Kren had noticed a few killings, but hadn't thought it anything out of the ordinary. Certainly, no one had tried to kill him. He would have found that refreshing.
Eventually, Kren just hired an observer to look after his interests at the council, and generally ignored the whole thing. If anyone gave him difficulties, Kren resolved that he would simply kill them. Politics was not for the likes of Kren.
* * *
Dol continued with her program of running the day-to-day operations of the Superior Food Corporation, and continued her academic work on her doctorate in aerodynamic engineering. She remained absolutely loyal to Kren during all of this, but made a lot of money on the side, anyway.
The education that she had gotten from Bronki had served her well.
Eventually, over the next two thousand years, Dol obtained a total of three dozen and two earned doctorates, surpassing Bronki and all but three of the senior academics at the university. If any of this academic achievement was the result of additional vampirism, well, Dol never said, and Kren never asked.
* * *
Kren had been deadly bored for a gross of years, when, twelve years ago, the word came that a suitable new planet had been discovered on the outer periphery of Mitchegai Space, and that his planet had won the sector lottery. The most powerful individual on his planet would be selected to take his subordinates, and to conquer this new world.
There was no doubt anywhere on the planet but that this most powerful individual was Duke Kren!
An entire new planet was to be his to tame! This was something that he could sink his teeth into!
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Wealth, Power, and Danger
New Yugoslavia, 2217 a.d.
Two more of the small, spherical Mitchegai ships were found in Human Space.
Both had been single-pilot exploration ships exactly like the first that Abdul had come across.
Both had had opened fire on us, ignoring our attempts at communication. All they seemed to understand was raw violence.
Both had been destroyed, one with a bank of X-ray lasers, and the other with a Disappearing Gun.
While the second ship was simply gone, the first was yielding more data about our enemy. It had contained many more books than the original one had, and with these our intelligent computers were starting to decipher the enemy's language, habits and thought patterns.
Everything that we could learn about them said that they were absolutely evil. They had no concept of God. They had no concept of Family. They had no concept of Justice. They were rapacious carnivores that simply didn't care about anything or anyone but themselves.
And they really did eat their own children, to the exclusion of everything else.
One other disquieting thing was that both of these new ships had been coming from the same direction as the original one, and that both of them were on a beeline for New Yugoslavia.
* * *
With our metal ladies running the factories, our industrial strength on New Yugoslavia grew at a remarkable rate. We now had a sufficient number of picket ships built to adequately guard New Yugoslavia, and we were selling eight ships a week to the government in New Kashubia. Those mistaken individuals were still doggedly trying to defend the entirety of Human Space, and not the planets where humans actually lived.
Fortunately, well over half of the planets were disregarding the Union of Human Planets, following the lead of New Yugoslavia, and setting up their own defenses.
In another year, we would have enough sensors built to fill in the gaps between our ships, and we already had orders to sell all that we could make after that. In five years, so would a lot of other planets.
All of our picket ships and sensors were now equipped with Disappearing Guns. I'm not sure that this made much sense from a military standpoint, but our silicon ladies felt more comfortable, being armed.
We had expanded into civilian products as well, including household appliances that used the Tellefontu ambient temperature power generators, and vehicles that could use the Loway transportation network. The demand for these cars and trucks was very high, with good profits and a considerable waiting list. Kasia became richer than ever, but she didn't seem to care about that as much anymore. Maybe, she was finally growing up.
The social drone factory was going at full capacity, and within a few months every artificial intelligence on the planet would have a drone of her own. They would each be able to go out and pass for human if they wanted to.
Soon, we would be selling social drones at cost to the ladies in the rest of the army. They could afford it, since they were getting paid, now. Often, their human observers chipped in on the cost. There was much to be said for having your beautiful friend with you in the real world. Among other things, she could do the housework.
There was talk of a social drone that looked like a Tellefontu, for use by the AI who were in the crabs' fighting machines, but nothing had come of it yet. Their AIs were all entitled to a free humanoid social drone, but many of them had not taken advantage of this. Time would tell.
The Parliament of New Yugoslavia had passed laws making both AIs and the Tellefontu human in the eyes of the law. Both groups here now had full and equal rights with human beings. New Kashubia had already done the same thing, a little ahead of us.
It was expected that this equalization would eventually be expanded across all of Human Space, but again, time was needed.
My ranch was now finally at full production, with dozens of agricultural products not only feeding the people who lived in my valley, but being shipped across most of Human Space. The "Derdowski" brand name was being recognized everywhere as meaning that this was a first-quality product.
My industrial factories, all deep below ground, were now bringing in far more money than my land, but still, the ranch was my first love, and I was taking steps to protect it. Everything that could be moved down to three kilometers below the surface had been so moved. This included the grain elevators, the chicken, turkey, pig, and egg factories, and the feed lots. All of the processing plants were down there now, too, as were the lobster ponds.
