neck, apparently sticking of its own volition. Stella still wore her now-familiar glare.

  “You wake at last, Ha-Ree,” Rosha said, making her way to his side and sinking onto her haunches. “Welcome back from the dream world. First, I will examine my work. Then you must eat. You lost much blood and need to replace it for your body to heal.”

  She reached towards Harry’s shoulder. Involuntarily, he flinched away and raised one hand. His right hand, on the side gored by Grevorg. Everyone stopped and watched the movement.

  “Is there pain?” the shaman asked.

  “No,” Harry answered, shocked that it was true. He hadn’t gotten a great look at the time, but he remembered clearly Rodriguez and Volo working on the wound right next to his face. It had been a massive and deep laceration. He’d seen his own muscle and fascia, clear to the pinkish bone of the humerus.

  He shakily moved his arm up and down a little and it began to ache.

  “Maybe a little.”

  “So,” the healer said. “Now, we look.” She glanced at Rodriguez. “A light, you smelly beast.”

  “She likes my flashlight better than she likes me,” Rodriguez explained, producing a small battery powered Maglite and aiming it down as Rosha moved away the blood-stained padding. “Holy shit! Look at that!”

  The wound centered on Harry’s upper arm and shoulder was fully closed, demarcated by a bright red, puckered welt, framed by the circle of bright white illumination. He flexed his elbow, and pain, almost like a cramp, bloomed deep in the muscle.

  “Good,” Rosha said, laying her hand on Harry’s arm and gently pushing it down. “Put it down. Now the other arm.”

  Harry obediently raised his left arm. The deep slashes on the forearms were also closed and were hardly more than red and purple lines. He made a fist and felt a light sting along the skin, similar to what a line of stitches had felt like in the past. Except, there were no stitches. He shoved the blanket down, and the wound on his ribs was similarly closed.

  Harry stared in shock, and he could hear Rodriguez’s disbelieving mutterings.

  “How long has it been?” Harry repeated.

  “Nearly two days have you slept,” Rosha answered, peering at the wound. She withdrew a little clay pot from a pocket on the belly of her garment and dabbed a finger inside before smearing the line of the incision with a snot-green paste which smelled like a urinal. As she traced the cut, she muttered inaudibly and the touch of her finger grew hot, like a hair dryer left aimed at one’s scalp for too long. Rosha continued down every red-seamed wound and then repeated the ritual twice more before settling back on her haunches half an hour later, visibly tired.

  “My magic is strong, and as you can see, the wounds are closed and healing.”

  Harry looked, and sure enough, the redness of the incision lines had faded perceptibly.

  “El-Tee, that ain’t natural,” Rodriguez said in English, staring at impossibly healthy, intact skin. “I’ve treated every kind of bush injury there is, and I’d have bet my abuela’s virtue you’d be screaming in agony without some kind of painkiller. I used the anti-infection stuff we got from the Dornaani, but there’s no way the wound is just gone.”

  “Tell you friend not to fear, Ha-Ree,” Grevorg said, smiling at the obviously distraught Terrans. “Our shaman is powerful and knows the old ways. See?”

  He peeled back the edge of his neck plaster to reveal the shallow cut Harry had inflicted there, and sure enough, it too was barely more than a closed red seam.

  “Fool boy, ruining my work!” Rosha said, smacking his hands and carefully resealing the thin leather covering.

  “How?” Harry asked in Ktor, not even bothering to conceal his awe. “No disrespect, honored clan-woman, but even our advanced medicines can’t accomplish this much, so fast.”

  “Oh?” Rosha asked, cocking her head. “Truly? The more one uses the old magic, the better it works, and your body responded quite well, as well as our hunters who’ve used these magics since birth.”

  She looked at Harry’s biggest wound again and sucked her teeth meditatively.

  “Perhaps better. I think that apart from scars, there will be no permanent damage.”

  Rosha peered into the little brazier. She reached down and pulled a little leather sack off her vest. Opening it, she poured a little handful of fine white powder into her palm and weighed it before adding a bit more. Then she tugged a small bunch of dried twigs from the other side of her chest and crumb
led one into her palm before upending the mixture into whatever was already brewing. Harry realized her decorated vest wasn’t the affectation of an indigenous witch doctor: it was a functional combat medic’s harness, complete with pharmacy. A fresh puff of smoke and a renewed astringent odor accompanied her actions. “Your body had been drawing on its reserves and now you must eat.”

  She snapped her fingers.

  “Stella!”

  The young woman moved up to Harry’s bedroll, body-checking her brother out of the way. She held a small, three-legged pot by a handle, its underside charred black.

  “Help him sit, you slow oaf,” Stella ordered her brother. “He can’t eat on his back.”

  “What’s this, Grevorg?” Harry asked, confused as strong hands helped him to sit upright before more blankets and pillows were stuffed behind his back.

  “You won the trial,” his former opponent said, his tone making it clear that the answer obvious. “When you spared my life, Yannis accepted your offer of parlay. That can’t happen till you are well, so we will help you heal. Clan law.”

  Stella opened the pot and stirred it.

  “Open your mouth, Sky Man,” she said.

  “Use courtesy, sister,” Grevorg said. “The law binds Keepers more tightly than others. As you know.”

  For a moment the siblings scowled at each other, but Stella relented.

  “If you please, Ha-Ree,” she said, grudgingly. “I help you eat so you heal more speedily.”

  “Looks like you get to find out if those immunity shots on the station took or not, El-Tee,” Rodriguez said with a malicious smile. “Someone had to be first. I’ll be over here, just enjoying some of these delicious SpinDog rations.”

  Harry looked helplessly at the shaman-woman, who stood, hands on hips. She made little urging motions.

  “Eat, eat!”

  He opened his mouth to protest he could feed himself, and the girl promptly shoved a loaded spoon into it. Harry chewed cautiously. The texture was meaty, and the taste was mildly sweet and salty. As he chewed, he became aware of a growing level of spiciness, like the Thai food served at Sara’s favorite restaurant.

  “By the way, I saw what they were cooking an’ it had at least six legs, if it had a one,” Rodriguez offered, gesturing with a plastic spoon.

  Despite a pang of homesickness Harry somehow forgot to be mad.

  * * *

  Volo watched the activity in the camp as it quietly bustled around him. He paid particular attention to the younger women. Even clad in the robes and leathers which protected them from the desert wind, their obvious athleticism was…intriguing. It probably wasn’t a good idea, but he couldn’t help but imagine some of them wearing the much lighter, form-following station suits worn by the SpinDogs in their off-planet habitat. However, his regard had not been returned, a first for Volo. He’d never lacked for companionship, despite the strictures on sexual relations aboard Second Spin. This was particularly true since even the youngest of the Zobulakos family was still an attractive political match.

  However, he’d learned on R’Bak, the same wasn’t the case. Despite painful preparation, his musculature and endurance did not compare to that of the natives, or even the Terrans. Oh, he was treated politely enough. The outcome of Tapper’s duel had ensured it. But the duel had only been necessary as a result of what was clearly a preplanned maneuver by Volo’s idiot brother, Stabilo. The next message Volo had squirted up to the orbiting microsat for relay to Second Spin had outlined the situation and the reply from his father contained confirmation.

  At least his father would see to Stabilo’s embarrassment. Knifing your brother in the back, at least metaphorically, was an accepted ritual during the incessant, internecine struggles for dominance among more traditionally-minded SpinDogs. Of course, one was expected to succeed. Failure was gauche, enough so that it reduced one’s social desirability. Among the Sarmatchani, allowing a second to stand for you in a duel seemed to have imparted the same taint. And while the duel had extinguished the immediate hostility, the Sarmatchani chief had remained unswayed by Volo’s proposals for action against the J’Stull, let alone facing the Kulsians directly, preferring to wait until Tapper had healed.

  A movement caught his attention, and Volo followed the headman’s daughter with his eyes as she strode into view, lightly stepping between the guy lines along the row of tents, before ducking into the yurtlike structure where Tapper was recovering from the injuries he’d sustained during the duel. The young woman didn’t bother to first slap the leather to request entrance, as formal custom required. Volo frowned.

  Only two days after the fight, the Terran officer had regained partial use of his arm despite the massive tissue damage and blood loss. Now, he was effectively fully healed, and, unfortunately, the off-worlders couldn’t stop talking about it. The power of R’Bak’s pharmaceuticals was something Volo’s father wanted deemphasized in any negotiations with the Lost Soldiers. More important, the Sarmatchani should build a relationship principally with the SpinDogs, not the Terrans, and that wasn’t progressing either.

  Volo needed something, but he wasn’t certain what. In the meantime, he would continue to persuade the clan chieftain, as slowly and subtly as time allowed, that it was in his people’s interest to continue to be of assistance.