Provisions had been made below to remove the dairy cows, the beef cattle, and all of the other animals living on the surface, once the Mitchegai got within a few months of us. We were stockpiling food to feed them.
We also had stockpiled grass seed and soil microorganisms, so we could restart the fields if the enemy destroyed them, and had grown scions from every tree in the valley under artificial light far below ground.
Many of the other farmers on New Yugoslavia were doing similar things. The new Disappearing Guns made floor space down there very cheap.
It was so cheap that a fair percentage of the population was moving down as well, living permanently in apartments that had been intended as emergency shelters. They were really very nice, and they cost much less than anything on the surface. I began to wonder if we would become a race of troglodytes!
My wife Kasia was making her plans as well. Most of her assets had been transferred to New Kashubia, since everything we were able to learn about the Mitchegai said that they only wanted planets like Earth, or New Yugoslavia. They wouldn't touch a metal ball like New Kashubia, circling its deadly Neutron Star!
She was planning to send the boys there as well, as soon as we made contact with the enemy, to live with her parents until the emergency was over.
This was fine with me. Once the danger was real, there was no point in keeping any noncombatants here, and I liked her family better than I liked mine, anyway.
But Kasia herself would spend the war fighting at my side in our CCC, she said, to make sure that I kept out of trouble.
I loved her.
* * *
Kasia and I had long ago resolved that one day a week we would have dinner alone, without the boys around. I mean, we loved them, but we loved each other, too, and sometimes five boys, aged three to thirteen, sort of got in the way.
Sometimes this meant go
ing out to a nice restaurant, but often we just sat and ate out on one of the balconies, looking out on our land.
The boys were happy to be able to order pizza once more, and the drones were delighted to join them.
Kasia had been silent through the champagne, the appetizer, and the salad. When our T-bone steaks and lobsters arrived, I knew that she was ready to talk.
"They'll be coming soon," Kasia said. "I can feel it."
"Yes, I've been having those premonitions, too."
"They'll destroy everything that we've done here, won't they."
"Not if I have anything to say about it!" I said firmly. "And I am the military commander of this planet! We have done everything that I or anybody else can think of to make sure that our defenses are as strong as they can possibly be. If they attack us, they will die, every last damned one of them!"
"But they are older than we are, more experienced, and perhaps wiser."
"They are a bunch of damned cannibals who eat their own children! I don't know what kind of military forces they can throw against us, but we definitely have the moral high ground! God willing, we will be victorious!" I almost shouted.
"God willing," Kasia said, quietly.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
FROM CAPTURED HISTORY TAPES,
FILE 1846583A ca. 1832 a.d.
Kren Prepares for War
It had been twelve years since Kren had received notice of his new prize. This was barely enough time to do all that needed to be done.
The Eleventh Colonizing Fleet could take only two dozen million Planetary Mitchegai to the new world, and Kren had more than six gross that number of subordinates. He had to be sure that he took only his very best along. He decided on taking a dozen million of his most proficient warriors, six million of his most competent scientists and technical people, and six million others, including his most astute administrators, businessmen, and the finest academics from all of his universities. He even planned to take along a few artists, poets, and writers.
Most of these selected people had been in space for years, training for their mission in new, first-quality bodies.
Kren had spent most of his vast personal fortune equipping his subordinates for this venture.
His engineers and builders needed the generalized machines necessary to build the specialized machines that made all of the myriad products that his new planet would need. They had to be prepared to be able to start with nothing but the rawest of materials, and to turn out the finest of end products.
Kren insisted that everything that they took with them must be of the very best quality.
The Mitchegai had millions of years of technology behind them, but if they did not have drawings of every possible thing that they might ever need with them, they would have to invent it afresh, something that they were not very good at. The technical plans alone for all that would be needed filled an entire large cargo ship. This was because their computers were so primitive, by human standards, that they had to take all of their plans printed on thin sheets of their immortal plastic.
They had to have enough food and supplies to last them at least two dozen years, when they should start to become self-sufficient in many matters. If anything was forgotten, they simply wouldn't have it. The success of the entire colonization program could depend on some trivial item, and when it did, they must have it with them.
His academics insisted on having a complete library of more than twelve million books, and Kren gave them permission to loot every library in every university on his lands, if need be, to get everything that they could possibly need.
Every person going was permitted to bring two tons of personal goods along, with the understanding that they would have to live with that for at least two dozen years before much of it could be replenished.
At his own considerable expense, Kren purchased an armored space suit for every one of the Planetary Mitchegai who was accompanying him. The Space Mitchegai told him that this was a silly way to waste money, and that they would never be needed, but they took his cash, delivered the products, and trained his subordinates in how to use them.
His best soldiers and officers, twelve million of them, were also equipped with every high-tech weapon that the Space Mitchegai could provide. They had been spending the last nine years in space, learning how to use them. This, too, was laughed at, but they took his money. His warriors got the weapons and training.