  * * *

  After the meal, Rosha and her sidekicks left, promising to return later. Rodriguez had stepped out too, leaving his boss to relax and rest in private. But before Harry could fall asleep, he had a different visitor. A single firm slap on the wall of the tent alerted him even as the flap was swept aside and the gray-maned chieftain swiftly ducked inside. As he straightened, he looked at Harry and raised an eyebrow in restrained greeting before glancing around the space.

  “I hate that smell,” Yannis said, wrinkling his nose at the vinegary odor wafting from the brazier. “My wife swears it works, but I think she does it just to annoy the young men and encourage them to get out of bed sooner.”

  “Welcome, honored Yannis,” Harry said. The Dornaani language program had emphasized the importance of formal speech, but the taller man made little palm-down motions in response as Harry struggled to sit somewhat more upright. “I wasn’t expecting a visit. Please excuse my inability to greet you properly.”

  “Just woke up after losing half your blood, and still courteous,” Harry’s visitor observed. “Different from the others we’ve received from beyond the clouds.”

  Harry took a few moments to adjust his pillow so he wasn’t reclining quite so much. He used the time to give the chief a once over. Yannis has skipped the full cloak he’d worn the morning of the duel. He was also empty-handed when it came to his lance or an obvious gun, though a sheathed knife, similar to the one Grevorg had used, hung on his belt. The man sank easily into a cross-legged position, leaning against the central tent pole.

  “Do you receive such visitors often?” Harry said.

  “Often enough to see the difference, Ha-Ree,” Yannis said. “Rosha has examined you closely, and she confirms what anyone with eyes can see: you are not of the Sky People. Your bones are too heavy. You are too scarred, like a warrior. Your hands are not soft. Your eyes are hot, but you have the skepsos, the thinking way of fighting, even when angered. That’s how you goaded my son into a loss.”

  Harry recognized the near-ritual quality of the chief’s recitation. This was no casual chitchat and he hadn’t the luxury of preparation. The SEAL flogged his mind to full alertness.

  “I regret the necessity of wounding Grevorg,” he said earnestly. “But, as I explained before the fight, my clan is allied to the SpinDogs, the Sky People, because we must create a refuge on this planet while we wait for our comrades to return. And so, we must find allies among your people.”

  “Grevorg is fine,” Yannis waved away the apology. “He learned something valuable. Know that I have spoken to your man, the other star soldier, Rod-ree-gets. He tells me you know of the legends of the Reavers who land on R-Bak a
s the second star grows close, scorching the land. He says you would fight against those who murder the tribes. He also says you need us. But he doesn’t explain why you fight.”

  “They aren’t legends, sir,” Harry replied. “They’re true, and your enemy is already here. Better to fight while you’re strong.”

  “Yes, yes,” Yannis said, acknowledging the statement with a wave of one hand. “But what do you get from the fighting? You didn’t have to come here.”

  “We fight so we might have a base, a safe place for our soldiers to rest and ready for another battle,” Harry replied. “We fight so the SpinDogs, such as Volo, might have somewhere to land after hundreds of years spent without a planet under their feet.”

  The smell coming off the brazier was just too strong, and Harry reached over to replace the lid, at least choking off any more of the fumes from deepening the eye-watering atmosphere.

  “I know you’re brave, Ha-Ree,” Yannis said, a small smile playing on his lips. “Only a great hero would dare to change a treatment ordered by the fearsome Rosha. But bravery doesn’t explain why you want to fight. Is it just the sting of battle you seek?”

  “I’ve found the ‘sting’ of battle to be highly overrated,” Harry replied. “I fight when I must.”

  “Tell me why you must fight for the Sky People, then,” Yannis said, looking into Harry’s eyes and holding them. “I know what they want. They need land under the suns and our healing plants. They require healthy women who can help them grow their tribe. Most of all, they need allies in order to defeat the Suzerain, his satraps such as the J’Stull, and the beasts who will ravage land. These SpinDogs aren’t as strong as the armsmen of my great-grandfather, who wore the colors of the Eastern Hegemon before he fled to become a free man. They aren’t as strong as the Suzerain of the North and his army. They have no magic and hope to learn ours. But why do you, Ha-Ree, fight? What do you want?”

  Harry didn’t know whether sharing everything was the smart play or not. What with the blood loss, he wasn’t entirely sure he had all of his wits, and besides, keeping track of lies was a pain in the ass. He looked at the little bank of oil lamps which provided inadequate illumination. Tired of the gloom, he lunged halfway out of his pallet and opened the tent flap, letting fresh light—and air—in.