Kren also bought one million additional single seat fighters, and had a million of his warriors trained to use them, at a price that almost cleaned out his bank accounts. Indeed, he had to borrow money from his own banks, on zero interest, indefinite loans, before the production run was over. They called him crazy once more, but as always, he got his way.
His banks knew that they would never be repaid, and computed that it would be over a thousand years before they recovered. Yet none dared dispute the wishes of Kren.
Kren also had to purchase five additional cargo ships of the largest standard size to transport them all, and all at his own expense.
To Kren's mind, he had the money, and he was going to see to it that absolutely nothing got in the way of his smooth takeover of his personal planet.
"Madness," everyone else said.
Privately, Kren allowed that they might be right. It was probably wasted money. The cost of all of these precautionary expenditures was large but finite, and he could afford it. But the cost of failure was infinite! His life. And that, he could not afford!
What else could he spent his money on, anyway? Should he leave it in the bank on a planet four gross light-years away?
In addition to all of this, Kren was obligated to provide food for his own people, for the Space Mitchegai who would be accompanying him, and for the operators and fighters of the entire Eleventh Colonizing Fleet. They had to be fed for the duration of the trip, and for the next two dozen years thereafter, until the grass was growing and the juvenals were prospering. He also had to feed the fleet personnel, during their return trip.
Most of these children could be provided cryogenically frozen, to be thawed in microwave ovens before eating. This provided food that was barely acceptable to an adult Mitchegai. But fully a quarter of it was expected to be delivered live, for the culinary enjoyment of the upper ranks.
The ships were equipped with compartments that kept a child dormant at a few degrees above freezing, while surrounding her with monochromatic growing lights virtually identical to those Kren had developed to grow grass underground.
Since the Mitchegai skin could convert light to food almost as well as the grass could, these compartments could keep a juvenal dormant but alive for many years, ready to eat.
Kren had been very proud of those monochromatic lights that he had developed for his tunnels, and here, the Space Mitchegai had had the technology all along!
Kren just turned the problem of supplying enough children to feed the expedition over to Dol, and told her that the Superior Food Corporation would do it at its own expense.
Dol said, "Yes, sir."
Those he was leaving behind would have to be organized to survive without him. He did not want his lands to be overrun by other dukes, or his investments to go sour in his absence. There wasn't a really rational reason why he should care, but somehow he felt a certain attachment to what he had spent a long lifetime building.
General Yor had proved to be unfailingly competent and loyal for thousands of years. He had chosen her as his successor.
* * *
Kren awoke once more and stretched. He didn't feel totally miserable, and that would have to suffice. There wasn't much time left, and there was much yet to do.
He pulled off the recording helmet, relieved and refreshed himself. He dressed, removed the tape from the recorder, and put it in his pouch.
He went to the combination lock at the door, remembered the twelve number combination, and dialed it in. This was important, because ancient tradition required that if a duke forgot the combin
ation, he would be left in the chamber, to die there. There was no way to open the door from the outside without causing the entire complex to self-destruct, violently.
This system protected him while he was in his stupor, but also there was always the possibility that something could go wrong in the resurrection process, and no one wanted to be ruled by an incompetent duke. Better a civil war than to have only half of your old master on the throne.
Kren opened the door to find Dol and Bronki waiting for him.
"It's good to see you well," Dol said.
"Yes, we were beginning to worry about you, my friend," Bronki added.
"Every time, it seems to take longer and hurt more," Kren said.
"You could always give up on this stupid traditional way of doing things, take an anesthetic, and wake up feeling good, the way sensible people do," Dol said.
"A leader who did that wouldn't be a leader for long," Kren said. He handed the personal history tape to Bronki. "I am still a bit worried about telling the truth about all that has happened. I know that your background as a historian makes you want what really happened to come out eventually, but it is still a very dangerous thing to do."
"Kren, despite everything, besides being individuals, we are also members of a great civilization. Without our history, we are nothing," Bronki said.
"Just be sure that this stays secret until long after I'm dead."
"Until long after all three of us are dead, if it contains everything that I think it does! I've already made arrangements with the Bonding Authority to keep it until one thousand years after the last of us has been registered as certainly and sincerely deceased. Then they will send it to the College of History at Dren."
"I suppose that the Bonding Authority can be trusted, if anybody can," Kren said. "I don't suppose that either of you has changed your minds? You are both intent on staying here on this planet when I leave?"
"Yes, sir," Dol said. "We're both really city girls, you know. We wouldn't fit in well on the wild frontiers. And anyway, you have set things up such that this entire solar system will starve if the Superior Food Corporation isn't managed properly. What's the point of conquering a new planet while leaving the old one to destroy itself? And who can say? Maybe you will need something from here once you are out there. It might take eight gross years to get there, but that's better than nothing."
Kren of the Mitchegai Page 34